Spending time in Temple(s), that is.
Up bright and early. Scratch that, just early. Awoke at 2:30 and could not go back to sleep. No matter, just a short way to the 4:30 wake-up call and heading down to meet my guide and driver at 5. Into the airport for check-in (and they rock it so old school, most of you can’t remember what that was like), put my bag through the security machine and headed into the waiting area. Not much english spoken, so pretty much just waited for the dude to walk around with a sign, upon which he pasted the flight number that was being called. Fun!
It’s been a while since I flew on a propeller plane (Nantucket nothwithstanding), and it was a smooth ride up north to Nyaung U. So, if I though that the boarding call with a sign was old school, baggage handling was positively primitive! They had only a few larger carts, loaded with baggage for outgoing flights. After we walked into the terminal, we waiting hand delivery of bags. And I mean that each porter walked out to the runway, picked up two or 3 bags that he could handle, then rolled them all the way to where we were waiting in the terminal. As you might imagine, this took quite a while, but was very entertaining as well. Once my bag was rolled in, I joined my guide in our car and off we went.
First stop (after all, it was only 8 in the morning!) was in Old Bagan, referred to officially as the “Bagan Archeological Zone”, and occupies a 26 square mile area 118 miles south of Mandalay and 429 miles north of Yangon. The Ayeyarwady River drifts lazily by and is chock full of historical significance. Bagan itself was a capital of Burma, beginning in 1047 and ending as the footfall of Kubla Khan’s raiders approached in 1287 (yes, that’s a quote) and contains thousands of temples and stupas, many dating back to the 12th century. The two and a half centuries of temple building coincided with the region’s transition from Hindu and Mahayana Buddhist beliefs to Theravada Buddhist beliefs that have since pervaded Myanmar (98% of the country is Buddhist). First Buddhist Temple is the Shwezigon Paya.
These golden spires compare easily to Shwedagon, but being much smaller in scope, it’s more accessible. We visit the different rooms/structures, each with their own Buddha and prayer groups. Once again, corners are critical in the layout of hte Temple, with a shrine in each of the cardinal points, housing a 13-foot high bronze standing Buddha. And then there’s the Buddha under the tree, symbolic of where Prince Siddhartha achieved enlightenment so many years ago.
Back in the car, we are working our way toward the hotel. next stop is the Mani-Sithu market, which is teeming with greenery – the edible kind! Along with betel nut leaves (rolled and chewed by a huge majority of the population, for energy, taste and additction, I’m told):
The roughly-hewn stalls are filled with watercress, longbeans, lobster beans, aubergines large and small (but only the tiny ones – and i mean the size of tangerines – are actually the deep purple that we know so well), shallots, cauliflower, potatoes, garlic, carrots, more green leafy stuff that i don’t exactly recognize, dried fish
and peanut paste, salted fishes, recently living fishes of all sizes and shapes, chicken, chicken parts, rice, plastic bags with unidentifiable stuff in it, and eggs. And I don’t mean your garden-variety brown or white eggs, either. There are those, plus dove eggs, quail eggs, big eggs and small eggs. Do you like them in a bowl? Do you like them on a roll? And as always, the local women, with experience and life etched on their faces:
Some touristy items and dry goods, but pretty much everyone here is in business to do business. As you may have noticed in a few of the pictures, it is the custom for women to smear a yellow-y substance on their cheeks that is both traditional and protective. The “make-up” is taken from a tree branch slice (on table in front of this little girl) that is then rubbed on a wet stone.
Lots of great pictures and questions about “what is that?”, when I rounded a corner to come upon a stall where food was being prepared. You know me…I asked my guide to please order me something, and he selected some monhinga (the traditional breakfast soup of the country, with rice noodles swimming in a green curry broth with bits of dried fish and topped with fried onions, chilis and a squeeze of lime) for me. Eating a dish that was hot and cooked seemed safer. My first bowl of monhinga!
I invited him to join me and he had a noodle salad – egg noodles hand-mixed with chili sauce and served with a bowl of the curry soup on the side.
Sated, we continued our walk through the covered market walkways and emerged onto the street, where goods were laid out with more traditional storefronts behind. Rice, rice and more rice! Back to the car, and off to Shwegugyi, or Golden Cave Temple, built approximately in 1131, which is replete with hand-painted murals along the walls and across the ceiling.
It is easy to see the original brick, which was covered with coarse plaster, and then with fine plaster, before painting stories of the Buddha (seeing a theme emerge here?). There are smaller Buddhas in wall niches, and larger ones in the front and back. On the outside are incredibly detailed carvings, all of which is surrounded by handicraft stalls, places especially convenient for tourists! And if I haven’t said elsewhere, Bagan is also known as land of 4,000 Temples, as you can see some of the evidence in the roadside snapshot:
I am beginning to wear down, what with my 11:30 bedtime and 2:30 wake-up, but I soldier on. The guide has our driver stop on the roadside so I can snap a photo of a particularly prolific Temple site, and as we continue to drive on to the hotel, there are monasteries and Temples everywhere I look. We pass through a small cluster of roadside restaurants and handicraft stores and through the Tharabar Gate, the best-preserved remains of a 9th Century wall, and the only gate still standing from and ancient palace.
We arrive at the hotel, and I am saddened by my room. I know the tour company is so pleased to have secured the Prince of Wales suite for me, but two large rooms for little old me is a bit lonesome. I fail to swap my grand, musty old rooms for a much smaller garden accommodation and resign myself to my digs (and of course the room I will be in the longest while in Myanmar). I am feeling so out of sorts by this point, I ask the driver and guide to accompany me to lunch at the Moon vegetarian restaurant, and then bring me back to the hotel to rest for the afternoon. I order poorly, but the restaurant is delightful and I will return once in better spirits to sample the Myanmar salads and specialties.
Believe it or not, I enter my room at 2 pm, and do not leave until the next morning at 6:45 am. I sleep off and on, force myself up to send a few emails and watch “Home Alone” on tv so I don’t end up waking at 4 am or something just as dysfunctional. The sound of voices wakes me at 11:10, and I call down to the front office just as they cease. More voices at 5:30 am and I realize I can hear them yakking in the reception area. Oh my, will have to work hard to make the best of it. Have to pull out the super duper earplugs to shut out the yak and the music (riverfront restaurant starts serving at 6 am and I think it’s the setup crew I hear).
Ready for a great day tomorrow and much better spirits!