The Biggest Pile of Brick Rubble on Earth

Ok here’re some more pics to let everyone know that I’ve not actually forgotten about this blog. It’s just that I’ve been somewhat busy (and terribly lazy). And as a picture speaks a thousand words, guess these pics will have to suffice for the time being, until I get my inspiration rolling again. Conducting interviews really ain’t very inspiring. Repeating the same bloody thing to each and every interviewee is not really that fun (especially when they’re all guys hehehe).


Mingun Paya, near Mandalay

Mingun is a small village about an hour’s ride on the boat along the Ayeyarwaddy River (Irrawaddy in British times) from Mandalay. Mingun Paya was supposed to be the base of the world’s largest stupa (if the king who wanted it built hadn’t died before it was completed). And it’s cracked on all sides due to earthquakes (Myanmar’s right smack in earthquake zone). So what you’ll get is a towering cube-shaped monolith with large menacing cracks on the walls and huge doorways like some doomed crumbling temple.

The above pic was my best effort at capturing it on film. Don’t think I did such a bad job huh? At least it still looks like a great big heap of bricks. The photo in Lonely Planet looks fabulous, a towering monstrosity of a crumbling temple with red-robed monks in the foreground framed by a deep blue sky. Another photo I saw had a red robed monk posing at the side of a monstrous crack on the wall. Now, if only I had red-robed monks (instead of 2 enthusiastic Czech traveling buddies) in my photo, if only the sky was of a deeper blue, if only the sun had shone where it was supposed to shine, if only I had Fuji film instead of Kodak, if only my camera was a better one, etc… I’m sure I could get a photo as good as the ones I saw...