In the paper today

About 380 days ago, Josh and I were riding the Jesus Bus from Inle Lake to Yangon, Myanmar/Burma. This bus was shockingly clean and new (maybe even from the same decade we were in), although the seats reclined roughly two inches at best. The amazing parts of the Jesus Bus, though, were: 1. the excessive Jesus decorations up front (The only Jesuses we would see in the country- most Burmese bus drivers relied upon their Buddhist faith and accompanying decorations for roadside protection) and 2. the solid mass of banana-leaf-like vegetation crammed floor to ceiling into the space of the last four removed seat rows (nice smell, those leaves). But the bus isn't the point of this post. I apologize in advance because there might not be a point, but I do want to mention something we saw on the 20-hour bus trip that was in the NYTimes today

Read the rest and find the penguins in Burma...
It might have been caused by another of the listofnames+money=approval checkpoints or a change in the riding sensation of the bus, but sometime around 1am or hour 13ish of the trip, Josh and I woke to the strangest thing. Instead of the endless expanse of typhoon-induced flooding from our first overnight trip or the typical rice paddies, impoverished villages, and semi-paved roads from every other one, we saw (and felt!!) the luxury of smooth asphalt. We were on a true divided highway, almost entirely alone, and perhaps on a set of the Twilight Zone. Suddenly our bus passed another paved, divided street at right angles to our own that disappeared straight off into the distance and was lined with evenly spaced, street lamps nicely illuminating the pavement for... no one. Street lamps! With light! At 1am! We had recently been in Mandalay, where electricity had an on again, off again relationship with humanity, and this seemed like an unnecessary luxury. We were in the middle of nowhere passing a deserted street that was wide, paved, curbed, and lit up. And we drove on by, back to semi-paved roads and Yangon.

If our guidebook hadn't been a year old, we might have known what we were seeing and snapped a few blurry photos. Instead, we still thought that Yangon was the capitol of Burma and this was some night-time, banana-leaf-smell inducing mirage. We now know that we were seeing the road to the capitol, Naypyidaw. Built in secret by the ruling junta, this massive capitol made the New York Times this morning. I have no idea why now, other than maybe the country and government has generated more American interest since the protests last year and the heart-breaking typhoon last month. Among other things, it says that Naypyidaw has a zoo, complete with air conditioned penguin exhibit, which is fascinating (in a sickly sort of way).

At the bottom of the page (at least when I looked at it) was also a link to an interesting editorial about humanitarian aid that did make me think about my own opinions of international intervention, aid, and conflict. It made me recall a huge hand-painted sign (even movie billboards were hand painted) warning foreign governments to leave well enough alone that just happened to be placed directly across from the American embassy in Yangon.

That's it.
See? I told you I had no point. And they give people like me a blog.