Sue’s real birthday, and what a gift: a trip to Burma!
Sue had done all the trip planning, while Andrew D. and I provided anxious commentary. I had read as much as I could, but felt miserably underprepared for our first visit to an Asian country.
I did final packing in the morning, double checking everything. Except for the tons of books for the two Cetana learning centers in two rollies, we were traveling very light. In the Aeronaut I had three pants, a half dozen each of underwear, socks, and shirts, my Ibex Half Nelson, Ghost Whisperer, and Alpine Houdini, and that’s about it. The Pilot was actually heavier, with iPad, keyboard, battery backup, travel gear, Headfiman DAP and ‘phones, Travel Diary, and a jammed pouch of cords and chargers.
After a nice walk, the pups landed at Hopewell for the last time: they no longer do boarding for reasons that remain unclear. The girls absolutely love the dogs, and they seem happy when they go back.
We took off at a very, very conservative 3 PM, dropped Gracie’s laundry, and found very light traffic right to JFK, arriving at around 5:30 and parking with ease. By the time we had checked in, Dan the Man was there for the keys, and off we went.
Although the plane was rather full, we hit the jackpot: we both had three seats, and could lie down to sleep. Dinner on Singapore was a cut above–though not great–but the service was extraordinary and very pleasant. There are clearly height, waist, and appearance criteria for the stewardesses.
We were both able to sleep a bit on the first leg to Frankfurt.
We were then on the ground, in a kind of holding area, in the Frankfurt airport for a couple of hours. Then back on the plane for the twelve hour trip to Singapore. Where did the day go? Movies, reading, napping, boredom!
Arrived Singapore a bit late and had to hustle through a very large–but very modern–airport with a very nice and very adventurous American woman (she’d worked at NGO’s in Afghanistan and Africa, among other places). Arrived at gate with minutes to spare.
On the plane we were served yet another breakfast, which we ate out of boredom. Smooth flight back up the Malay peninsula and on into Burma.
The airport in Yangon is large and modern, if pretty basic by international standards. We were met by a young bellman from the Winner Inn (like many of the young boys here, he was punked up, with spiky hair) and, after changing some money, we were taken by the driver to the hotel.
Yangon is more or less insane: ramshackle structures seem to be strewn higgledy-piggledy over the landscape, with impromptu “offices” right on the street for tea shops, vendors, street food, etc. This is occasionally broken by a poorly built modern building. The traffic is the worst I’ve ever seen. The roads are choked with at least 50% more cars than they are meant to handle, and traffic is often at a standstill. Every other car seems to be a taxi, a jitney, or a broken down public bus. The only relief is the absence of motorbikes, which are outlawed here.
The hotel is surprisingly pleasant. I thought “basic” would mean post-Soviet concrete, but this has a bit of character, with teak furniture and woven mats on the floor. Our room is big enough and comfortable.
We slept for a couple of hours…and I was unbelievably groggy when Sue woke me. We tried walking from the hotel to the downtown area…but were stymied at every turn. Even if we had been able to navigate the stretches with no sidewalks or sidewalks from a war zone, we still had to dodge cars and cross streets. And in the end, we had no idea where we were. There are essentially no maps, and, where there are street signs, they’re in Burmese. But we soon found a cab and were on the way to the Bogyoke Aung San market at the edge of downtown. It was only when we approached downtown that we began to get a sense for this as the old colonial capital of Rangoon. The maze of twisting streets give way to an ordered grid, the ramshackle structures replaced by large, if decaying, buildings.
The market–originally called Scott’s Market but renamed after the father of Burmese independence (and Aung San Su Kyi’s father)– is a huge, dim grid of tiny vendors.
Most sell jewels, but there are textiles, carved ware (Buddhas, etc.), food vendors, etc.
We wandered through, without seeing anything we would actually want to purchase on our return. Once outside, we encountered the omnipresent street life, with packed streets and people eating and drinking tea everywhere.
We realized we had only a dim sense of where we were, which, together with the generally assaultive character of Yangon (noise, chaotic movement, heat and humidity), left us disoriented and, frankly, alienated. We did what all good colonials do: we looked for an international hotel and found the Shangri-La, where we bought some cold water and got a bit oriented. We were supposed to meet Andrew Dechet at his hotel, the Governor’s Residence, at 5, and we started walking, passing along Sule Pagoda Road and then into the grid. The narrow sidewalks and teeming throngs of people made the going slow and even here there were few signs, so we weren’t at all confident that we were going to be able to walk what seemed to be no more than a couple of miles.
We did manage to find a store and purchased SIM cards with internet for, wait, 2 bucks each. Top-ups were another dollar!
We soon realized that we needed some help, so we popped into yet another cell phone shop, thinking that this would be our best bet of finding some English, and sure enough, a very nice young man showed us where we were and strongly suggested that we get a cab. The problem, though, was telling a cabbie where we wanted to go. The first two tried to make sense of things, then drove off. We finally found someone willing to drive to what he thought was the general vicinity. We soon learned that no one, not even cabbies, try to master the web of streets: you drive to the area and then ask.
Once at the hotel, Andrew came down to meet us. The Governor’s Residence is a gorgeous old colonial mansion that has been lovingly transformed into a luxury hotel. From Andrew’s hotel, we were actually able to walk to Shwedagon Pagoda, but only because the incredibly ritzy hotel is in the embassy quarter, with its own grid pattern, little traffic, and clearer signage. The pagoda, which dominates the horizon, soon came into view.
Here’s two thirds of the merry band.
Sue and Andrew, People’s Park
We still made some wrong turns, and ended up doing a loop around People’s Park before finding our way to the south entrance of the pagoda.
