Mekong Diaries: Day 55 & 56

Day 55 & 56

We take the advice of our hostler and decide to avoid the added cost of a private Camry for the next leg of our journey, this time down the river to Kratie. Instead we book seats on a minibus, quicker and cheaper, or so we think. 12 hours later, having been shunted between several different mini-buses, and somewhere along the way lost completely our senses of humour, we arrive in port town of Kratie, just in time for the sunset over the wide Mekong.

Burma: “They’re faking it everywhere”

They’re faking it everywhere. They fake it by video taping, and then leaving that area. They’re just looking for an opportunity to video tape when authorities come. People are suffering from the storm. They are building elaborate stages, with velvet backdrops, and writing things like who is donating what for the storm victims. They want to make it elaborate. They don’t actually look after the people who are suffering. The generals are on these stages, looking grand, with guns around their waists. — Resident of Pyapon, Irrawaddy delta

From a recent interview by RFA’s Burmese service:

Interviewee: Pyapon hasn’t got any aid yet. Social organizations, such as Rice Merchants Association, keep going from Rangoon, taking aid materials and food for their regions.

Burma: Interviews with cyclone survivors

In the town of Daydayeh, south of Gadon-mani, in places like Gadon-lay and Khatta Island, Nauk-mee, Gawdu, Ashay-bya, and Kaing-thaung, Aye-ya, Gadon, there are corpses floating. Some floated into the sea. It seems like there’s no rescue operation over there. People are helpless now.

This woman interviewee is from one of the villages (she lists them during the interview) worst-hit by Tropical Cyclone Nargis at the weekend. She happened to be in Rangoon just before the cyclone struck, but knew about the situation back home because she was able to talk with some people from her village who escaped to a monastery in Rangoon. All three interviewees used the same cellphone to talk to RFA’s Burmese service: