Chapter 32 - Yangon and Mandalay

In March, Myanmar is still in the hot season and from the window of the aircraft we could see paddy after paddy with scorched brown rice stalks sticking out of the baking soil. The airport taxi driver tried to impress us with 'Myanmar' music on the way to downtown Yangon (Rangoon) and played an imitation tape of U2. He was also the first of many Manchester United fans we were to meet in Myanmar. Strangely enough nobody has heard of Middlesbrough FC in this country!

We drove along University Avenue and past the lakeside house where the famous Nobel Peace Prize winner and leader of the National Democracy League (NLD) Aung San Suu Kyi is confined under house arrest. She has been imprisoned for 12 out of the last 18 years.

Yangon surprised us with its sheer size. Its 5 million inhabitants are spread out over a wide area. Yangon was the capital of Myanmar until a surprise announcement in 2005 declared the changing of the capital from Yangon to Naypyidaw - a new city 400km to the north being especially constructed to entrench and allow the military junta to control the country from the centre (not forgetting the advice from General Than Shwe's personal astrologer).

Myanmar has strict currency regulations- only fresh crisp US dollars are allowed to be changed into local Kyats. US dollars are also accepted as payment in hotels, for transport and many other things. Needless to say Kyats were needed as soon as possible. Downtown Yangon still has plenty of colonial buildings but now modern Chinese hotels and office blocks are encroaching on the centre. The suburbs resemble huge extended villages with homesteads made from teak and palm leaves.

We went to Shwedagon Pagoda that first evening on 6^th March. It is an awesome sight in the evening light. The tip of the pagoda shined as pilgrims and Yangon residents circumambulated and stopped for prayers. It is a place of peace and tranquility for Burmese people's. 90% of Myanmar's 58 million people are Buddhist (the Theravada branch) and 9% are Christian (mainly people from the hill tribes) and the rest are Muslim or Hindu. There are as many as 135 ethnic groups in Myanmar of whom the Bamar (where the name Burma and Burmese comes from) are the largest, forming 2/3 of the population.

At Shwedagon Pagoda a Buddhist monk from the Rakhaing minority (from the western Rakhaing State) called Joti approached us in order to practice his English. After a friendly discussion we agreed to meet him the next day at his monastery. We went there the next morning and Joti was proud to show us around and introduce us to his monk friends. We were treated to a Kung Fu show, fortune telling by a wise old monk (maybe not that wise - he just wanted a laugh!), and lunch. They were all extremely affable and were thirsty for knowledge about our home countries.

That evening we caught a night bus to Mandalay, Myanmar's second city with a population of 1 million. The air conditioning on the coach caused Laure to catch a bad cold but Laure refused to let that ruin her time in Mandalay. We wandered around the markets in Mandalay and it was here where we first tried betel chewing. The betel 'chewing gum' is made from the areca nut, lime, wild pepper seeds and aromatic barks. This felt like the effect of drinking 10 cans of Red Bull one after another and it went straight to our heads. Its unusually sour taste compelled us to propel red tinted deposits of saliva onto the pavement like true Burmese people. Finally we understood this ubiquitous habit.

We went to see an 8.30 show of the Moustache Brothers. This group of 3 artists (unincluding their wives and sisters who also perform acts) used to perform a-nyeint pwe (folk dance, music, jokes and silly walks) to Burmese crowds around the country until 2 of them: Par Par Lay and Lu Zaw were arrested for joking about the military regime. They served 5 years of their 7 year sentence and returned to join Lu Maw and his wife in their efforts to 'make the show go on'. Lu Maw is now the driving force behind the team; the other two seem like broken men after their prison experiences. The show was funny and interesting but unfortunately for Lu Maw, the clever English phrases he had memorised and dropped into his jokes passed over the heads of most of the multinational audience. The Moustache Brothers continue to bravely defy the regime by being outspoken and keeping banned pictures of Aung San Suu Kyi on their walls. The military junta only tolerates them because they attract a lot of tourists- they are banned from performing in front of Burmese people.

