Burma/Myanmar plus a bit of Bangkok
Jan 11, 2011 18:53:23 GMT
Post by Kimby on Jan 11, 2011 18:53:23 GMT
Sorry if this is more than you wanted to know about our trip to Burma (and Vietnam - see separate thread). It was all so interesting that it was hard to edit down. Plus I'm lazy and in a hurry! I wish I had photos to post, but Santa did not bring me a slide-scanner....
On Friday, October 29, we boarded our first flight in Montana, only to have a hydraulic problem cause cancellation of the flight! After a desperate call to Delta's toll-free number, our frequent-flier tickets (supposedly good on Delta only) were re-authorized for a Northwest Airlines flight out of Seattle with connections to Seattle via Spokane on a commuter airline leaving Montana in ten minutes. Close one! If we couldn't get to Bangkok on schedule, we'd miss our flight to Burma the next day, and then fail to connect with our Burmese tour operator in time for a scheduled flight to Mandalay the following day! The best part was that we "earned" almost 8000 frequent-flier miles each on Northwest, since the tickets were paid for, by Delta! We finally went to bed in Bangkok after 1 a.m. (on Oct. 30, due to international date line) having gotten up in Montana 35 hours earlier. Stayed at the Comfort Inn near the airport, but no takeoffs and landings between 1:30 and 6:50 a.m.
Sun, 31st - Since we'd been given three conflicting flight times for the Myanmar Air flight we were to take (and the earliest involved getting up too early) we re-booked on an afternoon Thai Airways flight to Yangon. Our late arrival caused some consternation for our tour company, who had not received the telex we sent about the change in plans, and, in fact, hadn't even gotten our confirmation letter sent weeks earlier from Montana. We were lucky anyone was expecting us at all!
Our guide for the next 11 days was Myitzu, a charming, 25-year old Myanmar girl with very good English. We liked her very much and wouldn't have gotten along very well in Burma without her. Or gotten as much out of the trip. Unfortunately, since our letter had never arrived they didn't have the necessary passport numbers to hold our tickets to Mandalay, so our reservations were lost and we had to rearrange our schedule and go a day later than planned. That meant an extra day in Yangon and skipping the old British hill station, Maymyo, but that's life. As my seatmate on the aborted Montana flight said, "If you knew everything that was going to happen on a vacation, why would you even bother to take the trip?"
We were dropped at the Strand Hotel where we had a funky big room in the old section. After the renovations are completed, all the rooms will be $225 per night! Had the evening to ourselves, so we walked to Sule Pagoda, the first of many Burmese Buddhist temples we were to see. Lots of ornamentation, mostly tile and mirrored mosaics, lots of burning candles, flowers, Buddha images and praying people, all barefooted. Us too. Afterwards, we "changed some money". As our Lonely Planet guidebook suggested, Mr. Kimby had hit the duty-free store at the Bangkok airport and bought 4 cartons of 555 brand cigarettes and 4 bottles of Johnny Walker Red Label scotch to sell on the black market in Burma. The official exchange rate is about 7 kyats per U.S. dollar, but black market rate is 100! Selling booze and cigarettes is one way to get the better rate. Even though it was black market, it wasn't scary. The young entrepreneurs who buy the stuff carry huge wads of cash and act quite professional. (This practice no longer applies, I have heard.)
Mon, Nov. 1st - Took a day trip to Bago, formerly Pegu, a village outside Yangon with gilded pagodas, Shwemawdaw and Mahazedi, a huge reclining Buddha, the Shwethalyaung, and a big market. Stopped at a nat shrine (devoted to angel-worshipping, a religion older than Buddhism and often practiced concurrently), and saw the Alien Soldiers Cemetery. Mr. Kimby bought flipflops at the Bago market; with all the temples, we'll be taking off our shoes constantly. Saw the scrawniest horses pulling grossly overloaded tongas, carriages used as taxis. Back to Yangon for sunset at Lake Inwa, watching boys play an aggressive game with kites in which they try to encircle their opponent's kite string with theirs and cut it loose by abrasion. Then Myitzu took us to her family's home. Twelve people from three generations live in a two-story urban apartment. We got the impression that, by Burmese standards, they are pretty well off. We were served pickled tea leaves, a traditional dish of hospitality. Back to the Strand Hotel.
Tues, 2nd - Myitzu met us in the lobby at 5 a.m. To airport in dark to fly on an old Fokker F28 to Mandalay with a stop in Bagan (Pagan). Our guidebook said Myanmar Air had a marginal safety record, but we had no problems. (After we got home, I found an old 1988 State Department advisory that said three planes had crashed in the previous 12 months!) In Mandalay, we met up with Boni, our driver for most of the trip. Nice young man, with modern tastes in clothing and a fondness for old American pop music (Never on Sunday, Que Sera Sera, Rock around the Clock, etc.) which he played on the car cassette player constantly. Checked into a nice suite at the Inwa Hotel in Mandalay. Power was out, a common occurrence in Burma.
Toured Mandalay with Myitzu and Boni, visiting a weaving factory where they make the longyi, a monastery of carved teak, and the ruins of the "Incomparable Monastery" (where a monk and his disciples walked colorfully right into our picture). Saw the Kuthodaw Pagoda which is regarded as the world's largest book with its 729 stone tablets of Buddhist scriptures. (Here we donated a small sum of money for gold leaf to be applied to the stupa, a means of acquiring "merit" for Buddhists.) Tasted a drink made from pressed sugar cane which we didn't much like. (And later realized might be the cause of our impending intestinal distress.) Drove up a twisting road to the top of Mandalay Hill, honking all the way. Interesting temples, beautiful view.
