A bomb went off this afternoon in the capital of Burma, the place we just left this morning with our raw footage! In the past five days only the web-editors were active on our blog and website so we would not be suspicious in Burma, where we were shooting the last part of our first season.

This has been the riskiest location so far, not only because we could not have entered the country as journalists, not only because if caught who knows what kind of interrogation we would have had to endure, losing all our footage and be thrown out of the country but mostly because everyone who has spoken to us in these five days would have been in mortal danger, facing - at the least -  many years of jail if found out. For this reason, we never recorded the faces of the people who spoke to us, none but one. One of the most important opposition leaders, U Win Tin spent 20 years in jail as a political prisoner after founding the NLD (National League for Democracy, the party of Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest to this day). He got out a year and half ago and has not met with any international tv crews since, partly because no international journalists are allowed in the country (we came as backpacking tourists) and mostly because he is under constant surveillance by the Burmese secret service - even at the hotel where we held our interview! More about this later...

All our interview had to be made in near-impossible circumstances. One of them in the middle of a lake, in swan shaped water bikes, us in one, our subject in the other one. The girl we spoke to is a journalist, she can only work undercover. She takes footage with a small camera and an organization fighting for democracy smuggles it our of the country. If caught, she faces at least 17 years in jail. That is why we needed "Operation Swan Lake": we water-biked for two hours in fifty degrees heat in the middle of a lake while the girl told us her stories... Stories about the terrible things that happened to her friends in the jails of Burma and about the circumstances in which people live and work in this country. These hardships are hardly visible to the outside world though... The military junta, consisting of roughly 15 generals makes sure the image projected to the outside is near-perfect. Tourists are only allowed into certain parts of the country, the monuments are renovated, roads were built with forced labor and we can stay in wonderful hotels and could have cocktails with the countries elite, if only we could stomach it...

Already in Thailand, we are watching BBC and find out that there was a bomb explosion in Yangoon, at the lake where we made out interview and at least nine people are dead. We walked in that area every day, met several people and in the last days there was a huge crowd celebrating the new year, a big water festival where people are throwing water at each-other in the one joyful event in Burma.... The rest of the days people are closed up, shy, they don't speak of politics and try not to be suspicious in the eyes of the junta, just smile quietly at everyone. We hear it from many a tourist - Burma is a land of smiles and this makes us think of our past, too : The happiest barrack... But this time of the year, everyone is out in the streets, having (legal) fun! If really only nine people have died, that must be fortunate considering the crowds of people dancing, celebrating and we don't even want to think of what could have happened had we stayed another day. Who is responsible for the blast is not yet known.

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A hozzászólások a vonatkozó jogszabályok  értelmében felhasználói tartalomnak minősülnek, értük a szolgáltatás technikai  üzemeltetője semmilyen felelősséget nem vállal, azokat nem ellenőrzi. Kifogás esetén forduljon a blog szerkesztőjéhez. Részletek a  Felhasználási feltételekben és az adatvédelmi tájékoztatóban.