We joined a French couple: Olivier and Florence in visiting ancient capitals and sites of interest around Mandalay. We saw dagons and temples in Amarapura, Sagaing and Inwa. Going on a horse and cart tour around Inwa was the most fun and interesting activity. We stopped at decaying dagons (Burmese stupas) and an old watch tower that gave us great views over the surrounding ruins, countryside and Irrawady River. We finished the day with a walk along the world's longest teak bridge (1.2km) at sunset. Laure needed a good rest that night as the cold and fever kicked in even harder.

On a trishaw ride through Mandalay we visited Swenandaw Kyaung, a teak monastery and former home of King Mindon, the founder of Mandalay. The wooden structure was dismantled by King Thibaw (the last King of Burma) and reassembled outside of the palace walls- therefore it was spared the destruction that the palace suffered in 1945 when the British retook Mandalay from the Japanese. We then visited the Mahamuni Paya that features a 2000 year old bronze cast of the Buddha covered in gold leaf which has been applied constantly by devout pilgrims. The route to the shrine has been lined by tacky shops and therefore failed to impress me too much. Watching the pilgrim's devotion was more impressive than the site itself.

We managed to climb the 230m Mandalay Hill in time to watch the sun go down. The surrounding views weren't bad nor were they spectacular. A fine layer of mist covers much of Myanmar during the hot season due to faraway (and not so faraway) forest fires, slash and burn farming and the burning of waste. In the hot season clear views are a rarity. After chatting to a monk who was practising English with a 2003 edition of Newsweek, we descended and found a commemoration to the Royal Berkshire Regiment who recaptured Mandalay Hill after 3 days of heavy fighting against the Japanese in May 1945.

The following day we set off for Pyin U Lwin in the Shan State and Myanmar's hill country.

Chapter 33 - The Shan Plateau 

The first thing you notice when one arrives in Pyin U Lwin is the sheer number of army recruits around the town. There is a huge army training centre nearby that prepares their cadres to 'crush Myanmar's enemies'- basically anybody who disagrees with the plundering of the country by its military kleptocracy. We didn't really pay much attention to the town itself because we were more interested in the surrounding countryside. We had a short but sweet hike to Anisakan Falls, which is a unique waterfall because it is formed by encrusted earth, compacted and deformed into strange shapes. From Pyin U Lwin we took the train to Hsipaw. On the train we met Stephen and Karen, a German couple who had just spent six months in India. We shared traveller's yarns and watched the parched hillsides from the train window. It slowed to a snail's pace as it crossed the Gokteik railway viaduct, which was built in 1903 and has only seen a lick of paint since! As the train crossed, the steel structure groaned, creaked and moaned as if pleading for us not to pass. Laure was extremely glad we only planned to cross that bridge once!
 
Hsipaw is the definition of a chilled out town. The pace of life here is so slow that the clocks almost turn backwards! In and around the town we saw many examples of local sustainable development. There are cheroot, rice and popcorn makers. Mrs. Popcorn (as she calls herself) is an old headmistress who now produces popcorn for the entire Shan State. Her method is quite original and the popcorn is honestly the best we've ever tasted. We hired bicycles and stopped by the local Nat Shrine. What is special about Myanmar is that despite the dominant Buddhist religion, most people still believe in nats. Nats are local spirits, sometimes the ghosts of ancestors. There are naughty nasty, fun and cheerful nats. Many inhabit trees, rivers, graveyards and shrines. Anyone interested in the supernatural world would be more than at home in Myanmar...
 
We walked through local paddy fields to reach some local hot springs. The sky was very misty due to nearby forest fires. Millions of slivers of ash were floating through the air. The sun looked as red as it does at sunset only it was midday. Streams turned the watermills producing electricity for the Shan villages we passed - a clean and sustainable way of powering the village's appliances and lighting their homes. We Also visited an old Shan palace that looks more like an old French manor house. We heard that the Shan chief had been arrested in 2005 and sentenced to 13 years imprisonment - 3 for showing tourists around their grounds without have a tour guide license and 10 for 'slandering the government'- justice Burmese style. The old princess still lives there and struggles to keep her family going and visit her elderly husband in prison (each visit costs her a small fortune in Burmese Kyat). This is what we were told by some of the local folk.
 
