As can be seen by the piechart above, I am 50% social anxiety, 35% whimsy/ freaky and 15% undefinable substance/ personality traits I have yet to name. Which should explain why the thought of FOC strikes me with dread. Then again, it sounds like a lot of fun.

I mean look at Myanmar. I went in with practically the same kinda doubts/ dread but it turned out to be one of the best experiences of my life ever.

Riding at the back of a legit lorry/ truck up a mountain road, seeing horses in the country-side as we drove by, meeting spatially aware, bored animals who give you your space, hanging with one of the funniest group of people I've ever been with, playing American Snap, drinking dubiously coloured alcohol and eating peanuts whilst watching Modern Family like an ah pei, eating fresh mangoes, mohinga noodles, teaching kids who look at you with implicit trust in their eyes, playing with them, the thrill of fresh icy water, walking on dusty roads in slippers, sitting on a rusty swing, and always, the hot clear blue skies.

On to visiting the war memorial and realising how stupid war is, the way young boys have died for an idea, leaving behind "a loving wife and baby", fighting in a land not their own under the heat of a late afternoon sun in a malaria-infested jungle. And for what? Dying just before the war is declared over, unmarked graves, endless lists of names of people we'll never meet and never know and who died too early, too soon. It's funny, you never really think of war affecting the young men, always it's men with more experience. It seems like it should be the 35 year old commanders rather than the 22 year old lieutenants who die. Too young boys, too young to die. "The old lie: Dulce et decorum est/ pro patria mori". I finally understood Wilfred Owen.

F was scolding me for not going to the Kranji War Memorial hahaha cause it's so funny for me to have been to Myanmar's Taukkyan War Cemetery but not to kranji. But it's a beautiful, dramatic space. We saw a lot of paktor-ing couples, and people posing for cool pictures. I couldn't bring myself to take a picture of the actual memorial plaques themselves though, so i took a lot of sky shots.

It was a really well-kept place. Next to each flowering shrub is a plaque that gives the soldier's name and regiment and some had special inscribed messages like an obituary of sorts. It was such a beautiful place, but it made me really sad. I read the first few rows of plaques and was so overwhelmed by the thought of how sad these soldiers and their families might have been that I had to stop. Death ): Why is there so much beauty even in death?

I wouldn't say this was the highlight of the trip because there were many other cool places we went. But this was one of the most thought-provoking and challenging for me.

Myanmar reminds me a lot of Singapore. You can see it in the people, their spirits kinda echo the spirit we can see in our grandparents, the people who fought hard for their lives and worked hard at it. The strength in them is really quite something. And you can see the development taking place in Myanmar. All the construction. In a few years time it's gonna be changed and I probably won't recognise anything, but there's this pervasive sense of hope and modernity. The country has a really bright future if the people in charge can set things right.

In all my time there, I felt so safe. Safer even than going to Malaysia. I wasn't worried someone was going to rob me or pick my pockets. And I didn't feel like I was gonna be belittled just because I'm female, and this happens in Singapore. I liked that women could walk the roads alone and that was perfectly normal. There is a peacefulness to the country that I didn't expect. Sure the laws are iffy, and I saw a kid carrying a fake AK-47 toy around, and the van driver paid bribes for us, and our guide J also payed bribes for us, but people pretty much get on with their lives. It's difficult to earn a living there, but the people I've seen work really hard, and the girls at the boarding-house are so courageous. 

Myanmar is a beautiful country.