Yangon, The Governors Ball, the small man
and face to face with the Shadow Walker
Photos by Mela and
Staff and Article
by Tory
and Mela
Don't forget to move
your mouse over pictures
for a description
We flew into Yangon (population nearly 5,000,000),
formerly Rangoon, and the former capital
of Myanmar (previously known as Burma, prior
to 1989) and immediately checked into the
Governors Residence hotel. Yangon was, well pretty bleak. The overcast
skies combined with
the crowded streets and
our worry over the
missing Dark Embrace gave
us a uneasy feeling
that was hard to shake. When we entered the Hotel, the feeling of
bleakness immediately vanished as we were
greeted by smiling duo of beautiful local
girls. The Governors Residence is an imposing teak
mansion dating from
the 1920s within
the
elegant Embassy Quarter
and close to the
spectacular Shwedagon
Pagoda. Surrounded by lotus ponds, leafy gardens
and a fan-shaped swimming pool, its verandas
are a blissful retreat in which to take tea
in this previous residence of the Kaya State
Governor. With only two hours before our group was
to make its appearance at the Governors Ball,
Mela and I quickly unpacked, checked our
outfits for listening devices and met up
with Del, Stacia, Brett and Angie. While the rest of the girls chose Matti Gowns,
I decided on a Rasta
Gown with solid gold
embroidery. Brett
wore a silk suit
with a
lavender silk Henley.
The lavender matched
Angies new hair color
and the two were
simply
yummy looking together. Although we all enjoyed mingling with the
elite and ultra-wealthy
of Yangon, the music
was really hard to
dance to. Moove residents
don't waltz and this
was waltzing music...kinda.
LOL We hung out, chatted and nibbled on the most
wonderful prawns, black russian caviar and
kobi beef and then went out on the deck away
from the crowd. Stacia noticed speakers connected
to a CD player - which she promptly turned
on. A wailing band (a punk band from Burma)
rocked the outside deck and the six of us
danced away the star-filled night. Whooped from dancing and mingling, Mela and
I headed up to our room and ordered room
service. We were not hungry, but for some
odd reason (hmmm) we had the munchies something
fierce. I ordered the Citrus’ brulee tart
served with vanilla bean ice cream &
finished with a passion fruit coulis while
Mela chose the Flamed banana with a star
anis flavoured caramel sauce on a pancake
soufflé finished with warm chocolate sauce.
Continued Below
"This is the life", I said to Mela
between bites of
tart. "You ain't kidding",
she answered as chocolate
sauce dripped off
her chin. Finding
Burma TV a bit lacking,
we headed off to
bed for our trip up river
the next evening. The next morning we were to go with Craftie
Lady, Munich Doll, Catmoritz and others from
our group to tour Shwedagon Pagoda, but the
phone rang right as we were getting ready
to leave. I answered it and a voice on the
other end said, "I can help you find Embrace, be out front
of the Hotel in 5 minutes". As we exited the hotel, a small boy
ran up to us, grabbed Melas hand and tugged
it, while saying..Embase..Embase. We followed the boy through the back alleys
of Yangon littered with trash and small children
running barefoot. Although it was poverty
at its worse, I did not have a sense of fear,
but of sad amazement on how some people live
in this world. We arrived at a tall run down building and
were taken to the 10th floor where Mela and
I looked out on the bustling crowded city below. The journey through the back alleys
had so overwhelmed our senses that we had
forgotten why we were called there in the
first place. Mela and I were deeply saddened by what we
had seen as we scurried through the streets
of want and hunger in our designer fashions.
"I feel sick", I told Mela".
"Me too Tory, me too", she answered. We were silent as we watched the city below
us and we were startled when a small man
came in and spoke to us in broken English.
"You look for girl...Embace?...I help
you...you get auto, me help you find Embace". He informed us in his broken English that
we would need a car to reach Tha Song Yang,
a couple of hours north of Mae Sot on the
Thailand / Burma border. He promised us he
would help us when we got there. Mela called
the Moove Embassy in Yangon and requested
a car which showed up within 30 minutes.
Continued Below
The small man told the driver, "Safe Haven Orphanage". On the way, the man spoke in Burmese
while our driver translated:
"Your friend Embrace was abducted as she wandered
off into the jungle
at a stop of the train
to Singapore, the men who took her grabbed
the wrong girl. They
were suppose to take
YOU!", he pointed his crooked finger at Mela and
continued. "You are a person with a high value on your
head. You have angered
a powerful and dangerous
syndicate with hands
that reach around the
world". He was just about to tell us who the syndicate
was when we arrived at the Orphanage and
were met by a throng of giggling children
and a tall handsome Westerner, Monte Christen
of Los Angeles, California, who is the founder
and chairman of the organization now known
as Safe Haven Orphanage. The small man told
us to go with Monte and he would tell us
the rest after our visit. GRRRRRRRRR!. As we walked the small distance from the
car to the Orphanage, Monte informed us that
after having worked in the medical field
for over a year along the Burmese border
of Thailand, he gained quite an affinity
for the wonderful people and beautiful landscape
of the country. He has since traveled the
country extensively and became compelled
to help the country's prevalent orphanage
needs. After a basic meal of rice and fish broth,
Monte Christen took
us to meet the children
of Safe Haven. I had never been to an Orphange before and
I could barely hold
back my tears as child
after child approached
us, smiled and gave
us a hug. The children
range in age from
as little as nine
months, up to 20 years
old. 35 of them reside
in Ban Tha Song Yang,
where the local school
is so overcrowded
and under-funded
that it finishes at grade
ten. To finish high
school and begin college,
the children must
come down to Mae Sot where
they live with Tasanee. Although I have never had a desire to have
any babies, I fell
in love with a nine
month
old baby by the name
of Ruby. Ruby was born at Mae Sot hospital. Her parents
abandoned her at
the hospital. No one would
take her except Tasanee.