We left our shoes with an attendant and began the long walk up the southern portico, with vendors on both sides.
After paying for admission (8 bucks) plus a camera fee, we emerged onto the huge terrace that surrounds the pagoda itself.
The terrace was thronged with people: worshippers, tourists, and the merely curious. We were all struck by the mixture of religiosity and the carnivalesque. The electrified Buddhas were a particular source of consternation–and we hadn’t seen anything yet!
On this first day we would encounter just a few of the votive images of the Buddha: Buddhas with rain jackets, Buddhas with sun hats, sitting Buddhas, reclining Buddhas, you name it. Our education lay in front of us.
Sue likened the effect of the pagoda to the one you get at St. Peter’s, which struck us as wholly apt. This was also our introduction to the seriality that characterizes Theravada Buddhism. Since “salvation” is wholly individual, never communal, most worshippers do what they can to move on up the old ladder of reincarnation. And the best way to do that seems to be to construct a stupa or at least purchase an image of the Buddha. So you get an often overwhelming profusion of spires and figures.
Here is the first of many devotional images that you will encounter here dear reader.
Whatever niggling doubts about the experience that we might have had were dissipated, though, as the sun went down. The whole complex began to glow with a palpably luminous glow: the effect was magical.
As we learned later, monks light long rows of candles every night at dusk, which only enhances the effect.
Back at Andrew’s hotel, we decided to give in to jet lag and eat there–cost be damned! The garden beckoned, and we sat outside and had a very nice meal of various kinds of fish. Then off to our respective rooms for some much needed sleep.
Breakfast at Winner Inn was fine: everything a bit different, squat sour bananas, tiny ripe strawberries, etc. I didn’t yet know about Mohinga, so ate more or less Western (avoiding the technicolor margarine). Marissa C. met us while we were still in the breakfast room, and we were soon in a taxi, headed for the Yangon Heritage Trust offices on Pansodan Street. We had a bit of trouble locating the building, but were soon sitting having tea at the new Rangoon Tea House: very nice!
The Yangon Heritage Trust was founded by Thant Myint-U, grandson of the UN Secretary General U Thant; the foundation seeks to preserve and restore the remarkable assembly of colonial building in downtown Yangon. Those buildings are in a horrible state of disrepair and facing extinction.
Andrew joined us at the foundation offices, where our guide, Frank, who was actually a researcher for the Trust, met us and led us through a fascinating visual tour of Yangon’s history. We then headed down Pansodan street, with great explanations of the imposing colonial buildings: banks, merchant societies, port authorities, etc.
Most are unused or only partially used, and very, very few have been restored.
We were able to walk through what had been the largest emporium in 1930, owned by two brothers, with elaborate tile floors imported from Manchester, and see how the dark spaces now house squatters, small guest houses, tea merchants in the corridors, etc.
Here is a good example of an unrestored, but formerly stately, building.
The street life in Yangon is incredible: every inch along the buildings is taken up with vendors of every sort, selling street food, tea, fruit and vegetables, sim cards, books, newspapers, etc.
And merchants and service providers set up their “office” in chairs or the back of vans: notaries, lawyers, messengers, delivery services, etc.
We turned down a narrow street with warehouses that once housed the goods brought into the port. Rangoon was the fourth busiest port in the world in 1930, really a hub for all of SE Asia. We weren’t able to photograph two of the most beautiful buildings, which house the police (Bureau of Special Investigations). At the end of the street stands the Strand Hotel, one of the landmarks of colonial Rangoon.
A massive, stately building with lofty ceilings and slowly turning ceiling fans, right out of Graham Green.
It also houses the River Gallery run by a New Zealand expat with whom we have become friends over the years. Unfortunately, nothing on display appealed to Sue except for two huge neo-expressionist landscapes that were 10 and 12k!
From the Strand we passed the old and new Post Offices and the British Embassy.
Across the street and right on the river was a huge British officer’s club, now of course in the hands of the generals and their cronies. We turned north into Bogolay Zay Street and visited the lovely Armenian Church. Armenians had been privy counselors to the last kings, and occupied key positions in the state and economy. The last of them fled the Japanese in 1942.
The blocks north of this are among the most important in Yangon, with very few modern intrusions, and some really gorgeous residences. At the end of the street, across from the Secretariat, was the Chilean Embassy, where Pablo Neruda worked for two years and had an ill-fated affair with a Burmese woman. The secretariat—what had once been the British colonial Chancery—is enormous and almost completely unused: a gorgeous red brick colonial compound that occupies a very large city block. Obama was received in one of the courtyards when he visited—an event cited by everyone we met when they learned we were Americans.
Turning west into Mahabandoola, we found ourselves in the tech area, teeming with appliances and cell phones. We saw Sule Pagoda, but also a Hindu Temple, a Buddhist Temple, and glimpsed St. Mary’s Cathedral, all in a square mile. Pansodan Street brought us back to the offices, passing the High Courts and several buildings with large signs warning of immanent collapse, a strategy by the owners who hoped to have them demolished and available for modern structures. Real estate prices downtown rival those in San Francisco, but the buildings that go up make the GDR look like the high rent district.
We went back to the Strand and had a very nice lunch with Marissa: our first Mohinga. She is an exceptional young woman: one has to be enormously enterprising to devote ten years to public service in SE Asia. After lunch we hopped in separate cabs: Andrew to his hotel, Sue, Marissa, and I to the Winner Inn to pick up the books for the Yangon Learning Center. The cabbie dropped us on what he thought was Bajo Street, which turned out to be wrong. After some help from an exceptionally nice young man, we finally found the center and were greeted by Amy Kaufmann, the Mennonite Intern, and Khoo Kyaw San, the Executive Director. We had a long and very frank talk about what they needed and about their relations with Cetana. There is much to be done! As the conversation drew to a close we were picked up by a former Cetana Scholar, Kin Kin, who took us to the ICE Library, a volunteer organization that provides materials and tutoring for students who wish to take the SAT and other rests for study abroad. Kin Kin had attended De Paux, but returned to a country with no job for her. Her friend had attended the University of Rochester and studied biomedical engineering. She, too, was unemployed. A most impressive facility and an impressive bunch of students.
