Mike and I had an early morning flight from KL to Yangon, Myanmar's former capital city. If this doesn't sound too familiar, the country used to be known as Burma, and Yangon used to be known as Rangoon; but when the powerful military Junta came into power in 1989, they changed the names. This military junta remained in power until 2011, just 2 years prior to our arrival.
This confusing nomenclature is not where the backwardness ends in this developing nation. Upon entering our taxi, we quickly noticed that our cab had British-style steering (on the right) but drove on the right hand side of the road (like in North America), so the drivers had a gigantic blind spot and we stayed on the cusp of disaster with every second in this car.
Another interesting tidbit of information is that Myanmar is one of the only 3 nations on earth to still use the Imperial system, the others being Liberia and the mighty USA.
What was quite refreshing, however, was that on the drive we didn't pass any major brands on billboards or familiar restaurants. We later found out that Visa, MasterCard, Pepsi and Coke were making inroads into the country as we were there, but it still felt like we were really entering uncharted territory on the South East Asian backpacker route. At this present time (April 2013), western tourists were only allowed to enter the country by plane in order to accurately account for all visitors.
Another confounding factor is that we were informed that outside of the airport there were not any international ATMs and that we would have to bring in all of our crisp, unbent, brand-new US Dollars in order to exchange it at the airport or on the black market into Burmese Kyat. I ran around like a madman in KL trying to find the most pristine bills possible, and even gave Mike shit regarding how imperfect his bills were. In the end, they eagerly took our crisp or semi-crisp USDs and gave us a very fair amount of Kyat.
The taxi dropped us off at our hostel, the much-hyped White House Hotel, boasting Asia's best breakfast. Although very good, it had way too much fruit for my liking. What was quite great about the hotel was its central location where we could walk to all the inner city sights; and its beautiful view.
Our arrival coincided with the middle portion of Thingyan or the Burmese water festival. While this sounds pretty cool, and it is, it also means that virtually all restaurants and shops are closed, making our culinary choices really limited. Mike being very picky to begin with was particularly inconvenienced by the lack of options.
What Thingyan also means is that the temples are packed to the gills with people and action. Since Myanmar is renown for its Buddhist temples and devout religious population, we were in for a cultural treat!
We started our tour of Yangon with the Mahabandoola Garden surrounded by the Independence monument, the Yangon High Court, and the impressive city hall.
From here we made our way to Sule Paya or the Sule Pagoda right in the middle of the city, actually sitting in the middle of a traffic circle. Remarkably, this structure is a 2000-year old temple. The 46m zedi, or stupa can be seen from all over the city.
It was quite impressive to see all the intricate ornamentation and blinding gold on this ancient structure, all the while fending off monks begging for money for giving "tours", aka just pointing at things.
Next we walked through Chinatown and briefly looked at the Kheng Hock Keong temple, but seeing as though we came from Malaysia, we were kind of over Chinese temples.
We found our way to the waterfront and admired Burmese people just going about their daily business.
That afternoon we made our way to Yangon's most famous and most impressive structure, the Shwedagon Paya.
This fantastically amazing pagoda has been a symbol of Burmese faith and pride for 2500 years. It's central 98m tall stupa and 82 other buildings are truly awe inspiring. It is said that the top of it contains 5000 diamonds and 2000 other stones.
I forgot to mention the 53 metric tons of gold-leaf pasted to its structure. So this is not only one physically and religiously valuable structure, but its monetarily value is also through the roof. It also apparently contains 8 hairs of the original Buddha but we didn't see them, but we weren't splitting hairs (bad pun intended).
Being here with the throngs of worshippers as the sun gently started to set was truly a unique and magical experience and with very few to no whities, it was beyond compare.
Our following day was spent just wandering around the city, getting a feel for the local culture. We checked out a small artisan market but most shops were closed because of the festival.
That same evening, we took a local bus to the small village of Kinpun, the basecamp for Kyaiktiyo, or the Golden Rock on top of Mt. Kyaiktiyo. The first bus was rather typical and played videos of Burmese lyrics with Bon jovi melodies, and white people dancing in bathing suits. We were then transferred into a small pick-up truck where I was literally hanging for dear life as my ass was dangling over the side of the speeding truck. We finally arrived after dark and speedily found the cheapest room we could because we wouldn't be sleeping there for too long. We were planning on heading out before sunrise to start the 11km uphill hike.
The day didn't start off very promising because as soon as we started the uphill trek, I saw a scorpion lying on the path. At least this would motivate me to finish this hike as quickly as we could.
This walk represents a pilgrimage to many Burmese monks and civilians alike. One of the highlights was passing red-clad monks and other pilgrims on their ascent and saying Mingguhlaba (or hello in Burmese) while smiling.
For those who are too weak, old, frail or lazy, there is a little truck that can take passengers up to the summit and back down again. I was quite impressed by Mike's performance on the hike. I had done another hike with him in the Pyrenees mountains of Andorra 4 years prior and he was practically on the verge of tears on the way up. This time, he was leading the way!
Upon arriving at the summit, we could easily see why people flock here in the thousands. The Golden Rock itself is huge and precariously balanced at the edge of a cliff, having withstood numerous earthquakes and said to be topped by a strand of Buddha's hair. It is said to be Myanmar's 3rd holiest site.