After lunch we "paid visit to village way of life", as Myitzu says. Watched water buffalos pulling teak logs up a muddy track from the river, people bathing and washing clothes along the shore (next to a floating latrine!) and fishing with cast nets. The women (and children) in Burma wear a strange concoction called "thanakha" made from ground sandalwood bark. They smear it unevenly, or in patterns, on their cheeks, foreheads and necks, "to feel cool and to look beautiful," Myitzu said. (I thought it looked comically grotesque. But they don't care what the rest of the world might think, they like it.) We strolled through the downtown market and passed a big meeting room with a wedding reception going on inside. As we tried to peek in we were noticed, and instead of being run off, we were invited in as honored guests, served tea and cakes, introduced to the bride and groom and captured on videotape! Next, to an embroidery factory (sweatshop is more like it) where young girls labor in poor light six days a week for $3 per week doing elaborate work. (We purchased a lovely embroidered peacock for about 1/20th the cost of framing it once we got home.) We ate dinner that night at the Floating Barge Restaurant, and foolishly ordered seafood (freshwater shrimp), which might be what gave us food poisoning, if it wasn't the sugarcane drink.
Wed, 3rd - Hired a boat to go up the Ayeyarwady River to Mingun, passing villages of thatched huts on mid-river islands. Toured a rest home for the elderly, picking up an entourage of children who held our hands and chattered constantly, selling "Buddha" (incense sticks and candles) for the nearby temple. The brick Mingun Pagoda would have been the world's largest pagoda, had it been completed. While we were in the inner chamber with our lively entourage, a group of Italian tourists entered and began loudly shushing the kids, even rapping them on their heads! I was stunned. They weren't bothering us, we were enjoying interacting with them. Perhaps the Italians had been travelling too long....
Had a big chinese lunch in Sagaing (we didn't yet know we were sick) then visited an unusual breast-shaped pagoda called Kaunghmudaw. Drove up Sagaing Hill for a lovely view and more shrines. At the Thirty Caves Pagoda, our 30-cent donation bought a marble tile for refurbishing the floor. At Amarapura, we took a wooden boat (rowed with crossed oars by a forward-facing standing oarsman) across the lake to the ruined Kyauktawgyi Pagoda with its marble Buddha. We returned via a very long 200-year-old rickety teak footbridge, U Bein's bridge, at sunset. On the way back to the hotel, we started feeling queasy, but assumed it was motion sickness from the bridge. Not! After depositing my lunch in the gutter, I was up all night visiting the bathroom. Mr. Kimby was ill, too, with a high temperature. Not a very restful night.
Thurs, 4th - We were supposed to get up at 4:30 a.m. for a 5:30 launch of the steamer to Pagan, but at 3:30, I went to Myitzu and told her we'd better sleep in and ride in the car with Boni instead. The steamer takes 14 hours, and the private cabin we'd reserved had been pre-empted by "guests of the government". We hated to miss out on the scenery (and forfeit the $100), but we were in no condition to sit on a boat's deck for 14 hours! Finally got some rest, getting up around 10 and hitting the road for Pagan before noon, fortified with 7-up and Imodium. (The Imodium saved the trip, allowing us to tour all day without problems, though we often relapsed at night.)
The scenery ended up being very nice from the road. But Burmese driving habits are so strange. They drive on the right like we do, but the steering wheel is on the right side of the car, like the British. So they can't see if it's okay to pass until they've pulled all the way into the other lane! They use their turn signals backwards - not to indicate what they intend to do, but apparently to tell the driver behind them what to do. (If it's okay for you to pass, the vehicle ahead puts on its left signal. If we came up behind a truck and couldn't pass, Boni would flick on his right signal.) There aren't many cars on the road, but lots of trucks, and most of the time the pavement is only one lane wide, so every time you meet another vehicle you have to pull over and stop. Boni honked almost constantly, at anything that moved. (If you hit someone's pig or chicken, you have to pay them for it.) Based on his driving, we decided Boni was the "Flying Dragon" the company was named for!
There were lots of bullock carts on the road, and herds of cows and goats, and people walking or on bicycles (two or even three per bike). Burmese people don't own cars, they ride in buses that are actually modified Toyota mini-pickups with up to 40 people on them! (3 on the seat, 7 on each bench in the back, 5 on stools down the middle, 12-14 on the roof rack and 6-8 clinging to the sides and back!) The driver won't even set out with fewer than 20! We passed one truck so overloaded that its front wheels lifted off the ground when it hit bumps in the road.
We bought black-market petrol out of small unmarked drums for $8 a gallon, because not even tour companies get enough ration coupons for fuel to get from one place to another. We saw narrow gauge railroads with manually-operated crossings. At every village, people stood along the roads with urns, collecting donations for festivals or their monastery or for free-lance road-maintenance. Whenever they felt like donating, or to give "pocket money" to small children, Myitzu and Boni just tossed small bills out the window, without even slowing down.
Buddhism seems to be an ideal system for poor countries. Instead of resenting his lot in life, a peasant farmer strives to be a good peasant farmer so that he'll accumulate merit and will earn a better position in the next life. Myitzu says stealing just isn't done, and crime is very low. The Burmese also seem to have a close-knit society. Many times Myitzu and Boni would have long, animated conversations with other Burmese, and when we'd ask if they were friends, they'd say they had never met before, but all Myanmar people are friends.