Kin Kin very nicely drove us to the Governor’s Residence; we had a pretty leisurely late afternoon drink while we decided on dinner. We were all beat, so we took a cab to a highly recommended restaurant called Pandomnar. The cab was only the first mistake: the restaurant is a five minute walk from Andrew’s hotel. And the restaurant: what a disaster! Long tables with French tour groups, mediocre food, served lukewarm. It didn’t exactly set the table for the delights of Burmese cuisine. Once at “home,” we collapsed and slept well but intermittently until about 5:30 the next morning.
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.
Andrew had very nicely treated us to something special to thank Sue for organizing the trip (and I tagged along). Balloons over Bagan picked us up at 5:15 and we drove to a large field near Nyaung U in their trademark vintage Chevrolet buses. There was coffee and cookies waiting for us as we piled off. We huddled with the others assigned to our ballon—16 all together—in the darkness.
The inflation of the balloons was worth the trip itself!
As we chatted with our fellow ballooners, we met a lovely young couple from….Princeton! Liz is a Korean-American lawyer and Matt is a Brit who works for Pearson’s Publishers. They live on Canal Road in Griggstown. After a bit of an equipment problem—the control wires for the canopy were tangled—the gas jets started to roar. The last balloon to launch, we clambered in and up we went with our Aussie Pilot, Clive. Clive was quite a character who made a lot up as he went along (he claimed, among many other things, to have seen a long-dead monk with sweet smelling skin and newly grown hair), but it was fun having him in the balloon.
We floated past Shwezigon, over a huge brickworks, and out over the archaeological zone. There were probably twenty balloons drifting along at various heights, all at about 6 mph. The dawn light on these ancient ruins was indescribably beautiful—and I probably spent too much time photographing and not enough looking!
We passed directly over Shwezandaw, the biggest temple that you can still climb, and it was covered with dozens of sunrise peepers, all of whom waved as we went by.
Clive aimed for Dhammangangyi, the biggest of all the pagodas, and he hit it on the nose.
The balloons were all heading for farmer’s fields in New Bagan, and the walkie talkie really started to hum as the balloons had to avoid trees, fences, and each other in order to land. We were greeted by many sellers and a glass of champagne. We bought a longyi for me and htalis for Sarah and Emily. We were startled to learn that a young looking girl was 32 and had two children. The Burmese look much younger than they are up to a certain point. Then they look much older than they actually are.
This was one of the most incredible experiences I’ve had—we’re very grateful to Andrew for making it possible.
No rest for the wicked: we retuned to the hotel for the huge breakfast buffet: mohinga, sticky rice, noodles, dim sum, plus a full western breakfast. Since we already had a van, driver, and guide, we invited Liz and Matt to come along with us, and, happily for us, they agreed. We had been a bit worried about Zin Zin as a guide. Her English wasn’t too bad, but her pronunciation made her very hard to understand. But it turned out fine. She was much more confident away from her grandmother, and she took us on a great tour. April had plotted our course, and we never would have seen the things we saw without April and Zin Zin.
We started at Shwezandaw, the large white pyramid from which so many people watch the sunset. Before climbing up, we first saw the huge reclining Buddha in a shed alongside. Matt immediately said “Watch out for snakes,” which certainly got our attention.
Then we walked back through the brush so that Zin Zin could show us some ceiling frescos in a small paya that April wanted us to see.
We never learned the name, but Zin Zin said it was named after a mammal that we could see in the trees. The keyholder had to go for his sister, who went for someone else and we finally got in. The walk there wasn’t fun: plastic, toilet paper, and Liz put a big thorn in her foot. But, as we learned that night, Liz was literally a survivor: she had been on one of the seasons of the reality TV show! The frescos had something to do with a picture of a lake that was related to Christian imagery, but none of us really knew why we were there–and Zin Zin’s English just wasn’t at this level of complexity. This was our first view into Myanmar’s educational system: Zin Zin had a degree in English, but it was a remote degree with virtually no direct practice.
We then climbed Shwezandaw itself. Magnificent views, and very, very steep steps with big drops. We clung to the iron railing and hauled ourselves up.
Then on to Dhammangangyi, the largest structure in the plain, noted for the precision of its brickwork. Legend has it that the king insisted that the bricks be set so close that a pin wouldn’t pass between…at pain of the loss of an arm, which was then used in the structure. Here is a blurry picture of Sue with her arm on what was purportedly the chopping block.
The ambulatory had many niches, some with ancient and very beautiful sculptures and images.
But the most memorable of these was the double buddha statue: statues of the last Buddha, Guatama, and the coming one, Maitreya.
Andrew interjects that the bats were far more memorable than the Buddhas. We had seen hundreds of bats flying in and out from the balloon: Clive claimed that he had climbed inside to the top, but Clive claimed lots of things. Hundreds of bats flew and squeaked in the high niche behind the Buddhas, and we all scampered by as fast as we could.
We finished the morning by visiting Sulamani, the temple that rivals Ananda as most beautiful in the zone.
The temple is surrounded by lush grounds and is notable for its beautiful, beautifully preserved carvings.
Here is Sue in a niche showing the Mudra of “have no fear.”
