What happened to Shwedagon Paya

Shwedagon Paya, Yangon (Rangoon)

OK, here’s a pic of the famed Shwedagon in all it’s glory, ….bound by bamboo-scaffolding and getting cleaned and regilded. Not many people have the privilege of seeing it in this state since this happens only once every 4 years, so I should consider myself lucky right? If you wanna see it as it's shown in the tourist brochures etc, all gilded up in gold, you’d best wait for another 5 months or so.

...maybe by that time, my postcard would also have arrived.


A temple bell in Shwedagon Paya

If I'm not mistaken, this is supposed to be the 3rd largest uncracked bell in the world. Myanmar must have a thing with uncracked bells, they also have the largest and the 2nd largest. I have pics of all 3, but I figured that'll be a bell too many huh?

The God of Saturdays

A shrine in Shwedagon Paya, Yangon

Here’s a pic of devotees bathing their daily deity (I think this one’s for Saturday, since that statuette there looks like a Naga). Myanmese have a deity for each day of the week except Wednesdays. They have 2 for Wednesdays, one for the morning and one for the evening. Each deity is symbolized by a creature, mine’s a Garuda since I was born on a Sunday. What you have to do is to bathe your deity as many times as the years you were in existence (I didn’t do it coz I’d have to do it 35 times! And besides, I’m Christian hehehe), then you kneel and bow a few times and end it with some strikes to the temple bell. I guess it’s to improve your fortune, but don’t quote me.

Shadow-Walking

On the roof of Pahtothamya, Bagan

This picture was taken by a small boy on the roof of a temple in Bagan. Roaming around the roofs of temples in the afternoon in Bagan is quite fun. First, there’s hardly a soul around, second you learn the trick of shadow-walking i.e. walking on whatever shadows you find so that you don’t burn the bejesus outta the soles of your feet (notice how restless my feet are). The sun-baked roof had no effect on the boy’s feet so he was kinda taking his own sweet time to snap this pic, that little rascal!

More Temples of Bagan

More temples of Bagan, from the roof of Pahtothamya


Even more temples, Nyein Gon Paya, Bagan

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...

The Royal Court at Mandalay

Palace Grounds, Mandalay

Oh, this is not the original palace, it's completely rebuilt using convicts. The original one burnt down more than a century ago (if I'm not mistaken).

Myanmar: The Golden Land Pt 2

Ananda Pahto, Bagan

OK, here’s more on Myanmar, if you’re still not sick of it yet hehehe.

People
Myanmar is multi-ethnic. Apart from Burmese, it has Chinese, Indians, Mons, Shans, Kachins, and a horde of other races. Apart from Buddhists, there’re Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, etc. Basically, it is just like Malaysia. Maybe if Malaysia were to follow ‘The Burmese Road to Socialism’, Malaysia’d end up just like Myanmar. Yeah it’s backward, but it’s not all that bad. Where else (in the non-western world) would you find people of all race and religion using the same language? And sporting the same attire (meaning sarongs)?
Myanmar is foreigner friendly. Foreigners get waved through at the airports (meaning they won’t stop you from carrying your mobile phones in, although officially they have to retain it and give it back to you when you leave the country. Too much hassle for the officers, I suppose). Locals have to go through all sorts of checks, in various types of counters. Nope, I didn’t stand around to watch (less they decided to retain my phone).

Entrance Fees
Foreigners have to pay entrance fees for some of the tourist sites. Locals don’t need to pay a single kyat. Occasionally, they’ll let foreigners in for free, especially when the foreigner looks something like me, hehe. But then you can’t pull out your maps, or your Lonely Planets, or start clicking away with your cameras at every other thing, so I figured it’d be easier to pay (and get all the privileges of being a tourist) instead of pretending you’re Myanmese. The entrance fees are reasonable, USD10 for as long as you well like in all the sites in Mandalay. Same price for all the sites in Bagan, again for as long as you wanna stay. Try visiting some of the sites in India, and you’ll know that this is very reasonable indeed.