Male pilgrims were sticking little pieces of gold leaf onto it and it had a very impressive shine. What was unfortunate is that despite the fact that Mike and myself were not Buddhist, but being males, we had a right to go up and touch it, while even female Buddhist monks had to stand behind a rope.
I guess regardless of the religion there still exists a great deal of Patriarchy.
We took one of those little trucks down because we were in a rush. As soon as we got down, we hopped into a little van and were on our way to Bago, the next stop on our Burmese adventure.
Bago was founded in 573 and contains quite a wide variety of stupas, temples, Buddhas and monasteries.
Since we arrived at night we arranged for a day tour with a local guide through our hotel. It is usually advised to explore by bike, but we were on a tight schedule so we opted for motorcycle guides.
Our first stop was the immense Mya Tha Lyaung reclining Buddha, which at over 50m long, is quite the impressive structure. Although the paint job looks pretty tacky, the structure underneath dates back hundreds of years and only looks like it's out of the 70s due to more recent renovations (aka poorly thought out paint-jobs).
We continued to visit other pagodas of different eras and designs and then headed to the Kyaly Khat Wai monastery. We got to see the scores of monks living ascetic lives as they are required to do under Buddhist doctrine.
Our next stop of the day was Shwemawdaw Paya, the most impressive in stature of the day's many religious temples and structures.
Our final stop of the day was a snake temple that contained a gigantic Burmese python which people threw money on in order to grant them good luck, or fertility or some other attribute that people often wish for.
Once back at our hotel, we got onto yet another night bus, this one headed to Kalaw, the starting point of our trek to the famous Inle Lake.
Our bus rolled up to Kalaw at some ungodly hour in the morning and it was ridiculously cold out. It's location on the Shan plateau means it has a much cooler temperature than the rest of the country. We banged on the door of a nearby guest house, the Golden Lily, and managed to secure a room. We slept a few hours until the air warmed up and proceeded to check out the town.
Kalaw itself was extremely small and essentially consisted of one main street. It's main touristic purpose was to act as the starting point for hiking towards Inle Lake. I spent a little time exploring the town, checking out the cute little railway station and some little pagodas while Mike went to work out in a park and was drawing the attention of some local highschoolers: the boys wanted to be like him and the girls wanted to be with him. The highlight was playing soccer with a group of baby/child monks in a temple complex. It was one of those moments that I will always remember from my time in this beautiful country.
We spoke to the owner of our hotel and decided to do the 2 day trek to Inle lake. This particular hike cut out the initial, uninteresting portion of the walk by driving us to the more scenic portion. Seeing as though the drive was around 1.5 hours at a pretty slow speed, I'm guessing we had made the right decision. We were joined by a Dutch couple named Thijs and Petra.
The start of the hike was boring and incredibly arid, seeing as though this was the dry, hot season in South east Asia. It was fascinating, however, to see the local people tending to these arid fields in their beautifully coloured clothing.
Our wonderful guide Puta, who is the farthest thing from a Latino prostitute despite his name, finally led us to what looked like an abandoned monastery, where young monks were chopping wood. We were told this is where we would be spending the night. We ended up sitting around a fire drinking warm beers that Puta was able to get us, and then we ended up sleeping on the floor.
The next day we continued to descend towards Inle lake and could see some golden stupas in the distance. We were getting closer.
Puta let us explore some of these stupas and before we knew it we were at the shore of Inle Lake and were on our way to Nyaungshwe, where we would be staying the night.
This boat ride was our first taste of the splendour that is Inle lake with their mythical leg-rowing fisherman, who use one leg wrapped around a paddle to gracefully glide through the waters of the beautiful lake.
That night Mike and I explored a small temple before calling it a night.
The following morning we were back on the river early in the morning and had some difficulty getting out of the already bustling main canal due to low water levels.
Soon we were back on the water and enjoying the amazing dance that exists between the fishermen and the lake.
We continued on and soon were surrounded by floating gardens, where Intha farmers raise flowers, fruits and vegetables on floating mats.
We soon approached another canal and were surrounded by a stilt village and visited a weaving factory and jewellery shop. In this shop were two young girls both coming from the Kayan Lahwi group. If this name doesn't ring a bell, this is the group where the women wear the large metal rings around their necks that give them the appearance that they have super long necks. Their necks are actually normal length but the coils deform their clavicles to the point where it looks like they have giraffe-like necks. Poor girls.
This tribe comes from Shan state and these women came to Inle Lake to work in the tourist industry. You could take your picture with them for a small fee or tip, but I felt bad about exploiting them so I opted to forgo the pic, even though I really wanted to get photographic proof.
We also stopped at a very bustling riverside market and a floating monastery where the monks teach cats how to jump through hoops (don't ask me why that exists in Myanmar).
We enjoyed the tranquility of Nyaungshwe and Inle Lake while it lasted because before we knew it, we would be heading to Myanmar's second city, Mandalay.
Judging by the shear majesty, incredible sights and culture we witnessed on our first week in Myanmar, I could hardly wait to explore this wonderful country even more!
No comments:
Post a Comment