We arrived in Pagan around 6, beating the steamer passengers by a half-hour, and checked into a bungalow at the Thiripitsaya Inn. We gingerly ate a Burmese dinner of pork curry and eggplant, not bad except it was standing in grease. Caught the tail end of a Burmese marionette show and walked down to the river in the dark.
Fri, 5th - Bright and early, we visited the village of Nyaung-Oo to see their market. Smelly salted fish, mounds of fish paste and other unidentifiable commodities, plus the usual displays of fresh veggies. Next, to the gilded Shwezigon Pagoda whose stupa is the prototype for modern Burmese pagodas. Saw lots of 13th century pagodas during the rest of the day, and Myitzu took our Christmas card picture from the top of one called Sulamani. I had brought lipsticks and perfumes to trade with (as suggested in the guidebook) and got three nested hand-etched lacquer boxes for one lipstick. Ananda temple has four standing Buddhas of gilded teak, one of which appears to frown when you stand right below him, but smiles when you step a distance back from him. We visited a lacquerware industry and saw how they apply the coats of lacquer over forms of woven bamboo strips and horsehair, then etch in the designs and color them.
Lunch of beef curry at the hotel and a rest break during the heat of the day, then back out for more temples. There's over 2000 of them left out of 13,000 that were built within 40 square kilometers between 1057 and 1287 A.D. Some of the more interesting ones were the Seinnyet Temple and Seinnyet Pagoda, built by two sisters, each with an equal number of bricks so that they'd each get equal merit (however one sister stole bricks from the other, hoping to increase her merit), Thatbyinnyu with its "tally temple" alongside, built of one brick for every 10,000 used in the main temple, and Manuha temple, built by a captive king and containing gigantic Buddha images in cramped spaces, representing his captivity. We watched the sun set from the top of Thatbyinnyu, casting golden light on the other temples. A "stupa-fying" day!
Attended an excellent cultural show after dinner with traditional musicians, dancers and marionettes. Back at the hotel, I got up to use the bathroom in the night and discovered a small rat in the toilet! I tried to flush him (twice!) but when he refused to flush I had no choice but to rescue him and set him free outside. I'd never heard of sewer rats, and assumed he'd fallen through the skylight and landed in the john.
Sat, 6th - Began my fortieth birthday with a morning horse-carriage ride to four more temples in Pagan. Then we checked out and hit the road for Inle Lake. More picturesque scenery and "village way of life" along the way. Bicycles laden with 5 milk cans, oxcarts with conestoga-like covers, colorful longyi spread to dry on a creek bank, stone quarries where workers use fire and water to break up the rock, thatched houses on stilts, women carrying firewood on their heads, trucks filled with cabbages. While stopped at a scenic viewpoint we were passed by a tractor pulling a wagon full of people, a group of kids riding water buffalo, and a Toyota mini-truck with 19 people on the outside, an undetermined number inside! The road climbed to over 4000 feet, entering pine forests.
At dusk the mystifying headlight-flashing ritual begins. They drive with no lights, or just parking lights, until another vehicle approaches. Then they turn their brights on in the oncoming driver's eyes! Our room at the Inle Inn had a deck looking out over the Inle Lake. The room, like most on our trip was pretty basic, but serviceable if you overlooked the un-vacuumed carpets and mouse turds on the sink. The power went out during dinner, so we got to eat my birthday dinner by candlelight.
Sun, 7th - Highlight of this day was our boat tour of Inle Lake. We had a long wooden motor boat all to ourselves with Myitzu. The people of Inle Lake live in two-storey wooden houses on stilts over the water, grow their crops in floating gardens anchored to the lake bottom with bamboo poles, and travel in long hand-made wooden boats, rowing with one leg wrapped around a paddle as they stand on the other at the front of the boat. We visited the Jumping Cat Monastery, on pilings in the middle of the lake. The abbot in his spare time has trained the monastery cats to jump through hoops and over his outstretched arms on command! The monks were happy to demonstrate and the kitties complied (though not overly enthusiastically).
As we motored past the Phaungdaw Oo pagoda in Ywama village, we came upon a colorful "novitiation" ceremony for young boys who were entering training to be monks (and an "ear-holing" ceremony for the sisters of the novices). The celebrants were dressed in bright yellow or pink satin gowns, with elaborate sequined headdresses, wearing lots of makeup, boys and girls alike. They rode in ornately decorated boats to the pagoda, where a monk addressed the novitiates. We also paid visits to a boat-building shop and a hand-weaving factory.
Boni waited with the car at the far end of the lake, and we drove into Taunggyi for lunch. At the restaurant, a girl came up to our table and said "present for you" and gave me a handmade bamboo picture of a Burmese girl! Next, we were taken to a "nursing home", the "Holy Infant Jesus Convent Home" for the poor, aged, abandoned and disabled, a Catholic charity. Sister Beatrice took my hand and led us on a tour, then plied us with homemade sherry and graciously accepted our $10 donation for her good works. Boni is a Christian, and this is one of his favorite charities, but he and Myitzu had never brought guests here before. In a year's worth of guestbook entries, there were only a couple names in English. An unusual place, to be sure.
We drove on in the dark toward Pindaya, where there are some famous caves, and chanced upon a festive candlelit procession of villagers with drums and singing, headed for the local monastery for the final night of the "lighting festival". Since the revelers completely blocked the road, we got out and walked with them while Boni followed in the car. I was enchanted with it all, since it was obviously not staged for tourists, way out in the boondocks, but an authentic ritual enacted for sincere reasons. Hated to get back in the car when they left the road at the monastery, but our room at the Pindaya Inn waited.