Transportation
Burmese drive on the right side of the road, although their cars have the steering wheel on the right side, which is not right for us, but alright for them. This sentence makes little sense. Visit the country and you’ll know what I mean.
Unlike Indians, Myanmese no longer honk at everything (moving or not) in the vicinity of their path.
Foreigners cannot drive in Myanmar. This includes motorbikes. Foreigners can cycle, or walk. Or take one of the many modes of public transportation. Many of us hire trishaws, cars or horse-carts. Hiring one with a non-English-speaking driver has its advantages. First, they cannot communicate with you. This may sound like a big disadvantage, but then, you’d save the trouble of trying to explain why you can’t pay more, or why you’re not interested in this souvenir shop or that restaurant, etc. As long as they know the words – go, stop, there (with your finger pointed at that direction), yes, no, eat (with your hands gesturing towards your mouth), hotel, and the names of the places you want to visit (Lonely Planet has all the place names printed in Burmese, luckily), I reckoned you’d be ok. Anyway, these drivers I figured, are less exposed to tourists, so should be less experienced at haggling you out of the meager amount of kyat that you still have in your hands (told you I’m a cheapskate hehehe). Besides, you’ll learn to pick up some Myanmese words, right?
My Myanmese vocabulary consists of 5 words – ‘mingalaba’ (hello), ‘be lauk leh’ (how much), ‘zeji-thiyeh’ (expensive – you have to stress it), ‘shaw bau’ (discount) and ‘cezu babeh’ (thank you). Oh, and it helps to know the numbers too.

Communication
Communications within the country is reasonably good. There’re quite a lot of phone service shops around that’ll allow you to make local calls, national calls and international calls. International calls are expensive. If you don’t feel like making an international call, you can try emailing. Come to think of it, I’ve not seen any cyber-cafes while roaming around. Besides (and according to LP), yahoo, hotmail and a host of other common mail providers don’t work in Myanmar, so it’ll keep you free from worrying about whether your boss is shouting obscenities at you for being out of reach, or whether the stock market in KL has bloody crashed, and such. If you really feel like contacting someone outside the country and want to keep your expenses down, try sending a postcard. These are at only 30 kyat per postcard (about 15 sen) – I am still waiting for mine to arrive, I only sent it on 20 Feb, so it’s now only about 3 weeks. Let’s wait for another month or two.
Mobile phones? Yeah, mobile phones are useful too. They can wake you up in the morning, or remind you to call the airlines to re-confirm your tickets, and to check up on some forgotten phone numbers. Besides that, you should remember, you aren’t even supposed to bring it in, in the first place, ok?

Things To Buy
Sarongs, velvet-lined sandals, ethnic ware, tapestries, painted replicas of religious murals found in temples, lacquer ware, religious paraphernalia, gemstones, jade, rubies, ecstasy pills, opium and heroin (just kidding, the last few are illegal, and I guess can’t be found easily, …unless you know someone from the Golden Triangle).

OK, I’ve about had it on writing about Myanmar, guess I’ll just post pictures for you guys to see next.

Temples of Bagan

Bagan, land of a thousand stupas (or more like 2217 according to Lonely Planet, and that's not including brick mounds which if included would give a total of nearly 4000 sites).

Bagan is an area filled with temples and stupas for as far as the eyes can see. Spires rise up from the ground like mysterious ancient alien citadels especially early in the morning when there's still some residue of fog hanging around. Cycling is a great way to explore Bagan (I felt like some cheapskate Indiana Jones going on a treasure hunt amongst the eerie looking temples). Besides giving me the much needed exercise (I'm proud to say I'm leaner and fitter (and darker) now), it is cheap at only about 2 ringgit per day, for as long as you well please (but mine doesn't have lights, and the bell doesn't work, so I thought it wiser not to cycle at night, besides what's there to see huh?). Bagan's also sparsely populated, and there're not that many tourists (unlike many parts of India) so you won't get much problems with cars and buses and what else d'yu have honking the hell out of you. Sometimes, especially in the less popular temples, and in the afternoons (when the sun is at its glorious peak), you'd find that you're the only one in the temple. Some of the less used tracks are quite sandy and hard to cycle thru though. A puncture cost me 400 bloody kyat, which is not too expensive actually, but my bike only cost me 500 per day!

