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.
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.