Mon, 8th - After a late start (Boni had to change a flat tire), we visited Pindaya Cave, a natural limestone cave filled with over 8000 Buddha images, many carved right out of the limestone formations. The power was out, so we took a candle-lit tour of the cave. A few of the stalactites resonated like drums when struck and there was a pool of water said to cure poor vision if drops are put in the eyes of a good person. If you are a bad person, however, you will go blind! Since the cave was a temple, we had to go barefooted and got quite muddy. We went down to the lake to wash up at the public bathing place. All the villagers take their baths in the lake, wearing their longyi as they bathe. Unknowingly, we both cleaned up at the men's bathing place; the women's place was farther down the shore.
We hit the road for Aung Ban and were lucky enough to arrive for the fifth-day market, which happens only every five days. Very colorful, with Shan people in native costume. Saw an ancient truck with wooden seats and an even more ancient little old lady. On to Heho and the airport. Bad news: Myitzu couldn't get on our flight to Yangon. Foreigners pay in U.S. dollars and get reserved seating; natives pay a lot less in kyats, but must pay in person 24 hours ahead of time, and she hadn't gotten to the ticket office on time. Even "under-table money" couldn't get her on the flight. While we were killing the 4 hours before our flight at the "airport restaurant", we were suddenly rushed to a new, unscheduled flight. Bad weather at another destination had cancelled a flight, so they decided to send it to Yangon instead! We said goodbye to Boni, and Myitzu followed on the next flight.
Back in Yangon we switched hotels to the Kandawgyi Hotel, formerly the British Yacht Club on a lovely lake. We went for a walk, strolling through the zoo and several parks. The Asian otters were a riot, bawling and begging for fish that visitors buy to feed them. We watched the light of the setting sun glow on the gilded stupa of the Shwedagon Pagoda, Myanmar's most venerated temple. Got turned around walking home, so asked a trishaw (bicycle taxi) driver for directions. He unceremoniously dumped his passengers on another driver and took us directly to our hotel! We had a great steak dinner at the hotel's lakeside open-air restaurant and "chocolate" ice cream for dessert.
Tues, 9th - Myitzu and a new driver met us for a city tour of Yangon. Most of the morning was spent at the Shwedagon Pagoda, a huge complex with numerous temples, 68 stupas, and a Boddhawin Hall, a small museum with endless dioramas depicting the Buddha's lives. Saw another pagoda and the Bogyoke Market, a huge indoor market where we picked up some souvenirs. Visited a teak-carving industry and bought some carved bird panels for ourselves. Pizza lunch at the hotel and postcard break, before afternoon touring. More pagodas, followed by sunset on the wharf. At the Botataung Pagoda we participated in a superstitious ritual, tossing coins at baskets on a revolving ornate turntable, the baskets being labelled for the wish you want granted. We were wishing for a safe flight the next day, and aimed for the one labelled "You will be the harmless one." Myitzu got her coin into the "You will win the lottery" basket! Had another good meal at the hotel; the Kandawgyi was one of our favorite hotels on the whole trip.
Wed, 10th - More Yangon sight-seeing. Saw a huge reclining Buddha (called Chauk Htat Gyi), then to the National Museum with its relics spared from the WWII burning of Mandalay by the fact that they'd been taken by the British. There's a gilded lion throne and a collection of gem-studded regalia, stone-age relics, paintings, models of the wooden palaces of Mandalay, displays of indigenous peoples of Myanmar. We went to a hospital unannounced, hoping to see the X-ray department, but without a letter of introduction, the guard wouldn't let us in.
After lunch, to the airport to say goodbye to Myitzu and board a Thai Airways flight to Bangkok, where we checked into the Opera Hotel in the city. The hotel was clean, comfortable, conveniently-located, relatively quiet, and cheap, a pleasant surprise, recommended by our travel agent. Walked six blocks, through the usual clamor and fumes of Bangkok's incredibly heavy traffic, to the Erawan Shrine, which was covered with floral offerings. Heard the crunch of a car-motorcycle accident, and within seconds the seriously wounded cyclist was scooped up and deposited into a "tuk-tuk", a three-wheeled motorcycle taxi, and rushed off to the hospital. There are thousands of motorcyclists in Bangkok. Since automobile traffic is almost completely gridlocked, it's the only way to get anywhere in a hurry, but very dangerous, since they travel between the lanes of cars, constantly changing lanes and crossing right in front of cars.
Thurs, 11th - A day of Bangkok sightseeing. We caught the air-conditioned bus down to the main temple area on the Chao Phraya River. Re-visited Wat Pho with its huge reclining Buddha with the pearl inlaid feet and bronze Buddha on a gilded throne. Explored the grounds and found an open door that led via narrow winding staircases up into a tile-inlaid chedi from which we had tremendous views of the whole temple complex. Took a water taxi across the river to Wat Arun, the Temple of the Dawn, which we had missed on our 1988 visit to Thailand. It is heavily ornamented with broken porcelain plates, used as ballast in Chinese trade ships. Had a good meal of skewered grilled chicken and pork at the market stalls below, and fresh pineapple for dessert. Took an express boat upriver, then walked to the Vimanmek Teak Mansion and the Bangkok Zoo. Cab to hotel for a quick swim, then dinner at a yuppie Thai restaurant. Got a rude surprise today when we tried to reconfirm our Air France flight to Hanoi tomorrow. Air France says they can't take us to Hanoi (even though their agent at the toll-free number made the reservation), because we didn't fly into Bangkok on Air France! They were able to rebook us on Vietnam Airlines, though (which we had deliberately avoided because of safety concerns). We packed up our Burmese treasures to leave in the left-luggage room at the Comfort Hotel near the airport (where we'll be staying after the Vietnam trip) so that we wouldn't have to carry them all over Vietnam....
