On the road again – to see a bit of the exotic Far East with Overseas Adventure Travel and our travelling companions Jo Wilson and Carol Bennett.  We visited Burma, Laos, and Cambodia, with a just a little taste of Bangkok, Thailand.  We left home in mid-January and travelled via Chicago and Tokyo for 24 hours to reach Bangkok, Thailand.  After an overnight rest, we flew on to Vientiane, Laos and then to Luang Prabang, Laos.  After five days in Laos, we flew back to Bangkok and enjoyed a short city tour there.  After overnight in Bangkok, we flew to Yangon, Myanmar (aka Rangoon, Burma).  During two weeks in Myanmar, we had four more internal flights and then it was back to Bangkok.  Another overnight and we flew to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.  We spent 6 days in Cambodia and then flew back to Bangkok for one last night.    Then it was time to reverse our route and head home – a long ride, but a great trip.   This blog is one of four that describe our adventures in three countries and one big city. 

BURMA

Burma, now known as Myanmar, is a thoroughly Buddhist country in Southeast Asia – bordered by Thailand, Laos, China, India, Bangladesh, and the Indian Ocean.  It is a land with a rich and convoluted history – spanning several millennia, Burma’s history involves a bewildering cast of people and competing kingdoms.  Long before the British took control of Burma in the 1800s, the area was ruled by several different ethnic groups.  After independence in 1948, civil wars between minority groups seemed to be the norm.  The army took control from the elected government in 1962 and began the world’s longest-running military dictatorship.  Pro-democracy protests and marches saw the emergence of Aung San Suu Kyi as the leader of the National League for Democracy, which won over 80% of parliamentary seats in 1990. The military refused to transfer power and threw many elected officials into jail.  Protests continued, as did international sanctions; in 2011, a quasi-civilian government was sworn in, Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest, and the country opened again for tourism. 

To travel in Burma is to encounter men wearing skirt-like longyi, women smothered in thanakha (traditional make-up), and betel-chewing grannies with mouths full of blood-red juice … and that’s just at the airport.  A century ago, Rudyard Kipling described Burma as a place “quite unlike any land you know about,” and it seems that this corner of Asia has changed little since British colonial times.  Burma has yet to be overwhelmed by Western clothing – or mechanized transportation.  There’s no such thing as a 7-Eleven or an ATM, and not much in the way of communication with the outside world. Here holy men are more revered than rock stars, and there are incredible religious sites throughout the country.   It’s a magical destination …

YANGON (called Rangoon by the British) is Burma’s largest city, but international isolation over the last 50 years has left it with an enduring colonial charm.  Yangon’s streets are colorful and vibrant, its open-air markets are hectic, and its waterfront is beyond description.  The city is overrun with monuments to Buddhism, including the gilded masterpiece that is the most important religious pilgrimage shrine in the country.  We spent 2.5 days in Yangon, trying to take it all in.

Our first stop in this one-time capital city was the home of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese opposition politician and chairperson of the National League for Democracy. Since 1988, she has led a nonviolent movement toward achieving democracy and human rights.  For her efforts, she spent 15 years under house arrest and won the Nobel Prize for Peace.  She is a highly revered figure in Burma today – we would see her picture (and her father’s) in homes, restaurants, and shops throughout the country.

Next stop was the Chaukhtatgyi Pagoda for our first taste of Buddhism, Burmese style.  Also our first chance to show how fast we can take off shoes and socks.  Legend has it that 50 years ago, there was a giant standing Buddha poking his head above the temples and monasteries here.  One day he got tired and collapsed in a heap on the floor, whereupon he was replaced by the monster-sized (216 feet long) reclining Buddha we see today.  The Buddha’s placid face is topped by a crown encrusted with diamonds and other precious stones. 

A reclining statue also provides an opportunity to learn about the Buddha’s footprint.  These are no ordinary feet – they’re covered with 108 symbols that illustrate the previous lives of the Buddha. 

Attached to the temple complex is a meditation center, where locals sometimes gather to meditate.  Here also we met the first of many Burmese children who would steal our hearts – this little girl didn’t know what to think about all these strange people.

It’s not every city whose primary traffic circle is occupied by a 2000-year-old golden temple.  Surrounded by government buildings and commercial shops, the tall stupa of Sule Pagoda is a good example of the Yangon’s mix of modern Asian business life melding with ancient Burmese tradition.  It’s said that the stupa contains a sacred hair relic.