We saw nineteenth century murals in some of the niches, and beautiful green glazed tiles on the outside. As we completed our walk around, we were approached by a young woman who turned out to be Zin Zin’s older sister (who is married to a horse cart driver and has children). She sells fabric and clothing, and Sue purchased a really lovely Htali from her, at which point she insisted on giving us yet another one! A lovely thing to do, from a clearly lovely person.
Although we were initially reluctant, Zin Zin then took us to Min Nau Thu village, deep in the southern plain. We were shown around by a delightful woman named U U, 45, but with two young children.
The village was very orderly, with solar electricity and running water. We first encountered huge piles of fruits being dried for prunes. We saw a wheelwright (two beautifully made teak wheels will fetch $200), a smithy, and a mill, driven by an ox, for making sesame paste. The husband was on a chaise lounge reading a newspaper while the wife drove the ox and their baby played.
We ended at the silver workshop, but none of us bought anything, although Andrew was tempted by a necklace for Lucy. Yes, this was a model village intended for tourists, but, as our first look at village life, it wasn’t bad.
It has been great having Liz and Matt with us; they were lots of fun, and the added voices and perspectives really added to the day.
We then went back to New Bagan and ate at a restaurant with a terrace above the river, Sunset Garden. One of the best meals of the trip, with excellent fermented tea leaf and tomato salads and good Chinese food. Matt and Liz joined in the ritual consumption of Myanmar beer. We told Zin Zin that we were pretty tired, and to cut it short, but she was, luckily, determined to follow her grandmother’s plan, and we saw much more than we bargained for!
First up in the afternoon was Nagayon, a rather large paya notable for its wall paintings, and especially for its huge buddhas with a cobra (naga) motif above their heads, guarded by polychrome Boddhi Satvas.
Across the road was Abeyadana, built by the king’s brother for his Bengali wife. We only have exterior images, because the interior is a UNESCO project, which prohibits photos. We remember this temple by the terrible mortar work being done on the pathway outside, garish white cement marring the beauty of the red paving.
Up the road in the village of Myin Ka Bar were two sites: Nan Paya and Manuha Paya. Nan Paya is one of the loveliest of the smaller temples.
Like Abeyadana, Nan Maya shows a Hindu influence, with gorgeous relief carvings of Shiva and other Indian deities on the pillars inside.
Manuha Paya, a short walk away, is a large, white structure with a huge corncob top. It was thronged with Buddhist tourists and worshippers. It is notable for the enormous Buddhas pressed into tiny spaces, with a claustrophobic feel. Legend says that a king was imprisoned here and expressed his feeling of captivity through the claustrophobic representation.
The image quality of my pictures should give some idea of the tight spaces!
As soon as we approached the temple, I was accosted by two charming girls who had seen us get out of the balloons and remembered exactly what we had bought (from other vendors) and what we had paid. I initially succeeded in escaping, and they said “See you later, alligator!” When we emerged from the paya, though, they found me again, and wouldn’t let go. I was in a good mood and joked with them, but they were tenacious. Amid Dechetian cries of “you’re corrupting the girls, ruining the economy, and spoiling the place for all other tourists from here to eternity,” I bought a lacquerware box for the princely sum of $10, which they agreed to split.
We drove on up the road and Nanda pulled over so that we could walk among a large cluster of unrestored brickwork temples, stupas, and a large monastery.
Zin Zin couldn’t explain why we were there, so we shoved off. A bit further up the road was Mingala Zedi, the last great temple of the Bagan period. It was completed the year of the Mongol Invasion. We dodged a dog on the pathway, and, as the sun set, Andrew and I talked about theories of the end of civilizations, citing Spengler. This is a beautiful brickwork zedi with an enormous bell-like dome. We climbed to the first terrace (the upper terraces were barred) and walked round, with splendid views. The Zedi sits very close to the river, so we had a sweeping panorama of the upper quadrant of the archeological zone. The terrace was notable for its lovely green glazed tiles.
Zin Zin–and Bagan–weren’t done with us yet. We were dauntingly tired, between lingering jet lag and very early starts, but finally glad to press on. We drove through Old Bagan to its eastern edge, where we passed by Thatbinnyu, the white zedi with the tallest spire in Bagan, and a lovely golden finial that can be seen from all over the zone. This shot is taken from the terrace of Shwegugyi, the next zedi we visited.
Shwegugyi had a steep set of stairs up to the platform on which it was built, then a still steeper climb through the stairs inside the structure up to the terrace, with broad views over the zone.
We were all glad to get home. We thanked Zin Zin and Nanda warmly for their help, cleaned up, and rendezvoused for drinks at the bar and then dinner on the terrace, with Liz and Matt joining us. The terrace at the Bagan Thandi is one of our favorite places: we sat every evening under a huge, ancient acacia tree and relaxed after long, exciting days.
Tonight was a really good meal with tea leaf salad and Bagan beef and potato curry.
We were treated to traditional Myanmar music, with a zither player and a female vocalist: wailing, arhythmic sounds (Andrew likened it to a cat in heat or a mosquito in your ear). Then two puppeteers; the man was even more amazing than the woman the night before.
Liz regaled us with tales from Survivor. Wonderful day!
We shared a car with Liz and Matt; Nanda drove us to the airport, and we got on our short flight to Mandalay without mishap. We found a cabbie to take us in for the government regulated rate of 12,000 Kyat. He was very sweet and spoke a bit of English and was a decent enough driver. It took us about 45 minutes to drive to the other side of town and our hotel. Mandalay is a good bit more organized and less ramshackle than Yangon, and the traffic is not nearly as nuts, despite the omnipresence of motorbikes. The rule of the road is a little nerve wracking at first: motorbikes only look left, at oncoming traffic, when they enter the roadway, assuming that people in their lane will always make way for them. And it seems to work. Insofar as they successfully dodge cars, scooters, bikes, pedestrians, dogs, and chickens.