(see related thread for the Vietnam portion of the travelog)
On Friday, October 29, we boarded our first flight in Montana, only to have a hydraulic problem cause cancellation of the flight! After a desperate call to Delta's toll-free number, our frequent-flier tickets (supposedly good on Delta only) were re-authorized for a Northwest Airlines flight out of Seattle with connections to Seattle via Spokane on a commuter airline leaving Montana in ten minutes. Close one! If we couldn't get to Bangkok on schedule, we'd miss our flight to Burma the next day, and then fail to connect with our Burmese tour operator in time for a scheduled flight to Mandalay the following day! The best part was that we "earned" almost 8000 frequent-flier miles each on Northwest, since the tickets were paid for, by Delta! We finally went to bed in Bangkok after 1 a.m. (on Oct. 30, due to international date line) having gotten up in Montana 35 hours earlier. Stayed at the Comfort Inn near the airport, but no takeoffs and landings between 1:30 and 6:50 a.m.
Sun, 31st - Since we'd been given three conflicting flight times for the Myanmar Air flight we were to take (and the earliest involved getting up too early) we re-booked on an afternoon Thai Airways flight to Yangon. Our late arrival caused some consternation for our tour company, who had not received the telex we sent about the change in plans, and, in fact, hadn't even gotten our confirmation letter sent weeks earlier from Montana. We were lucky anyone was expecting us at all!
Our guide for the next 11 days was Myitzu, a charming, 25-year old Myanmar girl with very good English. We liked her very much and wouldn't have gotten along very well in Burma without her. Or gotten as much out of the trip. Unfortunately, since our letter had never arrived they didn't have the necessary passport numbers to hold our tickets to Mandalay, so our reservations were lost and we had to rearrange our schedule and go a day later than planned. That meant an extra day in Yangon and skipping the old British hill station, Maymyo, but that's life. As my seatmate on the aborted Montana flight said, "If you knew everything that was going to happen on a vacation, why would you even bother to take the trip?"
We were dropped at the Strand Hotel where we had a funky big room in the old section. After the renovations are completed, all the rooms will be $225 per night! Had the evening to ourselves, so we walked to Sule Pagoda, the first of many Burmese Buddhist temples we were to see. Lots of ornamentation, mostly tile and mirrored mosaics, lots of burning candles, flowers, Buddha images and praying people, all barefooted. Us too. Afterwards, we "changed some money". As our Lonely Planet guidebook suggested, Mr. Kimby had hit the duty-free store at the Bangkok airport and bought 4 cartons of 555 brand cigarettes and 4 bottles of Johnny Walker Red Label scotch to sell on the black market in Burma. The official exchange rate is about 7 kyats per U.S. dollar, but black market rate is 100! Selling booze and cigarettes is one way to get the better rate. Even though it was black market, it wasn't scary. The young entrepreneurs who buy the stuff carry huge wads of cash and act quite professional. (This practice no longer applies, I have heard.)
Mon, Nov. 1st - Took a day trip to Bago, formerly Pegu, a village outside Yangon with gilded pagodas, Shwemawdaw and Mahazedi, a huge reclining Buddha, the Shwethalyaung, and a big market. Stopped at a nat shrine (devoted to angel-worshipping, a religion older than Buddhism and often practiced concurrently), and saw the Alien Soldiers Cemetery. Mr. Kimby bought flipflops at the Bago market; with all the temples, we'll be taking off our shoes constantly. Saw the scrawniest horses pulling grossly overloaded tongas, carriages used as taxis. Back to Yangon for sunset at Lake Inwa, watching boys play an aggressive game with kites in which they try to encircle their opponent's kite string with theirs and cut it loose by abrasion. Then Myitzu took us to her family's home. Twelve people from three generations live in a two-story urban apartment. We got the impression that, by Burmese standards, they are pretty well off. We were served pickled tea leaves, a traditional dish of hospitality. Back to the Strand Hotel.
Tues, 2nd - Myitzu met us in the lobby at 5 a.m. To airport in dark to fly on an old Fokker F28 to Mandalay with a stop in Bagan (Pagan). Our guidebook said Myanmar Air had a marginal safety record, but we had no problems. (After we got home, I found an old 1988 State Department advisory that said three planes had crashed in the previous 12 months!) In Mandalay, we met up with Boni, our driver for most of the trip. Nice young man, with modern tastes in clothing and a fondness for old American pop music (Never on Sunday, Que Sera Sera, Rock around the Clock, etc.) which he played on the car cassette player constantly. Checked into a nice suite at the Inwa Hotel in Mandalay. Power was out, a common occurrence in Burma.
Toured Mandalay with Myitzu and Boni, visiting a weaving factory where they make the longyi, a monastery of carved teak, and the ruins of the "Incomparable Monastery" (where a monk and his disciples walked colorfully right into our picture). Saw the Kuthodaw Pagoda which is regarded as the world's largest book with its 729 stone tablets of Buddhist scriptures. (Here we donated a small sum of money for gold leaf to be applied to the stupa, a means of acquiring "merit" for Buddhists.) Tasted a drink made from pressed sugar cane which we didn't much like. (And later realized might be the cause of our impending intestinal distress.) Drove up a twisting road to the top of Mandalay Hill, honking all the way. Interesting temples, beautiful view.
