September 9, 2007

Mandalay (MYANMAR)

Surrounding Sights of Yangon: Inwa, U Bein's Bridge, and Sagaing Hill

Similar to our time at Inle Lake, Jo and I hired a driver for the day to take us to the sights surrounding Mandalay. As the former capital of the country, there is a wealth of interesting sights that promised to make for an interesting day-trip, so at 8am we climbed in the back of a small truck and set out.

The first sight we visited, called Mahamuni Paya, was an unexpected stop recommended by our driver. Also known as Payagyi, it is one of Myanmar's more famous Buddhist sights (so it was a good thing we didn't miss it). The paya's fame stems from the highly venerated Mahamuni Buddha image, which is a 4m-high seated image of Buddha cast in bronze during the 1st Century AD.

Once inside the paya, our driver motioned for me to follow him up a staircase into the inner sanctuary where the statue of Buddha is located. Once more, only men were allowed to enter, and it was customary to purchase small gold leafing to cover the Buddha. One side of the gold leaf has an adhesive, and I stood in the middle of the crowd of men covering the statue in gold. The pictures above give an idea of how much gold leafing is on the statue (remember it is actually bronze underneath).

The next stop was Sagaing Hill, which is 20km south of Mandalay. The panorama from the top of the hill offers a view of some 500 temples scattered along the banks of the Ayeyarwady River. Of course, it was another steep climb to reach the top, but by this point in our travels it has become second-nature. "Slow and steady wins the race," and all that.

At the top of the hill were several payas, and an interesting collection of large bronze frogs that are used as collection boxes for donations. By now it should be more than obvious what I mean when I say the Burmese love their Buddhist sights to be adorned in gold.

Our driver spoke a fair bit of English, and he offered to take us to a local restaurant for lunch. We ended up at a small cafe that was less a restaurant and more a watering hole with cheap Mandalay beer on tap. We invited our driver to join us and I think it was a source of great pride for him to be seen eating and drinking with us. The food was not particularly good, so we pushed it aside and settled on pints of beer for lunch. It probably wasn't a bright idea to be drinking with our driver, but he seemed like he was handling himself just fine so we kept drinking. At the table next to us was a group of construction workers, and they had a bottle of alcohol that they used to top off each glass of beer. I can't imagine whatever they were building will stand up for very long.

After lunch we drove to the ancient city of Inwa, which is cut off from roads by rivers and canals. We bought a seat on a local boat that runs to and from the island and headed across the Ayeyarwady River.  Once on the other side we were approached by a group of men, all offering to show us around the ancient sights on horse carts. We ended up choosing the cart with the healthiest looking horse as some of them looked small and malnourished.

Our first stop was at Maha Aungmye Bonzan, which is a brick-and-stucco monastery built in the early 1800s. It was my favorite building of any I have seen thus far, and despite suffering from a fire it maintained all its charm. In truth, the charred coloring actually made it look better. Underneath the monastery was a set of dark passageways that were fun to explore. I had to be conscious of where I stepped since Myanmar has some of the world's most poisonous snakes, but in truth I doubt there was any real risk.

We next continued on to Nanmyin, which is a 27m-high masonry watchtower that is leaning considerably. We didn't notice the tilt until we were at the top, and this made it all the more disconcerting. Supposedly, the precarious tilt was caused by a 1838 earthquake that destroyed much of the surrounding palace. It seemed somewhat ironic that this watchtower was designed to protect the rest of the palace, and yet through an unforeseeable event like a natural disaster it is only the watchtower that survives. Maybe it is not really that ironic, but I don't know what else to say about the place.

The last major stop around the ancient city of Inwa was Bagaya Kyaung, which is a monastery built in in 1834 and made entirely of teak wood. There are 267 teak posts supporting the structure, including one that is 18m (60ft) high and 2.7m (9ft) across. The monastery has not had much restoration work, so the wood all had a faded look that enhanced its appearance.

I was feeling fairly sick from the bumpy horse cart ride - likely  a combination of the bouncing, beer, and heat - so I lied down under one of the pavilions while Jo did most of the exploring. She came across a small Buddhist class in session, and hurried back to lead me. The class consisted of no more than a dozen young pupils, and was led by a monk. The boys looked like they were only 8 years old so they didn't speak any English. Instead, they sat Indian-style (cross-legged) on the wooden floor repeating the teachings with their papers laid out in front of them. Although the kids paid them no mind, there were bats flying around in the upper cavities of the ceiling and bat droppings littered the floor.

Our final stop of the day was at the world's longest teak bridge, which stretched 1.2km across the Ayeyarwady River. We were told there were great chances to see locals in a relaxed setting, but we never imagined we would end up being the ones drawing all the attention. In fact, people from the entire Mandalay area come to the bridge on weekends to relax and interact, and the sight of two young foreigners like us was a big deal. We were approached by several groups of monks who all wanted to practice their English, and although this can be tiring after a long day, we always entertain them. Once others saw us taking the time to chat, and thus being approachable, they came in listened in (although they did not look like they understood a word being said). What was even funnier was the scores of girls who wanted to have their picture taken with us. We posed for over a dozen pictures because there were groups of people, and we could not refuse after agreeing to the first one. An actual line formed on the narrow bridge while people waited for their turn to have a photo with us, and there was not much we could do about it except smile and go along for the ride.

We returned to Mandalay at 7pm, and after a quick bite to eat we headed for the long-distance bus station. Most travelers opt for a day-trip on the boats that head South on the Ayayarwady River, but it seemed silly to waste an entire day on travel. So, we bought two tickets for an over-night bus to Bagan and were in complete ignorance into what we were getting ourselves. This bus was ancient, and the entire back half was piled high with sacks. This left the front of the bus for the dozen or so locals and an Italian traveler to share between ourselves, but the worst part was still to come: there were sacks of rice between the seats and in the aisles. There was no way to put your legs down, so everyone on the bus ended up sprawling out in any direction they could manage. It was not an easy night.