Burma is more than just Fishermen on Inle Lake and Pagodas. In fact these are now for the most part just a tourist attraction.
Yes they still culture and farm their land in the old skool way with Buffalos and Cows and western fashion still hasn't caught on (thank god! not a single 'same same but different vest top in sight'), but behind this 'developing country stuck in the old age' view of things there is actually an emerging 'hipster' scene. Like every country before it, its teenagers and young people leading the way into the future.
Men/Boys in tight jeans and thick framed spectacles going to a fairground to drink Rum, play Basketball and ride Ferris Wheels. If the Ferris Wheels weren't of the manual variety this could easily be Hull, well on second thoughts....
I saw Rollerskate parks that wouldn't be out of place in Shoreditch, and many Art Galleries all over the country and I even bought a small painting (postcard size, $1, im not made of money) from a young Emo artist in a small village called Indeen, who wore black nail polish and enormous holes in his ears.
Just a couple of hours off of the gringo trail and this is what you can discover, real normality. At the festival, we were a big group of foreigners and people didnt even look at us, we paid the same price for the noodles and beer as everybody else, had to push and shove our way to the front of the crowd to see the balloon close up, and run for our lives as the balloons let out fireworks just like everybody else.
No one asking ask for foreigners fees or trying to sell us anything, it wasn't just the mountain air up there that was refreshing.