After lunch we "paid visit to village way of life", as Myitzu says. Watched water buffalos pulling teak logs up a muddy track from the river, people bathing and washing clothes along the shore (next to a floating latrine!) and fishing with cast nets. The women (and children) in Burma wear a strange concoction called "thanakha" made from ground sandalwood bark. They smear it unevenly, or in patterns, on their cheeks, foreheads and necks, "to feel cool and to look beautiful," Myitzu said. (I thought it looked comically grotesque. But they don't care what the rest of the world might think, they like it.) We strolled through the downtown market and passed a big meeting room with a wedding reception going on inside. As we tried to peek in we were noticed, and instead of being run off, we were invited in as honored guests, served tea and cakes, introduced to the bride and groom and captured on videotape! Next, to an embroidery factory (sweatshop is more like it) where young girls labor in poor light six days a week for $3 per week doing elaborate work. (We purchased a lovely embroidered peacock for about 1/20th the cost of framing it once we got home.) We ate dinner that night at the Floating Barge Restaurant, and foolishly ordered seafood (freshwater shrimp), which might be what gave us food poisoning, if it wasn't the sugarcane drink.
Wed, 3rd - Hired a boat to go up the Ayeyarwady River to Mingun, passing villages of thatched huts on mid-river islands. Toured a rest home for the elderly, picking up an entourage of children who held our hands and chattered constantly, selling "Buddha" (incense sticks and candles) for the nearby temple. The brick Mingun Pagoda would have been the world's largest pagoda, had it been completed. While we were in the inner chamber with our lively entourage, a group of Italian tourists entered and began loudly shushing the kids, even rapping them on their heads! I was stunned. They weren't bothering us, we were enjoying interacting with them. Perhaps the Italians had been travelling too long....
Had a big chinese lunch in Sagaing (we didn't yet know we were sick) then visited an unusual breast-shaped pagoda called Kaunghmudaw. Drove up Sagaing Hill for a lovely view and more shrines. At the Thirty Caves Pagoda, our 30-cent donation bought a marble tile for refurbishing the floor. At Amarapura, we took a wooden boat (rowed with crossed oars by a forward-facing standing oarsman) across the lake to the ruined Kyauktawgyi Pagoda with its marble Buddha. We returned via a very long 200-year-old rickety teak footbridge, U Bein's bridge, at sunset. On the way back to the hotel, we started feeling queasy, but assumed it was motion sickness from the bridge. Not! After depositing my lunch in the gutter, I was up all night visiting the bathroom. Mr. Kimby was ill, too, with a high temperature. Not a very restful night.
Thurs, 4th - We were supposed to get up at 4:30 a.m. for a 5:30 launch of the steamer to Pagan, but at 3:30, I went to Myitzu and told her we'd better sleep in and ride in the car with Boni instead. The steamer takes 14 hours, and the private cabin we'd reserved had been pre-empted by "guests of the government". We hated to miss out on the scenery (and forfeit the $100), but we were in no condition to sit on a boat's deck for 14 hours! Finally got some rest, getting up around 10 and hitting the road for Pagan before noon, fortified with 7-up and Imodium. (The Imodium saved the trip, allowing us to tour all day without problems, though we often relapsed at night.)
The scenery ended up being very nice from the road. But Burmese driving habits are so strange. They drive on the right like we do, but the steering wheel is on the right side of the car, like the British. So they can't see if it's okay to pass until they've pulled all the way into the other lane! They use their turn signals backwards - not to indicate what they intend to do, but apparently to tell the driver behind them what to do. (If it's okay for you to pass, the vehicle ahead puts on its left signal. If we came up behind a truck and couldn't pass, Boni would flick on his right signal.) There aren't many cars on the road, but lots of trucks, and most of the time the pavement is only one lane wide, so every time you meet another vehicle you have to pull over and stop. Boni honked almost constantly, at anything that moved. (If you hit someone's pig or chicken, you have to pay them for it.) Based on his driving, we decided Boni was the "Flying Dragon" the company was named for!
There were lots of bullock carts on the road, and herds of cows and goats, and people walking or on bicycles (two or even three per bike). Burmese people don't own cars, they ride in buses that are actually modified Toyota mini-pickups with up to 40 people on them! (3 on the seat, 7 on each bench in the back, 5 on stools down the middle, 12-14 on the roof rack and 6-8 clinging to the sides and back!) The driver won't even set out with fewer than 20! We passed one truck so overloaded that its front wheels lifted off the ground when it hit bumps in the road.
We bought black-market petrol out of small unmarked drums for $8 a gallon, because not even tour companies get enough ration coupons for fuel to get from one place to another. We saw narrow gauge railroads with manually-operated crossings. At every village, people stood along the roads with urns, collecting donations for festivals or their monastery or for free-lance road-maintenance. Whenever they felt like donating, or to give "pocket money" to small children, Myitzu and Boni just tossed small bills out the window, without even slowing down.
Buddhism seems to be an ideal system for poor countries. Instead of resenting his lot in life, a peasant farmer strives to be a good peasant farmer so that he'll accumulate merit and will earn a better position in the next life. Myitzu says stealing just isn't done, and crime is very low. The Burmese also seem to have a close-knit society. Many times Myitzu and Boni would have long, animated conversations with other Burmese, and when we'd ask if they were friends, they'd say they had never met before, but all Myanmar people are friends.
We arrived in Pagan around 6, beating the steamer passengers by a half-hour, and checked into a bungalow at the Thiripitsaya Inn. We gingerly ate a Burmese dinner of pork curry and eggplant, not bad except it was standing in grease. Caught the tail end of a Burmese marionette show and walked down to the river in the dark.
