Nomad Codes

foreign visitors provide a flow of desperately needed dollars to ordinary Burmese and also make violent mass repression less likely—at least in the parts of the country that tourists and their cameras are allowed to visit. With Alan’s encouragement, J and I decided to take the plunge, though the news that forced labor helped refurbish some key tourist destinations, like the Mandalay Fort, hardly quelled my anxiety.
    Burma’s air of the forbidden only thickened when the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok mysteriously rejected my application for a visa, which I had submitted via the travel agents on the horrible Khao San Road, a Lonely Planet limbo where all self-styled “travelers” eventually wind up whether they want to or not. The visa police, it seemed, had zeroed in on one particular letter of the English language scrawled on an old Indian visa glued into my passport: “J.” As in journalist. So we dutifully hoofed it to the embassy, where, after bathing in the wan fluorescent lights for hours and suffering an occasional insulting outburst from a sniveling French asshole who insisted that Americans had no business traveling anywhere at all, we were informed by a flabby-faced gent with a dull green uniform and poor English that journalists were simply not allowed into Burma. Persisting, we talked with Miss Miu, a young educated woman with sexy librarian glasses who suggested I type up and submit a formal promise that I would dig no dirt during my stay. The fax, written with pointless irony, did the trick, and a week later, I got my visa. The lure of the tourist dollar, it seems, can still tickle the fancy of a paranoid military junta.
    Buffaloes, Toe called them, as we drove into Yangon. Toe had hopped unbidden into the passenger seat of our cab as we were hustled into the vehicle following an elaborate hand-off between numerous airport touts and starched-shirted operators whose choreography I can by no means reconstruct. A sharp-eyed and wiry guy, Toe spoke openly about the country’s woes and the corrupt lugheads in power. “They do not watch CNN, they do not know media, they are just buffaloes fighting in a field, eating, sleeping, getting rich.”
    As you might have guessed, Toe also turned out to run a tour agency, Ko Tar Travels & Tours, and he offered to hook us up with a car and driver during our stay. Most western tourists in Burma avail themselves of a car and driver, and occasionally an additional guide. The practice is inexpensive, convenient in a land starved for infrastructure, and turns over fewer dollars to the government, which owns and operates the rails, which Toe called “the buffalo train.” With their beat-up cars and convoluted English, Burma’s freelance cabby guides have now paved an ad-hoc tourist circuit through the country, one that is regularly plied by the French, Germans, and southern Europeans who made up the vast majority of the country’s western tourists. As first-time visitors, J and I were happy to follow most of Toe’s recommendations—Inle Lake, Kalaw, the Pindaya Caves, and the world-class Pagan. All we insisted on was a side trip to Taungbyon during the climax of the festival, which finds its close at the fullness of the moon.

    Jasmine flowers dangled from the rear-view mirror of our dented white sedan, which was driven by a gruff-looking middle-aged guy with fat aviator shades. He had previously served as a captain with Burma’s merchant marines, sailing across the globe and seeing far more of the world than most Burmese, and this was his first trip working the tourist circuit. He spoke little English, smoked at every stop, and laughed with sardonic good humor. I scribbled down his name, but we just called him “the Driver,” after the nameless James Taylor character in Monte Hellman’s classic road movie Two-Lane Blacktop .
    In the passenger seat, taking up the Dennis Wilson role, was Thi Ha, who called himself Lion. A youthful fortysomething who had been plying the tourist circuit since he was a teenager, Lion had an infectious grin, a pronounced limp, and a temperament that veered between boisterous good humor and a sullen brood, the latter of which was not infrequently triggered by the Driver’s philosophy of manual transmission. Because he usually acted as a driver rather than an official licensed guide, Lion was not overflowing with facts and figures, which was occasionally frustrating but largely a relief. Like many folks his age, Lion had spent some