We spent many an hour in 'Black House Cafe'. It is located next to the Dokhtawady River and owned by an Australian woman. It was a very relaxed place to read and write. In all except for our last night in Hsipaw we dined with Stephen and Karen and on the last night we climbed Sunset Hill where we found a hilltop monastery. The aged monk there offered us tea and chatted to us as we watched the sun slip behind the hills that surround Hsipaw. Laure repeatedly fastened my longgyi as it kept becoming loose and fell down at every opportunity- I think I'll stick to trousers or shorts in future!

Chapter 34 - Bagan

We took a shared taxi from Hsipaw to Mandalay, where we booked a couple of seats on the ferry to Bagan. While we were there we took the opportunity to see the Mandalay Marionettes whose puppeteers gave a talented hour long show. This is a traditional form of folk art that is now performed more for tourists than locals; the advent of TV wasn't all good!
 
On 17th March we took the ferry to Bagan. It was a long tranquil day spent cruising down the Irrawady River. The vessel had plenty of other westerners on board and we had a good day of chin-wagging, beer drinking, reading and watching the varied riverside activities such as small traders go about their business, the loading of logs of teak onto barges and pebble-mining for building roads. We saw many a riverside dagon slide by and some areas seemed completely uninhabited, especially the rolling hills covered in forest that nestled up to the river banks.
 
After a 7am start from Mandalay we arrived at the jetty next to Nyaung U at sunset. We took the local taxi (a horse and cart) to the hotel next to Old Bagan. Laure's mother and stepfather, Marie and Henri were due to visit and had booked us into a posh hotel. We treated ourselves to a bottle of wine and a good meal at the hotel's restaurant before retiring to our room to watch some satellite TV.
 
A morning swim followed by the best breakfast since we started travelling was a good way to start the day then Marie and Henri arrived in time for coffee. This would be our third journey together and the first thing on the sight seeing menu was some hardcore temple visits by horse and cart.
 
Bagan is one of the most majestic sights of South East Asia. It rivals the Angkhor Temples of Cambodia and is surely one of the man made wonders of the world. To quote the Lonely Planet: "Imagine all the medieval cathedrals of Europe sitting on Manhatten Island- and then some".
 
The exact amount of temples is unknown but surveys have established that Bagan kings built as many as 4400 temples that now dot the plains around Old Bagan. It was breathtaking to see such a concentration of stupas and temples. Most have been damaged by earthquakes, erosion, looting and neglect but that seems to add to their mystique. To cut a long story short: Bagan's era of non-stop building began in 1057 and ended in 1287 when the Mongols of Kublai Khan arrived. Since then the area was left relatively untouched by locals, who were scared of bandits and evil spirits until John Bull (the Brits) arrived in the 19th Century.
 
That first day was spent seeing the big sites of Bagan. The horse cart drivers knew exactly where to take us. Some temples had bus loads of tourists there; others were virtually and actually deserted. We bought small souvenirs at each temple we stopped at, therefore spreading those vital dollars throughout Bagan. At Myinkaba we learned how laquerware was made- a very complicated and time consuming process! Pots and ornaments can be made from bamboo or horse, resin from a rubber tree is added then left to dry (this is also mixed with crushed cow bones and fossilised wood). A process of polishing and carving follows; coloured powder is rubbed into the grooves and more polishing is then needed. For good quality laquerware it can take almost a year to make.
 
We had to rush to catch the sunset from Shwenadaw Paya, a temple that gives impressive views of the stupa dotted plains. The following day we all decided to hire bicycles to explore the lesser known temples in the area. This day was even more fantastic than the day before. Inside most dagons were statues of the Lord Buddha with faded semi-looted and eroded frescoes depicting Buddha's life and scenes from ancient times. In some of the larger temples we climbed up dim narrow staircases to reach the higher levels. In doing this we had even better views from some of the remoter temples than the more popular well known ones. We slid and skidded on our bicycles along sandy trails that led to the dagons. That evening we forfeited the option of viewing a sunset from a temple top for a swim in the hotel's pool.
 