Mandalay Hill Resort was a bit of a disappointment after the Bagan Thande. A comfortable, but uniform “international” hotel with some Chinese glitz. The room was comfortable but pretty standard. We unpacked, strolled the grounds and had a cup of coffee and a snack before heading out for the walk up Mandalay Hill. This was our welcome to the less salubrious side of Myanmar. It is a long walk up—45 minutes and 1700 steps—on some pretty filthy walkways. And of course we had to leave our shoes at the bottom and walk barefoot. We dodged dogs and vendors the whole way up, skipping the various more or less tawdry shrines that marked each level and turning of the covered walkway. The highlight of the walk was a dog attack: Andrew snapped a photo of a little cur, who snarled and barked enough to make him jump. It turned out that it was a bitch with a litter of pups nearby. She did set the “dog tone” for the rest of the trip, though, with many, many rabies jokes. The top of Mandalay Hill is a large platform with the obligatory pagoda. We walked around taking pictures and admiring the expansive view: the area around Mandalay is flat as a pancake, and we could see many, many miles of the big river. On reaching the bottom again, we were relieved to find that the soles of our feet hadn’t rotted away.
Our driver from that morning picked us up at 4 for the drive to Sagaing, one of the most remarkable monastic districts in the country. Coming out of the city we drove on what must have been a fairly narrow isthmus between the river and a huge lake—the lake crossed by the U Bein bridge. As we drove through this very verdant countryside, we saw enormous piles of watermelons. It turns out that they were bound for China, but cost 700-1200 Kyat here. A related story: the fried crayfish that one often sees as street food has a “Chinese” aspect. They are caught on the Delta to the south and trucked north. But the Chinese buyers will only take live ones, and the dead ones are sold off here at a discount to street vendors (and presumably others). There is massive resentment toward China and the Chinese here—despite the fact that 30-40% of Mandalay’s population is Chinese (we also met many ethnically Chinese citizens in Kyaint Tong). Our cabbie from the first day in Mandalay had said “we send them teak and they send us plastic.”
We crossed into Sagaing across the newer of the two bridges: the older one dates from Colonial times. We passed by the Lion’s Gate, which is the beginning of the system of long covered walkways that wind among the dozens of pagodas and monasteries that dot the hillsides. The road immediately turned steeply upward, with hairpin turn after hairpin turn, and our driver’s car was having trouble regaining momentum if he had to slow down. Simple solution: he no longer slowed down, weaving in and out between cars, motorbikes, pedestrians, and the random dog. With our hair on end, we reached the parking area for the huge pagoda at the top, Soon U Pon Nya Shin. There is a gorgeous terrace surrounding the gilded, glowing stupa, paved in luminous light blue and green tiles.
And the hills all around are studded with temples, stupas, and monasteries.
We walked all around and then took it easy as the sun set over the hills.
On one side was the huge academy, the “university” for particularly gifted monks; on the other, the main Sagaing ridgeline with dozens of religious structures. Sue learned the name of the Frangipani tree, which blooms before it leafs out. Perhaps related to magnolia. We watched the lights twinkle on and were amazed again at the Christmas tree lights that adorn the holiest of structures.
In the twilight, I took one of my favorite photos: a woman singing her devotion to the Buddha, presumably from the sutras.
The ride down was much less eventful.
We had the driver take us to the Green Elephant, a well-known place near the Royal Palace and Moat. We had a pleasant dinner under the trees in the courtyard. Dinner was tasty enough—but Andrew was a little sick that night—the only “event” of the entire trip. The highlight of the day was the display of Andrew’s negotiating skills. The drivers in front of the restaurant wanted 5000 Kyat for the seven minute drive to the hotel, and wouldn’t come down. So we started walking, since Andrew was sure we were being taken. Quite a while later, we stopped in front of a restaurant filled with locals, flagged a cab…and payed 5000 Kyat for the ride home.
We had no guide for the next day, but Sue, with her formidable preparation, had a number for a travel agent in Mandalay. It later turned out that this was Mi Mi, the wife of Tun Tun, who would become our guide and friend in the years to come. Sue called her at 8:30 at night, and by 9 PM we had a guide and driver. We all immediately collapsed into bed at the hotel: we may catch up on our sleep by the end of the trip.
Mi Mi had wanted us to start our tour at 8 AM so that we could see not only Amarapura and Inwa but Mingun as well, but we pleaded for time (and our sanity) and started at 10. Our guide, Arthur (Win Myint), couldn’t have been better. He is a very tall, slender man, with a charming manner, given to giggling. He speaks very good English, learned at mission schools. We had asked for a tour to Amarapura and Inya, and didn’t know what else to expect. It immediately became clear that Arthur had an ambitious itinerary in store for us. We started at one of the gold pounding shops. Young men wielding very heavy mallets pound nuggets of gold into gossamer sheets of gold leaf: one ounce produces 18 square yards!
The gold is pounded while wrapped in bamboo paper produced on site, and then in deerskin. The young men are very well paid by Myanmar standards…as they should be. We purchased a bit of leaf for our next stop: the Mahamuni Paya, with its famous, and much venerated image.
Like most big pagodas, we entered through a long covered portico.
The vendors here were different: the target audience was worshippers and not tourists, as huge piles of Buddhas gleamed from every shop. This impression was certainly confirmed inside, where we encountered throngs surrounding the main attraction, the Mahamuni Image. The image itself sits on a kind of pedestal open on three sides.