If you don't fancy cycling, you can get a horse cart. But I was feeling a little adventurous at that time hehe.

Myanmar: The Golden Land Pt 1

Some ritual at Shwezigon Paya, Bagan
If only those tourists were not frantically clicking away... I guess the ones at the back of me would say the same thing about me, but I'm different! I look Myanmese hehehe.

OK here's my take on Myanmar: The Golden Land.

Myanmar is an incredibly friendly and wonderful place to visit.
It is not too expensive, ...even for Malaysians.
Contrary to popular belief, you don't need to convert 200 US Dollars to Foreign Exchange Certificates (FEC) anymore. You will need a tourist visa, flight tickets and liquid USDs.
1 USD = 900 kyat (change it only when you are at the city, not at the airport. Why? Go find out yourself, hehe).
Kyat is pronounced 'cat' as in Malay for paint, not cat as in the type that catches mice.
(Note for Dad: the 'c' in Malay is unaspirated, like the 'ch' in Chee Eng, not the 'ch' in cheese. The unaspirated 'ch' is spelt 'ky' in Burmese, so Chee Eng would be spelt Kyi Eng. Aung San Su Kyi is pronounced Aung San Suci (as in Malay for 'holy'). The 'j' sound is spelt 'gy' in Burmese so brother's name would be Gyason Ong in Burmese I suppose. This rule applies to all Burmese place names).

The Golden Land
Burmese like to gild their temples and Buddha images in gold. They are experts at making 'gold leaves' for to stick onto whatever religious things they can afford to.

Attire
Very few Burmese wear jeans (at least not while I was there). They don't like to wear them coz they're hard to wash (...I made that up hehe, but try washing them with your hands!) 90% of Burmese wear sarongs, for home, work and even formal occassions regardless of their religion or race. I don't know whether they wear anything underneath, I didn't ask, I'm not a pervert! Unlike Indians, I have not seen a Burmese peeing by the streets (except 1 who was drunk), although I figured it'd be easier if you wear sarongs, right? Indians are the true experts of street-peeing, Indians can street-pee while wearing slacks, squatting, and surrounded by hordes of people, with the utmost discretion (meaning you won't be able to see the 'parts' you're not supposed to see, unless you try very hard, which means ...that there must be something mighty wrong with you!)
Burmese prefer sandals to shoes, because every other place is a temple or monastery compound, and you're NOT supposed to wear your shoes, NOR your socks in them. Same goes to a lot of offices (and of course, houses). Most Burmese sport velvet-lined 'Japanese' sandals (flip-flops). If you visit, bring a light pair and plastic bags so that you can store them in your bag without coating everything in your bag with street-dust.

Food
Burmese like their food thickly coated with oil. The oil is supposed to protect the food underneath from germs. Don't ask me how you're supposed to eat the food without eating the oil, I still haven't figured it out yet.
Unlike Indians, Burmese eat their cows and pigs. I did not see a stray cow or a pig around the streets, only dogs, and cats, and oh yeah, horses (Horse carts are the No 1 mode of public transportation in Bagan, costs 6000 kyat per day. Nope I didn't try it, bicycles only costs 500 kyat per day (about RM 2), hehehe, cheapskate).
Most popular Burmese soup is 'hin-jo'. Tastes something like salted vegetable soup (ham-choi thong / kiam-chai theng) or 'chai-boei'.
Most popular condiment is 'ngapi'. Tastes like 'sambal belacan'.
Most popular drink is chinese tea. Every table has a thermal flask which waiters constantly top up with boiling water.
If you don't like Burmese food, there're lots of Chinese and Indian restaurants around.

...To be continued. I think I better post this first, it's getting mighty long-winded as usual.