On 20th March we took a taxi to Kalaw stopping off at the disappointing Mount Popa on the way. The stairs leading up to the top of this temple adorned volcanic formation were covered in monkey pee (and one always has to go barefoot in holy places in Asia!) and the paya itself was extremely tacky. This coupled with a dense mist from too much burning (same old story...) meant we couldn't see much of the countryside. Our stop at a rural palm wine making household on the way was 10 times more interesting.
 
From the taxi we watched the change in landscape from dry rice paddies and palm groves to dry hills with burnt grassland interspersed with trees tortured by the sun. 15km and 1 hour's drive from Kalaw we got stuck in the most pleasant traffic jam I can remember. Labourers were resurfacing the severely pot holed road. By now it was dark and we watched them work as a team. We also got speaking to a student who had been studying in Singapore. Her father (of Chinese origins) was bursting with pride as he realised that his investment in her education was paying off.
 
After a long road trip we were looking forward to our hike around the hills of Kalaw. Our third generation ethnic Indian guide (who still could not obtain citizenship or any legal papers giving him the right of residence- we heard a passport costs $1000 under the table, therefore excluding 99% of the population from travelling and doing business abroad) introduced us to plants vegetables and fruit that were grown in the region. We passed several villages of the Palaung tribe, saw forest fires close up and had lunch on a hilltop. Marie and Henri by now had distributed the last of their school exercise books ands pens to students and village heads. We all finally caught our first glimpse of green Burmese jungle (the rest being different shades of brown) near a reservoir towards the end of the hike. Afterwards we had to jump into a taxi to Nyaungshwe in order to get there before nightfall. From there we would visit the wonderful water world of Inle Lake.

Chapter 35 - Inle Lake

Laure, myself, Henri and Marie arrived at Inle Lake area and more specifically a small town called Nyaungshwe on the evening of 21st March. We hired a longboat the next day to take us around the lake. During the day we saw people from some of the numerous tribes that inhabit this area: Intha, Shan, pa-O, Taung-yo, Danu, Kayah, Danaw and Bamar people. Our small motor driven boat took us out onto the open lake where we saw fishermen (and boys) using their nets and cone shaped basket fish traps. Many were using their renowned leg-rowing technique.
 
First we made our way through several marshy waterways to get to Indein, a market village. We strolled past the tourist stalls and into the food market where the lake's produce was up for sale. Nearby were the Shwe Inn Thein and Nyaung Ohak temples. These places seemed like graveyards for the nat spirits. Many new temples were added to the old ones- built by people wanting to gain merit for the next life.
 
After lunch we stopped at Phaung Daw Oo Paya and saw the ornate vessels that carry holy images around the lake during festivals. We witnessed the making of longboats in a nearby settlement and I introduced myself to a family and quickly invited the others. Home visits are some of the most enlightening experiences even if one doesn't speak their language! Our motorised longboat then went in the direction of the floating gardens. People harvest water hyacinths and sediment from the lake, compact and mix them together to form floating vegetable plots that are incredibly fertile. They grow flowers, fruit and vegetables all year round and are staked to the lake bed by bamboo poles that stop these floating gardens from drifting away.
 
On our second day on the lake we crossed the body of water from north to south to drop our bags off at the Pa-O owned Golden Island Cottages. It was Henri and Marie's last full day and night with us so we were again treated with a wonderful hotel. This hotel was like a floating village- the cabins were built on stilts in the lake water. From here we went south through winding canals to Sankar Lake. Watching people going about their daily lives from our longboat was fun. It's amazing how hard yet simple people's lives are here. We didn't see any other tourists for the entire day- they normally don't come this far south. We visited a village and saw a small rice processing factory, some carpenters making cart wheels (many still use horse and bullock drawn carts for transport and ploughing). We crossed Sankar Lake to have lunch on a restaurant on stilts and then saw the production of rice wine (I naturally felt obliged to sample the 40 % and 60% varieties!).
 