This is perhaps the most venerated image in all Myanmar The statue was originally in Mrauk U, but a Burmese king snatched it, along with a series of temple bronzes from Angkor Wat, and brought them to Mandalay. The image now has more than one ton of gold leaf on it, making everything but the face so bulbous as to be unrecognizable. The face itself, however, is washed by monks every morning at 4:30 and unsullied by gold leaf. Women are not allowed to place the gold leaf, so Sue knelt on a prayer rug with the other subordinates. Andrew and I, guided by Arthur, went up a stairway and placed our leaf. An Indian man gave us some extra, and wanted us to place even more; this seemed odd to us, but we later learned that he could gain even more virtue by sharing his veneration.
We then had a look at the Angkor Wat bronzes, rubbing various parts for good luck.
The next stop was a marionette workshop. After much deliberation, I bought two figures form the Burmese version of Grand Gignol, the king and the giant, and we bought a horse for Vivi and a elephant for Evie.
With our purchases safely stowed in the ubiquitous Toyota van, we left the city headed for Amarapura, which had been the capital of Burma twice (1783–1821 and 1842–1859) before finally being supplanted by Mandalay in 1859. We stopped first at a very large training monastery (monks showing unusual abilities are sent here for specialized education)—Maha Ganayon Kyaung.
Arthur confessed that he had been a novice monk for less than a week: they eat only two meals a day, breakfast at 4:30 and dinner at 11:30, and he couldn’t stand missing his dinner. He is a big guy after all. Apparently the place is mobbed with tourists when the monks have their midday meal, the silence destroyed by the clicking of hundreds of cameras. There is much to see here, with its view into the daily life of the monks. And, like virtually everything in Myanmar, it is extraordinarily colorful: even the laundry!
And the kitchen!
The monastery sits right on the big river.
As it happened, there was a wedding taking place; we tried to be respectful, hiding our cameras…but the wedding party was eager to be immortalized!
From the monastery we drove to a silk weaving workshop, where we first saw the weavers…
And then the shop.
Andrew bought a scarf for Lucy and Sue bought two scarves, for Ariel and Emily Balter. Andrew had fun punching in offers on the calculator, and saved a whopping $2.95.
Amarapura behind us…for now, we headed for Inwa down a causeway along the river. Inwa had been the imperial capital of successive Burmese kingdoms from the 14th to 19th centuries. Throughout history, it was sacked and rebuilt numerous times. The capital city was finally abandoned after it was destroyed by a series of major earthquakes in March 1839. Little is now left to remind one of imperial grandeur.
A ferry boat took us across a small side river, where we landed at a small village with many, many horse carts and some fairly spotty eateries.
Here is Arthur manning the stern.
We ate at the Small River restaurant. The food wasn’t too bad, but it was pretty filthy: I saw them dumping the used dipping sauce back into a communal tub. Here is a review of the restaurant:
Over lunch, we learned a good deal about Arthur’s past. He was a mission school boy: an Italian priest gave him his name. His daughter is a student (or teacher?) at Purdue, and he misses her terribly. He seems to have been divorced twice, and has a teenage son by his second wife. He seemed less interested in him, but he came to the hotel the next day and left a note for Sue asking about educational opportunities for his son.
After lunch, we jumped into two horsecarts–the standard conveyance in Inwa–for the bumpiest ride of our lives. Arthur and Andrew got a racehorse, we got the bobtailed nag, the slowest horse on the course!
We bumped and rattled over roads and paths, ending at the gloriously beautiful 18th century teak monastery, Bagaya Kyaung (from 1822, the year of the founding of the capital).
It is set on massive teak columns; here is Andrew doing his best imitation of Atlas.
The carved teak is kind of amazing.
The high-ceilinged shrine was especially impressive.
This was also where Andrew got, free of extra charge, an extensive course in palm tree botany, with the aim of teaching him their sexual practices. Unfortunately, to this day he still can’t tell a male from a female.
Back in the cart, we left the roads and headed down a farm track; we had the sense that relatively few tourists took this route…or at least that few returned with their innards ordered properly. The mud at one point seemed two feet deep and I despaired of getting through without overturning. What a fate! Crushed by a horse cart and ground into bottomless filth! But our driver plowed on…only to find that he had left a good part of our left wheel in the mud. We then experienced the Myanmar version of AAA: our two drivers plus one behind joined forces to hammer a big section of rubber tire back into the groove on the iron rim.
With our conveyance as good as new, we trotted on to the ruins of the royal palace proper. Little is left beyond a swimming pool and a crooked watchtower, the “leaning tower of Inwa,” which we inexplicably walked around: through toilet paper, the ubiquitous plastic bags, etc.
We ended our tour at another nineteenth century monastery, Maha Aungmye Bonzan, this one brick covered with yellowing stucco.
It was deserted but for two Buddha images in marble, one standing, one in the posture of enlightenment. Better for its ensemble view than for any detail, but still lovely. And the views back to the Sagaing hills was terrific.
We were soon back at the jetty and on the ferry.
Our day wasn’t nearly over, though. Arthur led us back to Amarapura and its main attraction, the famous U Bein bridge; the bridge spans Taungthaman Lake. The 1.2-kilometre bridge was built around 1850 and is believed to be the oldest teak bridge in the world. The approach to the bridge is thronged with souvenir sellers, but we were left alone once on the bridge. A nearby monastery provides a good deal of local color!
We walked to the other end and turned back as the sun began to set over the lake.
The golden light brought out the age of the wood rather beautifully.
