The Canadian trip to Vancouver was about 2 nights and 3 days of activity. I have to say the flight (Cathy Pacific) was pretty awesome. I really love their entertainment system on the plane. Its pretty slick. Unfortunately I didn’t have a good initial impression. When the plane took off and slowly tried to gain altitude, some weird yellow liquid started to leak on the luggage compartment above our head. Of course it only has to drip in two different places. One was a few seats behind us on some white people, and the other was right on the head of the grandma I was transporting to Canada. I used the spare socks they gave us to wipe the liquid before it gathers and form into a sizable drop. Luckily the dripping stopped after the plane reach its height.

An interesting part of the trip was the fact that the grandmother I was transported was under the “wheel chair” help system. This basically means someone comes and escort us ahead of everyone. No more long ass waiting in line. I realized how awesome this was especially when I arrived in Canada and was promptly taken ahead of all the people that came with us and taken to our own little immigration area.

When we went outside, there was like 8 people waiting for this grandmother. I introduced myself to everyone and they all tell me their appreciation for what I did. They then really showed me their appreciation by the way they treated me.

First of all I stayed with the eldest sister who is married to a half Karen man. I remember the point the grandma tried to make about that after she found out I was almost a full blooded Karen. The reason is the fact that most everyone is married to other Chinese in her family and she probably didn’t want me to feel left out or maybe she just wanted to make conversation. I had a really good discussion about Burma with the eldest son who was well informed and was really into politics. Learned some interesting point of views and different angles relating to the whole Burma situation. Anyway I stayed at a nice room and the eldest daughter’s husband took me out and about Vancouver showing me the sights. Also took me to two different restaurants everyday and introduced me to family friends. I got alot of videos of Vancouver thanks to him.

Of course I needed internet access but I found out they didn’t have one. So being resourceful I scanned the neighborhood and found a few connection with WEP encryption. I made short work of one and promptly borrowed the connection for my Canadian trip. I felt bad about it but I really needed to use the net. I hope they don’t mind

Anyway they gave me tip money for the escorting service which came in handy for my Thailand and Burma trip. I’m glad I did this favor because I gained alot from the experience. I never would have expected how well it would turn out (there’s more in Burma).

I also found out that I have absolutely no reservation about doing this favor once I set my mind on it. I mean how many people would be willing to do something like this? I totally felt comfortable and melted right into the role. I mean just a few days ago they were complete strangers.

I was suppose to go to church and see the rest of the people I missed but I decided to sleep in. I slept in all day to basically recover. I haven’t gotten this smashed in a long time. That night I went to talk to the 3 person I’m helping to go to Canada. Well as we’re filling the paperwork, we all just started talking about random things. It was probably one of the most enlightening moment about Burma for me. In 2000 I did go to Thailand and Burma but during that period I wasn’t who I am today. I didn’t care too much about things back then and my curiosity about that region was not as intense as right now.

I was told that Rangoon was hit hard and it wasn’t as minor as they have mentioned in the media. It also took a few days for help to arrive. Residents had to help themselves for a while. Water shortage was resolved by individuals pumping water out from the ground and sharing the water wealth.

Right off the bat when I mentioned my Burmese name, one of the woman checked the name in some sort of paper that has to do with quality. I was told that since my name moved up in this name chart; it was a good name that will bring luck so I was told. I damn well hope so.

This part of my trip is interesting as it relates to me cutting short my initial plan of visiting BKK for two weeks to 10 days. I gained four days of free vacation to Canada; two of which was the flight time. The way it happened was that I went to the travel agent friend of my mother in BKK to pay for the flight bills. When I was there, the travel agent (Mrs. White) told me if I wanted a side job to help these three older ladies; one a grandma with a permanent residence card to Canada, one the daughter of the grandma and a friend of the grandma. The low down to the story is basically the fact that the older grandma wants her daughter to accompany her to Canada but since they can’t speak in english or thai, it would be impossible for them to apply for a visa in the Canadian embassy in BKK. I agreed since I felt obligated to help and felt that it would only be a day of help to fill the form and apply for them.

Unfortunately the whole process took a long time requiring a few trips to the embassy and me chuffering them around for a bit. Interestingly though I hit it off with the three older ladies which seems rather unlikely in the beginning. But I have developed alot of interest for the situation in Burma and so since I’m not shy like I used to be a few years ago I went ahead and started talking to them about Burma. From them talking to me, I started my initial gathering of information. This is the first time I’ve talked to people with first hand experience with the Nagis disaster. They were living in Rangoon when the storm hit and although the city was only hit with wind it left widespread damage to sections of the city.