The first of our horrendously early days. We rose at 4:30 for a 5 AM cab to the airport for our flight to Bagan. The domestic terminal is chaotic: everyone goes through the same departure doors from the departure lounge, so it was impossible to tell which flight was ours. And this despite the fact that we were “tagged:” the airlines put a little sticker on your chest for every flight! Really rather charming.
We finally figured it out after Andrew had hopped up to ask about 9 times.
The flight was actually fine. We landed at Nyaung U to find our guide, April, her granddaughter Zin Zin, and our driver Nanda waiting for us with a shiny Toyota van.
April spoke near-perfetct English. She is a scholar who has been a visiting faculty member at Simon’s Rock and has guided Smithsonian groups through Bagan. She also teaches the other guides, so we got the best of all possible worlds.
Bagan had been a great city, the capital of the Pagan Kingdom, which united much of what is now central Myanmar under a series of kings; it may have had as many as 200,000 in habitants at its height. Between the ninth and thirteenth centuries, the court and the monasteries built more than 10,000 religious structures on the broad plain on the banks of the Ayeyarwady; the remains of more than 21oo of these remain today. The temples are contemporaneous, in other words, with medieval religious structures in Europe. The kingdom collapsed in 1287 under the weight of repeated Mongol invasions; the city rapidly became a village.
April started us off by having us climb one of the countless pagodas whose names are forgotten. Like many of the lesser sites, this has a family who are the keyholders. April told us that the little girl who let us in had kidney disease and that the family couldn’t afford medical care, so we gave her extra money. The view from the upper terraces (after climbing some steep and very narrow stairs through a passageway) was remarkable, with hundreds of sites spread before us.
After a quick stop at the Thandabar Gate Hotel to confirm our balloon flight, we drove to our hotel to drop our bags. The Bagan Thande is an enchanting place: very mature vegetation all over the grounds, with modest looking bungalows scattered around the property.
Ours was in the last row, with a sweeping view of the Ayreawaddy. The rooms had a kind of faded charm: the whole place hadn’t changed much since it was built in 1923 for a visit by the Prince of Wales. And we wouldn’t trade it for all the modern anonymity in the world.
We started our tour at Ananda Ok Kyaung, the sole remaining building of a monastery alongside the great Paya of Ananda. A squarish brick building, it holds remarkably vivid 17th century frescos, with mythological tales from Buddhist lore and renderings of Portuguese traders. The abbot’s cell, in the center, contained erotic drawings which the rather prudish April explained away as a moral lesson for the abbot (as Teddy would later say: “Ahhhhhhhhh”).
We then walked to Ananda Pahto, perhaps the most beautiful of all the temples. It is a huge white edifice capped with a copper tower.
Even the temple precinct is of unusual interest, with enormous pavements and guardian beasts all around.
Each ordinal direction, approached through a long portico with vendors and worshipers, holds a massive standing bronze Buddha from the eleventh century, guarded by two remarkably beautiful polychrome Boddhi Satvas.
The ambulatory is full of niches with Buddha figures in virtually every Mudra, including death and the achievement of Nivrvana. Much to the annoyance of my companions, I peppered April with questions about Buddhism and about the various mudras. I was later accused, with considerable injustice, of being obsessed with the figure of the Boddhi Satva.
Next up was Wat-ki-in Gubyaukgyi, down the road toward Nyaung U, another squarish temple with well-preserved frescos. It is notable because many of the frescos were taken by a German, who left his name. They now hang in Berlin.
We stopped for a surprisingly good espresso at Café Friends in Nyaung U, and then drove to Shwezigon, the prototype for all the massive golden pagodas in Myanmar. I’d been looking forward to this one, but it was a slight disappointment after Shewedagon. Same form, same massive golden inverted beggar’s bowl–just on a smaller scale.
Like Swedigon, it had elaborate stupas and buildings all around it.
One point of interest, though, was a shed with statues of the 37 Nats worshipped by animists, including Sacra, the chief Nat. I suggested Sacra and the 37 Nats would be a good name for a band. This, too, was our first contact with something we didn’t understand very well; the syncretistic combination of Buddhism and Nat worship is the distinctive feature of religion in Burma.
We stopped for quite a a pleasant meal at the Black Bamboo Restaurant in Nyaung U. Nice curries, and Andrew and I launched our habit of refreshing (anesthetizing?) ourselves with copious amounts of the very fine Myanmar Beer.
We then drove directly to New Bagan, where we visited a well-known lacquer workshop and showroom, Moe Moe. The labor that goes into each piece is staggering.
The stuff was lovely, and we bought too much, including Sue’s birthday gift from the kids, an intricately worked traditional design representing a medieval town. We finally saw the special items in a separate room. Lovely but expensive. AD pondered a wall panel for his house in Princeton, but the transport difficulties finally decided against it.
We ended the day’s tour by climbing a large pagoda to watch the sun go down over the temples. It was near Shwesandaw, where busloads of tourists go. There must have been 300 people on the terraces of the big pagoda facing us, which must certainly have made it a very dangerous climb. We shared ours with fewer than a dozen others.
Watching the sun descend with its golden light on all these monuments is a remarkable experience.
Sue bought a sand painting of an elephant for A Zing, and we headed for the hotel, saying goodbye to April.
Dinner was very pleasant on the broad terrace above the river. We had a drink and then watched a puppet show while we ate. We didn’t expect much, but the puppeteer was very, very good, and we really enjoyed the show. Andrew ordered badly, but Sue and I had a nice meal, and she continued her habit of drinking Red Mountain sauvignon blanc. Early to bed, because we had a 5:15 AM pickup for the balloons.