Once back in Mandalay, the indefatigable Arthur had our driver pass by two more things we “had to see:” “the biggest book in the world” (Buddhist scripture inscribed line by line on individual stupas) and yet another teak monastery. We told him we’d catch them on our next visit…which we did!
The Chinese food that night wasn’t bad, if very expensive. My Peking Duck was just fine!
We declared a badly needed rest day, since we didn’t need to leave for the airport until 12:30. We had a very leisurely breakfast at the huge buffet, then went up to pack and loll about. I hired a cab that ran me to a cell phone shop in search of MRD sim cards, since ours didn’t work in Kyaing Tong and Inle. The cards were easy; a lovely young lady helped set up the phones with the new cards.
The batteries were harder to find, but the cabbie dove into a dank little shop, asked, and the woman brought out a big box with a random assortment of batteries!
Back at the hotel, we settled up and settled into a cab with a driver who spoke not a single word of English. We were soon at the airport and through the very lax security. We found a very nice tea shop near the departure lounge, at which point I discovered that I had lost my cell phone. I called the hotel, thinking I had left it on the sofa near the entrance where we had waited for the cab. No dice. Andrew then called my phone, and lo and behold our cabbie answered. I handed the phone to the very nice proprietor of the tea shop, who found that he was still at the airport waiting for a fare. The proprietor’s son very nicely volunteered to run out and get my phone, since I couldn’t get through security. I gave him 5000 Kyat for the driver. He was soon back with my phone, but the cabbie had not given the kid the sim card for reasons we never discovered. So out went the kid again and returned with the phone with a sim card. Unfortunately I later discovered that he had somehow put in another sim card, keeping my new one. After I had given the kid 10,000 Kyat that he really didn’t want to take, I was finally out about 30 bucks, but it was better than losing my Lumia 1020.
Andrew and I had been leery of adding this leg to our journey: too many intermediate landings with questionable planes on sketchy airlines; Myanmar Air has “You’re safe with us!” as its motto. Not exactly encouraging.
After a brief flight to Heho, a longer flight–which included a tuna salad pasty!– brought us to Kyaing Teng. Andrew sat next to a really charming French woman. She sat down and her first official action was to knock Andrew’s elbow off the divider. When she was finished with her pasty, she brushed the crumbs off herself and her tray and directly on to Andrew. He was enthralled.
We got off the plane and found everything but a brass band waiting for us: military, security forces, and locals in their native dress. All for the big dude who had been sitting next to me on the plane. We later heard that it was the prime minister of Shan State, here to make an appearance at the Lahu tribe’s Lunar New Year’s Festival. With about 5 million members, the Lahu are one of the biggest and most important tribes in Myanmar.
And then the fun started. Our hosts in Kyaing Teng were Cynthia and Teddy Paul. Cynthia had been a Cetana scholar; the foundation had funded her study toward a masters degree in Second Language Acquisition in Thailand. Once back in Shan State, she had started a school, the Kyaing Teng Learning Center, which offered courses to young adults and children in English and critical thinking skills.
We were met by Teddy, Cynthia’s husband, who had hired a jitney to bring us to our hotel. Teddy is a unicum: a handsome, incredibly sweet, and endlessly energetic guy who is the man behind Cynthia. A pair of French women were in the jitney with us, and the driver convinced them to get out at some random hotel. As we soon discovered, it couldn’t have been worse than ours.
The Yee Law Chain Hotel—aka “the hotel above the Chinese bakery”—looked kind of OK downstairs: normal reception area, with a bench and table downstairs.
The stairway to our rooms was, like most every thing in Kyaing Tong, well, dusty. And the carpet would have been called threadbare ten years ago. Our rooms looked OK: pretty large, with big windows, and nice firm beds.
The carpets and sheets had ineradicable stains—but the staff did the best they could. Little did we know that we got three hours of electricity (on a good day). Or that some mad genius had designed the bathroom so that the slops from the sink ran directly onto the floor on which you stood, leaving a narrow shelf for the toilet on which one balanced precariously to pee.
Other than that, it was a great hotel! We later learned that Myanmar hotels have a star rating system; I would guess that the Lee Yaw Chain gets about a negative three.
Cynthia and Teddy were picking us up at 7 PM to go to a festival that we only dimly understood at this point. OK, I’ll admit it, Andrew and I were pretty unnerved by everything around us, and we badly wanted our daily dose of Myanmar beer, so we went looking for a bar or at least some take away. By early evening it was chilly, so we bundled up and headed down our rather dark, unpaved street. Some of the shops were open, glowing dimly from within. As in Yangon, we never really knew exactly where we were. We could only navigate between familiar landmarks—the market, the big lake, the hill with the standing Buddha—and hope that our memory served as we made turns into twisting, dark streets.
A couple of blocks down we found the Princess Hotel, the “upgrade” option in town. They had no bar. A few doors down, though, Andrew found a kind of beverage store, and we snagged a six pack of cool beer. On our way home, I had a rude introduction to northern Shan State: as we made our way down a broad, dark, unpaved street, I was walking almost ten yards from the edge of the nearest building. I heard something to my right and looked up…just in time to see a tomcat on the second floor roof turned around, raise its tail, and projectile piss all over me, including a bit into my mouth as I was talking. Nothing that a cold shower and a few months of therapy couldn’t fix.
With a bit of beer in our bellies, Cynthia and Teddy arrived with a flock of her senior students on their motorbikes.
We each got on the back of one and watched with envy while Cynthia and Teddy put on their helmets! Off we flew into the night, hanging on for dear life as we travelled the bumpy road through town and out into the villages, dodging other scooters, pedestrians, dogs, chickens, you name it. We suddenly pulled over, stopped, and emerged into a carnival atmosphere. This was the Lunar New Year of the Lahu tribe, with thousands of merrymakers, rides, street food, vendors, the works. A narrow dirt road leads back to the main festival area and, as we walked along, Cynthia suddenly pulled us into a dimly lit makeshift restaurant selling Shan noodles.
