A Market, A Village, The Tharabar Gate, Great Nats, the Mighty Irrawaddy - and a Couple of Temples
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| Myanmar |
Early to bed, early to rise is the Myanmar way, and even being in a luxury hotel could not prevent us hearing the ‘get up and go’ music
from the nearby village at 5.30.
The Market, New Bagan
Tin and his driver arrived at 9 and we set off to visit a market near New Bagan. ‘No tourists here,’ Tin said, and he was right; we were
as much a curiosity to the shoppers and stallholders as they were to us. It was
a simple affair - people had brought small quantities of fruit, vegetables,
ginger, chillies and eggs to trade - but it seemed cleaner and better organised
than the markets we had seen in Dala. A large sound system dominated the centre
and Buddhist monks bombarded the shoppers with a never-ending sermon and requests
for donations.
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| Market, New Bagan |
Dhammayaziki Pagoda
If it was not Bagan’s warmest and brightest day, at least the mist and threat of rain had gone today so we made our postponed visit to Dhammayaziki Pagoda.
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| The Dhammayaziki Pagoda, Bagan |
The main attraction is the steps and walkways giving access to the roof at the base of the gilded stupa. But for the weather it should have
been our first port of call after arriving but now, having already been on our
horse and cart ride and seen how temples and stupas are strewn about fields and
villages, we were prepared for what we saw. For the new arrival the view must
be stunning, for us it was merely breath-taking.
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| The Bagan Plain from the Dhammayaziki Pagoda |
Several other things caught my eye at Dhammayaziki, among them the terra cotta tiles around the base. A number of temples have these, usually
showing scenes from the Jataka, the previous incarnations of the Buddha.
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| Terra Cotta scene from the Jataka, Dhammayaziki Pagoda, Bagan |
I was also interested in these earthenware water pots [later, in Sagaing we would see them being made.]
Although mundane and crudely fashioned, we had observed in Yangon that they
play an important role providing water, cooled by evaporation through the earthenware,
to anyone who needs it. We had seen something very similar when living
in Khartoum in 1987. It is a public spirited aid to life in a hot climate – even if Bagan was not living up to its billing.
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| Water pots, Dhammayaziki Pagoda, Bagan |
Sitting near the entrance was a Kayan woman, a member of a small ethnic minority whose ancestral land lies along the Thai/Myanmar border.
Sitting with some locals, she was wearing the traditional neck rings that apparently
elongate the neck - though they actually depress the collar bone. I vividly
remember a late 50s/early 60s television documentary about the ‘giraffe-necked
women’, but I thought this tradition had died out. It seemed rude to stare and
even ruder to stick a camera in her face, though now I wish I had a photograph.
Abeyadana, Manhua and Nanpaya Temples
We left Dhammayaziki and got stuck into our daily quota of temples in the strip between Old and New Bagan.
Abeyadana is named after the queen of King Kyansittha. She brought him food when he was hiding here from a rival and he later built the
temple in her honour. It is early 12th century and the zedi on top
is Ceylonese in style.
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| Abeyadana Temple, Bagan |
The nearby Manhua Temple was built in 1067 by a Mon king of that name. He had been imprisoned, either here or in Mandalay - stories vary -
and to celebrate his release he built several large Buddhas and constructed the
temple to house them. It is very cramped and you have to push past the statues
into the corridors. This may be in memory of his imprisonment – or perhaps they
just built the temple too small.
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| Seated Buddha, Manhua Temple, Bagan |
Nanpaya sounds like it should be in Cornwall, but is actually a short walk from Manhua.
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| Nanpaya Temple, Bagan |
Probably built in the middle of the 12th
century it would appear to be a Hindu temple, possibly serving Bagan’s resident
Indian community.
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| Hindu images, Nanpaya Temple, Bagan |
Myinkaba Village
‘Do you want to see another temple, or shall we walk round the village?’ Tin asked. How many temples can you see in a morning? We opted
for a stroll through Myinkaba.
The houses were flimsy, some on wooden stilts others with a concrete base, they consisted of a wooden framework with walls of decoratively woven rattan. Lightweight construction makes sense in an earthquake area, and the walls are only required to keep out the rain. The poor weather we had experienced was as cool as Bagan ever gets, and even so I had not once donned a pullover.
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| Rattan houses, Myinkaba |
There were few people in the streets, but the village was a hive of activity. A cart trundling by was the only traffic noise but we
could hear people talking, children laughing, someone hammering, and even a
woman pounding herbs in the yard outside her house. Tin invited us to go in and
watch. We felt we were intruding, but she seemed happy enough.
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| Myinkaba |
The main business of Myinkaba is lacquerware, and here it really is a cottage industry. People sit outside their houses making the bamboo
templates, smearing on lacquer or scratching out the patterns. Layers of quick
drying glue are used as a base rather than the multiple layers of lacquer we
had seen in the factory. The resulting articles are of lower quality, but the
decoration was to the same high standard so only an expert eye could spot the
difference.