Fri, 5th - Bright and early, we visited the village of Nyaung-Oo to see their market. Smelly salted fish, mounds of fish paste and other unidentifiable commodities, plus the usual displays of fresh veggies. Next, to the gilded Shwezigon Pagoda whose stupa is the prototype for modern Burmese pagodas. Saw lots of 13th century pagodas during the rest of the day, and Myitzu took our Christmas card picture from the top of one called Sulamani. I had brought lipsticks and perfumes to trade with (as suggested in the guidebook) and got three nested hand-etched lacquer boxes for one lipstick. Ananda temple has four standing Buddhas of gilded teak, one of which appears to frown when you stand right below him, but smiles when you step a distance back from him. We visited a lacquerware industry and saw how they apply the coats of lacquer over forms of woven bamboo strips and horsehair, then etch in the designs and color them.
Lunch of beef curry at the hotel and a rest break during the heat of the day, then back out for more temples. There's over 2000 of them left out of 13,000 that were built within 40 square kilometers between 1057 and 1287 A.D. Some of the more interesting ones were the Seinnyet Temple and Seinnyet Pagoda, built by two sisters, each with an equal number of bricks so that they'd each get equal merit (however one sister stole bricks from the other, hoping to increase her merit), Thatbyinnyu with its "tally temple" alongside, built of one brick for every 10,000 used in the main temple, and Manuha temple, built by a captive king and containing gigantic Buddha images in cramped spaces, representing his captivity. We watched the sun set from the top of Thatbyinnyu, casting golden light on the other temples. A "stupa-fying" day!
Attended an excellent cultural show after dinner with traditional musicians, dancers and marionettes. Back at the hotel, I got up to use the bathroom in the night and discovered a small rat in the toilet! I tried to flush him (twice!) but when he refused to flush I had no choice but to rescue him and set him free outside. I'd never heard of sewer rats, and assumed he'd fallen through the skylight and landed in the john.
Sat, 6th - Began my fortieth birthday with a morning horse-carriage ride to four more temples in Pagan. Then we checked out and hit the road for Inle Lake. More picturesque scenery and "village way of life" along the way. Bicycles laden with 5 milk cans, oxcarts with conestoga-like covers, colorful longyi spread to dry on a creek bank, stone quarries where workers use fire and water to break up the rock, thatched houses on stilts, women carrying firewood on their heads, trucks filled with cabbages. While stopped at a scenic viewpoint we were passed by a tractor pulling a wagon full of people, a group of kids riding water buffalo, and a Toyota mini-truck with 19 people on the outside, an undetermined number inside! The road climbed to over 4000 feet, entering pine forests.
At dusk the mystifying headlight-flashing ritual begins. They drive with no lights, or just parking lights, until another vehicle approaches. Then they turn their brights on in the oncoming driver's eyes! Our room at the Inle Inn had a deck looking out over the Inle Lake. The room, like most on our trip was pretty basic, but serviceable if you overlooked the un-vacuumed carpets and mouse turds on the sink. The power went out during dinner, so we got to eat my birthday dinner by candlelight.
Sun, 7th - Highlight of this day was our boat tour of Inle Lake. We had a long wooden motor boat all to ourselves with Myitzu. The people of Inle Lake live in two-storey wooden houses on stilts over the water, grow their crops in floating gardens anchored to the lake bottom with bamboo poles, and travel in long hand-made wooden boats, rowing with one leg wrapped around a paddle as they stand on the other at the front of the boat. We visited the Jumping Cat Monastery, on pilings in the middle of the lake. The abbot in his spare time has trained the monastery cats to jump through hoops and over his outstretched arms on command! The monks were happy to demonstrate and the kitties complied (though not overly enthusiastically).
As we motored past the Phaungdaw Oo pagoda in Ywama village, we came upon a colorful "novitiation" ceremony for young boys who were entering training to be monks (and an "ear-holing" ceremony for the sisters of the novices). The celebrants were dressed in bright yellow or pink satin gowns, with elaborate sequined headdresses, wearing lots of makeup, boys and girls alike. They rode in ornately decorated boats to the pagoda, where a monk addressed the novitiates. We also paid visits to a boat-building shop and a hand-weaving factory.
Boni waited with the car at the far end of the lake, and we drove into Taunggyi for lunch. At the restaurant, a girl came up to our table and said "present for you" and gave me a handmade bamboo picture of a Burmese girl! Next, we were taken to a "nursing home", the "Holy Infant Jesus Convent Home" for the poor, aged, abandoned and disabled, a Catholic charity. Sister Beatrice took my hand and led us on a tour, then plied us with homemade sherry and graciously accepted our $10 donation for her good works. Boni is a Christian, and this is one of his favorite charities, but he and Myitzu had never brought guests here before. In a year's worth of guestbook entries, there were only a couple names in English. An unusual place, to be sure.
We drove on in the dark toward Pindaya, where there are some famous caves, and chanced upon a festive candlelit procession of villagers with drums and singing, headed for the local monastery for the final night of the "lighting festival". Since the revelers completely blocked the road, we got out and walked with them while Boni followed in the car. I was enchanted with it all, since it was obviously not staged for tourists, way out in the boondocks, but an authentic ritual enacted for sincere reasons. Hated to get back in the car when they left the road at the monastery, but our room at the Pindaya Inn waited.