Now with much love
and care she has
grown into a healthy baby. Mela immediately connected with two of the
children there, Chun chai (age 10) and his
sister, Ganika (age 8). The sibling's mother
has high blood pressure, and their father
works but cannot afford to send his children
to school. They both arrived at the orphanage
when Chun chai was 6 years old and Ganika
was 4 and Tasanee has been supporting their
education ever since. Mela and I spent the afternoon with the children,
forgetting all about fashion, design, and
deadlines - as well as our small man and
the driver who we left in the car. Bidding
farewell to the smiling children and a promise
to Monte that we would find a way to help
them, we walked back to the car. Both the
driver and the small man were sound asleep.
How cute, I thought. Mela turned the drivers head to wake him
and there on the
side of his neck was a tiny
dart. Mela checked
the mans pulse and told
me to check the small
man. Both were alive
but unconscience.
Mela pushed the driver
to the passenger
side and got behind the
wheel. "Any idea how to get home?", I
asked. "That is the least of our worries Tory",
she answered and floored the pedal generating
a cloud of dust - much to the childrens delight. Mela got us back to the small mans office
building and two of his aides helped us get
the two, still unconscience men, to the 10th
floor. As Mela and I waited for the local
Doctor to check over the men, such a wave
of helplessness came over me, I could hardly
stand it. Embrace, the Shadow Walker, little Ruby,
the poverty - I could
not longer hold it
in and began to cry.
Mela followed and we
wept. The Doctor told us that the two men would
be "out" until at least morning,
but both would be fine. The two of us walked
back to the Hotel in silence. We changed for dinner, both of us wearing
black and sat down to the crisp white linen
tablecloth for a dinner of New Zealand lamb
noisettes served with potato gnocchi in a
Morilles mushroom cream sauce caramelised
zucchini. I ordered classic crepe suzettes
finished with a grand marnier & orange
sauce (served with a vanilla bean ice cream)
for dessert, but I could not eat it. it just
seemed wrong at that moment. Mela then took my hand and told me to follow
her. We left the Hotel again and Mela took
me to a small outdoor Shrine she had seen
earlier in the day. She did not need to explain
why, and we both knelt and prayed for the
small children we saw, and for so many we
met in Yangon who live from moment to moment.
As I was ended my prayer, Mela grabbed my
shoulder and said, TORY, LOOK! Up on the
wall near the shrine, I could barely make
out the figure of the SHADOW WALKER!. We
jumped to our feet and decided to chase the
stalker instead of running away. We took
off after it.
Continued Below
Although we were running as fast as we could,
the Shadow walker
always seemed to be just
ahead of us. Teasing
us? Making sure we would
follow? We did not
know. We chased the Shadow Walker through the streets and into a Temple
near by. It was then the Shadow Walker turned
and smiled an evil smile showing white glistening
fangs. Not Vampire fangs like Mela, but something
from even further beyond. "You have until tomorrow to give us
what we want", Shadow Walker hissed,
the whole while fading in and out of a misty
haze. "Meet the one-eyed Monk at Angkor
- it is here you must give us what we want,
or the Dark one dies". Mela leaped at the Shadow Walker and in an
instant it vanished along with the mist.
Mela and I just stood there wide eyed and
dumbfounded. We left the temple seriously
shaken and arrived back at the Hotel around
midnight. "Mela, what is it they want", I
asked. Mela did not
answer. "Do
you
know? Please tell
me". I pleaded
again.
"Is it me"?
"Money"?....."please
tell me if you know.
Mela took my hand
and
sat me on the bed. "They want the company, Tory" she
said softly. "They
want it all".
Continued Below
"Who are they"? I asked. Mela would
not tell me. "It
is best if you do
not
know too much",
she warned....."and
they will kill Dark
Embrace if we do
not
do as they say".
My head was swimming
and I was so very
confused. "We
can't
give them the company,
Mela", I said.
"It is all we
have". Would you rather they kill Embrace",
she asked. "Of course not ", I
answered, "but there must be another
way. After talking about options and ridiculous
rescue operations, we both agreed to try
to get a good nights sleep and tomorrow,
on the boat, we would meet with Ninja Angie
and Del to weigh our options. I tossed and turned before I finally went
to sleep and dreamed of a desert wasteland,
high and cold with brightly colored flags
waving on a clothesline. Men were chanting
and a dark cloud blew in from the North.
The cloud began to grow causing women to
wail and children to cry. Fear was seen in
the wrinkled dark faces of the men. I woke the next morning exausted with a sandy
dirt on my feet and
a sunburn on my face.
I awoke scared out
of my skin.
We flew into Yangon (population nearly 5,000,000),
formerly Rangoon, and the former capital
of Myanmar (previously known as Burma, prior
to 1989) and immediately checked into the
Governors Residence hotel. 
below. The journey through the back alleys
had so overwhelmed our senses that we had
forgotten why we were called there in the
first place.
Singapore, the men who took her grabbed
the wrong girl. They
were suppose to take
YOU!", he pointed his crooked finger at Mela and
continued.
"That is the least of our worries Tory",
she answered and floored the pedal generating
a cloud of dust - much to the childrens delight.
Walker through the streets and into a Temple
near by. It was then the Shadow Walker turned
and smiled an evil smile showing white glistening
fangs. Not Vampire fangs like Mela, but something
from even further beyond.