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| Lacquer worker, Myinkaba |
The Gubyaukgyi Temple and the Myazedi Stone
But we had not finished with temples! Myinkaba’s Gubyaukgyi temple (not to be confused with yesterday’s
different Gubyaukgyi Temple) is at the end of the village. Next door is the
Myazedi (Emerald Stupa – but actually gilded) and in front of that is the
Myazedi stone.
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| Gubyaukgyi Temple, Myinkaba |
The stone has the
same inscription on each side, but in four different languages. Burmese remains
the local tongue, Mon is still spoken by a million people in Mon State to the
south, Pali is the ancient liturgical language of Buddhism, and although a dead
language it has been widely studied, but the fourth side is written in Pyu, the
vernacular language of central Myanmar in the first millennium AD. It was from
this stone that the long extinct Pyu language was deciphered in the 19th
century. Perhaps I am weird, but I find this strangely exciting.
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| The Mayazedi Stone, Myinkaba |
It was not,
however, the excitement that caused me to break the arm of my sunglasses, the
same ‘genuine’ Ray-bans I had bought 8 months earlier in Saigon, it was mere carelessness. I was ever so slightly devastated.
The Last of the Temples
Lunchtime was approaching
but we had to see one more temple before being allowed to eat. It was another
Hindu temple with panels depicting the Hindu gods, but its best feature was the
view out of the window…..
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| View through the Window |
…and from the
door. Gawdawpalin is the largest temple in Bagan and one of the last built, but
earthquake damage means it is currently off-limits (and we really wanted to
see another temple!)
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| The Gawdawpalin Temple, Bagan |
The Best Myanmar Food in Bagan
And now we could
eat. Tin said we should eat the best Myanmar food in Bagan and perhaps we did;
it was certainly good – and there were no other foreigners in the restaurant.
The deal here was
different, they brought out all their dishes, but we only paid for what we ate.
Resisting the temptation to taste miniscule amounts from every plate, we
decided what to eat, and left the rest. Yesterday I found myself wondering what
happened to the food we sent back, here it was obvious, it was served up to the
next customer.
There were 25
dishes including pork, lamb, beef, chicken, tiger prawns, beansprouts, curried
vegetables, pickled vegetables, lentils and rice. Our feast cost 12,000 Kyats
(about £10) and half of that was for a couple of bottles of beer. Tin enjoyed
his beer, given its cost relative to local salaries, it must have been a rare
treat.
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| Lynne holds forth over a small lunch for three |
Tharabar Gate and Great Nats
We returned to
the hotel for a little down time in what should have been the heat of the day
and then strolled out to the Tharabar Gate.
As we reached the
dusty open area outside the hotel we were besieged by children, some scooting
over to us on bikes, others running to catch them up. They were all keen to ask
us where we came from, tell us where we were (which we already knew) and offer
their services as guides, which we declined.
The younger ones
attempted to sell us postcard sized examples of their own artwork for 1000 Kyat
each (80p). This had seemed cute the first time, but as we had been approached
by children at every temple, each with half a dozen such pictures protected by
clear plastic sheets and attached to a piece of string by clothes pegs, it was obviously not a freelance operation.
They may or may not have been their own drawings, but there was certainly an organisation behind it, using
the children effectively as beggars and probably taking most of the money.
Worse, Tin had told us that parents were taking their children out of school to
do this. Two or three sales a week would be enough to make a significant
difference to a poor family’s income. Ethical tourism presents a multitude of
problems.
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| Lynne and the Old Bagan Wall |
Gently shooing
the children away we made our way to the gate. A wall built between the 10th
and 12th centuries once surrounded Old Bagan, and the longest existing stretch
is either side of the Tharabar Gate, which is now just a gap in the wall as there is nothing for it to be a gate to.
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| Tharabar Gate, Old Bagan |
A venerable monk
sat on a bench near the gate, and many passers-by stopped to talk to him. An
old woman brought some flowers for the gate’s guardian Nats who inhabit niches
either side of the entrance.
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| A monk holds court by the Tharabar Gate, Old Bagan |
Lord Handsome and
Lady Golden Face were brother and sister. A rival of Lord Handsome suggested
reconciliation and married Lady Golden Face, but his true motive was to lure
Lord Handsome out of hiding. He captured him and burnt him at the stake. Lady
Golden Face jumped in the fire and only her face survived the all-consuming
flames. Who better to guard the gates to the city?