Mon, 8th - After a late start (Boni had to change a flat tire), we visited Pindaya Cave, a natural limestone cave filled with over 8000 Buddha images, many carved right out of the limestone formations. The power was out, so we took a candle-lit tour of the cave. A few of the stalactites resonated like drums when struck and there was a pool of water said to cure poor vision if drops are put in the eyes of a good person. If you are a bad person, however, you will go blind! Since the cave was a temple, we had to go barefooted and got quite muddy. We went down to the lake to wash up at the public bathing place. All the villagers take their baths in the lake, wearing their longyi as they bathe. Unknowingly, we both cleaned up at the men's bathing place; the women's place was farther down the shore.
We hit the road for Aung Ban and were lucky enough to arrive for the fifth-day market, which happens only every five days. Very colorful, with Shan people in native costume. Saw an ancient truck with wooden seats and an even more ancient little old lady. On to Heho and the airport. Bad news: Myitzu couldn't get on our flight to Yangon. Foreigners pay in U.S. dollars and get reserved seating; natives pay a lot less in kyats, but must pay in person 24 hours ahead of time, and she hadn't gotten to the ticket office on time. Even "under-table money" couldn't get her on the flight. While we were killing the 4 hours before our flight at the "airport restaurant", we were suddenly rushed to a new, unscheduled flight. Bad weather at another destination had cancelled a flight, so they decided to send it to Yangon instead! We said goodbye to Boni, and Myitzu followed on the next flight.
Back in Yangon we switched hotels to the Kandawgyi Hotel, formerly the British Yacht Club on a lovely lake. We went for a walk, strolling through the zoo and several parks. The Asian otters were a riot, bawling and begging for fish that visitors buy to feed them. We watched the light of the setting sun glow on the gilded stupa of the Shwedagon Pagoda, Myanmar's most venerated temple. Got turned around walking home, so asked a trishaw (bicycle taxi) driver for directions. He unceremoniously dumped his passengers on another driver and took us directly to our hotel! We had a great steak dinner at the hotel's lakeside open-air restaurant and "chocolate" ice cream for dessert.
Tues, 9th - Myitzu and a new driver met us for a city tour of Yangon. Most of the morning was spent at the Shwedagon Pagoda, a huge complex with numerous temples, 68 stupas, and a Boddhawin Hall, a small museum with endless dioramas depicting the Buddha's lives. Saw another pagoda and the Bogyoke Market, a huge indoor market where we picked up some souvenirs. Visited a teak-carving industry and bought some carved bird panels for ourselves. Pizza lunch at the hotel and postcard break, before afternoon touring. More pagodas, followed by sunset on the wharf. At the Botataung Pagoda we participated in a superstitious ritual, tossing coins at baskets on a revolving ornate turntable, the baskets being labelled for the wish you want granted. We were wishing for a safe flight the next day, and aimed for the one labelled "You will be the harmless one." Myitzu got her coin into the "You will win the lottery" basket! Had another good meal at the hotel; the Kandawgyi was one of our favorite hotels on the whole trip.
Wed, 10th - More Yangon sight-seeing. Saw a huge reclining Buddha (called Chauk Htat Gyi), then to the National Museum with its relics spared from the WWII burning of Mandalay by the fact that they'd been taken by the British. There's a gilded lion throne and a collection of gem-studded regalia, stone-age relics, paintings, models of the wooden palaces of Mandalay, displays of indigenous peoples of Myanmar. We went to a hospital unannounced, hoping to see the X-ray department, but without a letter of introduction, the guard wouldn't let us in.
After lunch, to the airport to say goodbye to Myitzu and board a Thai Airways flight to Bangkok, where we checked into the Opera Hotel in the city. The hotel was clean, comfortable, conveniently-located, relatively quiet, and cheap, a pleasant surprise, recommended by our travel agent. Walked six blocks, through the usual clamor and fumes of Bangkok's incredibly heavy traffic, to the Erawan Shrine, which was covered with floral offerings. Heard the crunch of a car-motorcycle accident, and within seconds the seriously wounded cyclist was scooped up and deposited into a "tuk-tuk", a three-wheeled motorcycle taxi, and rushed off to the hospital. There are thousands of motorcyclists in Bangkok. Since automobile traffic is almost completely gridlocked, it's the only way to get anywhere in a hurry, but very dangerous, since they travel between the lanes of cars, constantly changing lanes and crossing right in front of cars.
Thurs, 11th - A day of Bangkok sightseeing. We caught the air-conditioned bus down to the main temple area on the Chao Phraya River. Re-visited Wat Pho with its huge reclining Buddha with the pearl inlaid feet and bronze Buddha on a gilded throne. Explored the grounds and found an open door that led via narrow winding staircases up into a tile-inlaid chedi from which we had tremendous views of the whole temple complex. Took a water taxi across the river to Wat Arun, the Temple of the Dawn, which we had missed on our 1988 visit to Thailand. It is heavily ornamented with broken porcelain plates, used as ballast in Chinese trade ships. Had a good meal of skewered grilled chicken and pork at the market stalls below, and fresh pineapple for dessert. Took an express boat upriver, then walked to the Vimanmek Teak Mansion and the Bangkok Zoo. Cab to hotel for a quick swim, then dinner at a yuppie Thai restaurant. Got a rude surprise today when we tried to reconfirm our Air France flight to Hanoi tomorrow. Air France says they can't take us to Hanoi (even though their agent at the toll-free number made the reservation), because we didn't fly into Bangkok on Air France! They were able to rebook us on Vietnam Airlines, though (which we had deliberately avoided because of safety concerns). We packed up our Burmese treasures to leave in the left-luggage room at the Comfort Hotel near the airport (where we'll be staying after the Vietnam trip) so that we wouldn't have to carry them all over Vietnam....
(see related thread for the Vietnam portion of the travelog)
You rescued a rat?! >>shudder<<