It belonged, like seemingly everything here, to a relative: Cynthia’s cousin’s sister. Andrew of course almost fainted when he saw the sanitary conditions under which the food was prepared. The soup and noodles were fine: they were bubbling away in a big cauldron. But the additions: chicken, vegetables, etc., were sitting out—for God knows how long. Sue and I dug in, and found the food very good; Andrew said he was a vegetarian and picked at his. We paid for dinner for the five of us and the three student drivers: the princely sum of 12,000 Kyat.
After dinner we popped into a dark courtyard. It turned out that Teddy’s parents lived in the village where the fair is held, and we met his parents and brothers (who have no English). His uncle from Tachilek was also there: a linguist who translated the bible into Akah, one of the tribal languages. He spoke fluent if somewhat shambolic English.
Here’s Teddy:
And we met Cynthia and Teddy’s kids: a darling little three year old girl and a 10 year old boy. The girl is very close to her mother, but the boy is closer to Teddy’s parents than to his own: He was born just as Cynthia won her scholarship to study in Bangkok, so he was raised by his grandparents for two years when he was young.
We then plunged on into the darkness and found ourselves in a huge arena with a stage and speakers where various bands were playing a blend of pop and traditional music on electric instruments. It was incredibly loud and hard to talk to the students, but Cynthia wanted us to see the traditional dancing. When it was clear by 10 PM that the dancing would start much later, we convinced our chariot drivers to spirit us back to our magic kingdom, the Yaw Lee Chain Hotel.
What a whirlwind of impressions from our first day!
Breakfast at the Yaw Lee Chain was interesting: Shan noodles or eggs. Sue and I had the noodles, which were fine if a little bland, and Andrew got eggs, which were over too easy and had to be sent back for more cooking to meet his exacting hygienic standards. That set the standard for subsequnet breakfasts: cooked to death eggs. The coffee wasn’t too bad, especially considering it was instant!
We had hardly finished when the motorbikes descended on us at 9:30 sharp, and we were off to the festival again. Cynthia very sweetly bought Lahu festival shirts for each of us: no easy feat for me, but we finally found a super-sized one at the third vendor.
Andrew got the value added package, though: a woman later came up to him and gifted him with a Shan bag with “Lahu New Year’s Festival” inscribed in bright letters. I felt very neglected!
When we arrived, the dancing was in full swing. Long lines of dancers shuffling to the rhythms of the music. We popped under a long tent and sat in the sun on the other side to take pictures.
Not too long later we were suddenly summoned by a woman we didn’t know to join a party at a large round table under the tent: we had been designated “special guests” of the festival and offered a copious lunch (Chinese: pork, tofu, chicken, etc.). Our hosts were two retired and well educated men who were eager to talk with us. It was hard to judge their ages, but the quality of their English indicated that they had been educated before the generals destroyed the educational system, which means before 1960.
It was a charming and unexpected bonus! After lunch we sat in the broiling sun and watched the dancing. Men and women formed different lines and moved in slow clockwise circles, with handheld drums and bells accompanying the music. I shot lots of pictures, but many into the sun: we’ll see what comes out. After an hour or so, Cynthia convinced Sue to dance, and she shook a tail feather all around the lot…with what looked like considerable authenticity!
On the way to the bikes, we popped into Teddy’s parents’ house for dessert: a sweetened bean paste packed into sugar canes and sticky rice in bamboo shafts: both really good!
We knew we had a long day of teaching ahead of us, so we headed back for a siesta at 1. Teddy fetched us at 2:45 and we walked to the Kyaing Teng Learning Center, the House that Teddy Built. A beautiful three story grey building, he had done the whole thing by himself, learning electricity, plumbing, etc. as he went.
Cynthia teaches the adult learners five days a week for four hours a day: one hour for each Level 1-4. Andrew and I, with intermittent assistance from Sue, took over for the day.
Level 1 was charming: they had only had about 3 weeks of English, but were eager to try! Level 2 was a real struggle. I didn’t see much progress vis-a-vis Level 1, and the students were somehow recalcitrant. We discussed lots of things, but the interesting bits were the real integration of ethnicities and religions in Burma: we of course had lots of students whose first language was Shan, but we also had lots whose first language was tribal, Lahu or Akah, e.g. And lots of students whose parents were from different tribes / ethnic groups…and many more ethnic Chinese than I had imagined.
Also interesting in these groups was the very modest level of expectation: most students simply hoped to be a shopkeeper or a tour guide or work in a restaurant, pinning their hopes on foreigners rather than on their government. The regime had not merely taken away their education and decent jobs: it had taken away its hope and imagination.
Groups 3 and 4 were a big leap up. Not just in their English, but in the perspectives on life that the language had opened to them. Here we had people who wanted to be doctors, engineers, and teachers, and people who could imagine traveling and living elsewhere. All in all, the four hours we spent with these young people were challenging but above all enriching—for us!
After class we hopped on the bikes once again, and the students dropped us with Cynthia and Teddy at a Chinese restaurant—My Cup (?)—run by one of Cynthia’s former students. The food was pretty good, especially if you didn’t look too closely at the kitchen—or mind the Turkish toilets. Cynthia ordered, and we had a couple of wok dishes, a fried rice, and some crispy chicken to go along with our Myanmar beer. A very nice evening with these two remarkable people. Teddy walked us back to the hotel and we collapsed: Cynthia teaches seven hours a day, six days a week, and we’re slugs by comparison.