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| Lord Handsome in his niche by the Tharabar Gate, Old Bagan |
A Little Trip on the Mighty Irrawaddy
Tin returned in
late afternoon and we drove down to the river. The Irrawaddy, 2000km long and
the original Road to Mandalay, is formed in northern Myanmar by the confluence of two smaller rivers and flows through
the heart of the country. At Bagan its huge width and gentle flow make it look
more like a lake than a river.
We arrived at an
open area where a dozen boats were moored, their prows resting on the muddy shingle.
Again we were besieged by children selling trinkets, ‘artwork’ and general tat.
Again we shooed them away and followed Tin down to one of the boats.
The boatman cast
off and set about heaving us off the shingle. He put his back into the job, but
the boat stubbornly refused to move.
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| The boatman put his back into it |
I was
photographing the boatman so could not see the problem, but Lynne spotted it,
as did the lad on the adjacent boat. He hopped over to our boat, untied the
rope attaching our boat to his and hopped back. Suddenly we shot out into the
channel, the boatman on the roof entirely unaware of why his strenuous efforts
had suddenly been rewarded with success.
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| We slide out into the Irrawaddy |
We pottered
upstream rounding sandbanks and passing houses and temples. A rugged range of
hills patrolled the western horizon.
I stood at the
bow, surveyed the scene and decided I should claim all this land for my Queen
and Country. Then I realised that had been done before and it had not proved
a good idea. Instead, I stood with my arms out in the gentle breeze like Kate
Winslet on the bow of the Titanic - though without shouting ‘I’m flying, I’m
flying.’
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| At the bow, but no longer doing an extraordinarily poor imitation Kate Winslet |
Our boat was, of
course, much smaller than the Titanic and the chances of meeting an iceberg in
the Irrawaddy are much the same as anyone confusing me with Kate Winslet, so I
gave up such childishness and joined Lynne and Tin. They were having a grown-up
discussion about the saintliness of Aung San Suu Kyi - always the first topic
of conversation in Myanmar - the likely effects of the dams being built upriver,
life under the military regime and the problems of corruption. Tin said he
owned a car, unusual in Myanmar, which had once belonged to an army officer.
‘Now,’ he said ‘whenever I approach a road block I am waved through and
saluted, and I no longer have to stop at toll gates.’
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| Lynne and Tin having a grown-up conversation |
After a while the
boatman turned off the engine and we drifted. The plan had been to watch the
sun set over the distant hills, but although the weather was improving and the
clouds had cracked enough to allow streaks of red and orange to leak through,
we were never going to see a sunset.
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| The sun sets unseen over the Irrawaddy |
Still, it was peaceful
bobbing about on the huge river, floating gently downstream. We hardly seemed
to be moving so I was surprised how quickly we returned to our starting point.
We had seen few boats out on the river, but as we ran up onto the beach there seemed
a sudden rush to catch the last of the light, ferries set out to cross the
river while boats carrying sacks of food or earthenware pots chugged past.
Dinner, A Puppet Show and a Poor Attempt at a Scam
In the evening we
walked to one of the Rough Guide’s recommended restaurants. The impression given by the guide was that it would be
basic, but tourism in Myanmar moves an apace. In a substantial bamboo building
there were tables with white table clothes, a small army of waiters and a stage
for a puppet show.
Faced with a full
menu and a full bar, we decided to start with a gin and tonic. Two good slugs
of Mandalay gin arrived along with a can labelled ‘soda water’. We pointed this
out to the waiter and said we wanted tonic. The waiter looked mystified but we
persisted so he fetched the manager. ‘It is tonic water,’ he said. We looked at
him, looked at the words ‘soda water’ on the can and remained unconvinced. He
opened the can, ‘If it is not tonic water you do not pay.’ It was,
despite the label, tonic water.
The food was
expensive - by local standards - and not particularly good. Warned that my Thai
red curry would be ‘spicy’ I was disappointed to find it on the bland side of
mild. The puppet show was amusing and full of energy, but difficult to see,
partly because it was at the other end of the restaurant, and partly because our
view was blocked by the waiters, who all stopped work to watch. It was not as
bad as trying to get served in a Cairo restaurant with a big screen showing a
vital Egypt v Algeria World Cup qualifier, but the waiters certainly seemed to
enjoy the show.
Our bill came to
14,000 Kyats and I counted out 14 bank notes into the folder. The waiter
snapped it shut and wandered off, only to return moments later apologising and
saying there had been ‘some sort of error’, the bill had been 14,000 but I had
only paid 9. I opened the folder, picked up the 9 bank notes, counted them out,
then picked up the bill and ‘found’ the other five hiding underneath. It was an
inept attempt at a scam and the waiter looked so embarrassed I almost felt
sorry for him, but he lost his tip along with his dignity.
As we walked back
to the hotel, I was assailed by feelings of guilt; it is, after all, a rich
man’s duty to be ripped off by the desperately poor, but they have to do it
with a little more skill than that!
Myanmar, Land of Gold
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