We took the two hour trip back up north to Inle Lake and stopped off at a village that is known for its weaving. They used imported silk from China and also thread extracted from lotus flowers (something I'd never heard of and a very long process). Marie had to hurry up and buy a lotus and silk woven scarf before the sun went down. We were just in time to see it disappear behind the surrounding mountains.
 
We had a great last evening meal and tried the surprisingly nice Myanmar red wine. The next morning we relaxed and made our way back to Nyaungshwe by boat. After lunch Laure and I said our goodbyes to Marie and Henri then spent the afternoon catching up with our diaries.
 
After a lazy afternoon the day before we felt the need to have an active day so we hired a couple of bicycles and decided to search for some hot springs that we knew were in the area. We cycled past paddy fields westwards towards the hills. The hot springs proved elusive until we found a tiny pool of water with steam rising from it. I'd been more impressed watching the kettle boil! Never mind, the journey was worth it. Back in Nyaungshwe we accidentally stumbled upon a traditional Shan restaurant which turned out to have the best food we'd tasted in Myanmar. We then paid a visit to Shwe Yaungshwe Kyaung, a teak monastery with oval shaped windows, on the recommendation of Laure's friend Johanna. We finished the day with another meal at the Shan restaurant and booked a two day hike to start the following day.
 
Ni Ni Zaw, our trusty guide showed us even more plants and described their uses when we passed through fields and woods. He is a real expert on local customs and is a wealth of information. We climbed into the eastern hills (Pa-O territory) and had shimmering views of Inle Lake on the way. We stayed in a Pa-O village with a local family. The two young boys there of 3 and 6 years old were the most hyperactive show-offs I'd ever come across and a hand full for the grandmother who babysat for them. The young mother was either out working in the fields or looking after her 8 month old baby daughter (who was always strapped to her back even in the fields). The father collected water, did household chores and occasionally went to town to sell their produce or tend to other business. I remember chuckling as Laure stumbled into the resident cow on her way to the toilet in the dark (as one does!). The next morning we woke up to village noises; chickens, mooing cows, coughing babies, the crackling of wood as the fire heated the kettle. We walked through the hills in the scorching Burmese heat and took turns carrying the umbrella to give us both some respite from the sun. Gradually we made our way back to Nyaungshwe descending along winding footpaths through burnt woodland. We had had a great two day trek and ended up back in our favourite Shan restaurant to rest, play cards and eat fantastic food.
 
The last day in this beautiful region was spent relaxing, writing and I had a traditional Burmese massage to straighten out a kink in my back. The massage involved getting walked on, fingers poked into my ears and a special thumb clicking movement all over my body.
 
On the Thursday lunchtime we caught an overnight bus to Yangon. Our bus was comfortable and we thought we would be in for a relatively pleasant night. Oh no! On three separate occasions the bus broke down, each time for about one hour. And each time we were stranded in the back of beyond surrounded by endless paddy fields and the sound of frogs and crickets croaking and chirping.
 
Taking this into our stride we arrived later than expected at 10am on Friday morning. We checked into our hotel then went shopping. We made our way to the monastery we had visited nearly one month previously to say goodbye to the monks there. Joti was really pleased to see us. He served us tea, snacks then Sprite lemonade and we chatted for as long as we could. We then swapped gifts and he accompanied us back to the hotel. Joti offered to wave us off at the airport but we declined his offer, not wanting to put him out.
 
On Saturday 31st March I went for a walk and blew the last of our Kyats in an arcade. I completed the 'Alien 3' video game then joined Laure to get the airport taxi. We were both sorry to leave this magnificent but scarred country. In Myanmar or Burma, whatever you want to call it, it is possible to witness or hear about the best and worst of human nature and if the majority are to be believed, one day Myanmar will be free from tyranny and when that day arrives it will have the huge potential to improve the lives of the Burmese people.