The National Museum is another study in contrasts.  Its collection is no doubt priceless, but its labels and lighting are appalling.  Thankfully, our guide knew his way around and helped us find the most important exhibits.  The highlight of the museum is the 26-foot-high Lion Throne, which belonged to the last king of Burma.  Other furnishings and memorabilia of the kings of old included jewel-encrusted beds, silver and gold rugs, fancy sedan chairs, kitchen chairs made of ivory, ceremonial dresses, and a large collection of betel-nut holders and spittoons.  (No photography allowed inside the museum.)

The REAL crown jewel of Yangon is the Shwedagon Pagoda, also known as the Golden Pagoda. Visible from almost anywhere in the city, the great golden dome rises 322 feet above its base.  According to legend, this stupa is 2500 years old, but archaeologists suggest that the original stupa was built about 1500 years ago.  Like many ancient stupas in this earthquake-prone country, the Shwedagon Pagoda has been rebuilt many times; its current form dates back only to 1769.

There are four covered walkways up the hill to the 12-acre platform on which the pagoda stands. We came in the early evening, leaving our shoes and socks as we mounted the first step.  The walkway was cool and calm, but we emerged from the semi-gloom into a dazzling explosion of technicolored glitter.  Shwedagon is not just one huge, glowing stupa – around the platform clusters a remarkable assortment of smaller stupas, statues, temples, shrines, images and small pavilions.  Somehow, the bright gold of the main stupa makes everything else seem brighter and larger than life. 

All Buddhist structures should be walked around clockwise, so we turned left at the base of the main stupa and strolled along with the crowds of locals and pilgrims.  It was fortunate that we made our visit in the evening, or our bare feet would have gotten scorched from the heat of the marble paving. 

 

Near the gates to the main platform, there are smaller stupas containing sacred relics of Buddha:  his walking stick, his bathing robe, his water filter, and 8 strands of hair.   Around the platform, there are over 70 temples with assorted images of Buddha.  Our favorites are one with a television monitor and one with a neon halo. 

 

 

It’s impossible to guess how many Buddha images are here.  They seem to be everywhere, with people praying, meditating or chanting.

 

   

Around the base of the main stupa, there are planetary posts conforming to the days of the week.  Locals offer flowers, pour water on the Buddha image, and pray at the station that represents the day they were born.  The one for Mars (Tuesday) corresponds to Aung San Suu Kyi’s birthday; this is where she prays whenever she visits the shrine – she can look up and smile at the closed-circuit TV camera trained on the spot. 

The central stupa is completely solid.  It is made of brick and covered with an estimated 60 tons of pure gold.  Near the top, its structure is shaped into flowers and lotus petals, with a banana bud as the final element before the hti, or umbrella structure at the top.  The hti is a distinctive feature of pagodas in Burma.  The hti at Shwedagon is one and a half stories tall; it has 7 tiers and weighs well over a ton. 

The shaft projecting from the top of the hti is hung with gold bells, silver bells, and various items of jewelry donated by true believers.  The topmost vane is gold and silver-plated and studded with 1100 diamonds totaling 278 carats – not to mention 1400 other precious stones.  At the top of the vane rests a diamond orb – a hollow golden sphere studded with 4351 diamonds, weighing 1800 carats in total.  Finally, the very top of the orb is tipped with a single 76-carat diamond.  It boggles the mind.

Back to the city.  Our guide was determined to show us the ‘real deal’ (his favorite phrase) in his home town.  First we took a walk – a somewhat risky undertaking.  Most of the time we walked in the street like everyone else, partly because the sidewalks are cluttered with vendors and sidewalk cafes and partly because the sidewalks are a disaster area.  There are very few traffic lights here, so crossing the street requires agility, luck and prayer. 

 

 

Colonial Yangon, with its spacious parks and lakes and mix of modern buildings and traditional wooden architecture, was known as "the garden city of the East.”  Today this former British colonial capital has the highest number of colonial period buildings in Southeast Asia.  There are plenty of decaying colonial structures, which remain highly sought after in spite of their less-than perfect condition. 

 

Apartment buildings, on the other hand, are colorful but lacking in charm.  Infrastructure here is sadly lacking – clean water and electricity are not a sure thing in the city. 

Also lacking is public transportation, but there are buses of every size and shape. Most are privately run and will not move until enough people are falling off the sides of the bus.  And of course, nobody speaks English and the signs are written in Burmese text.  This is how most folks get to and from work and school, so off we go – riding the bus from the central city to the ferry terminal on the Yangon River.

We made it to the ferry terminal, but we didn't stop there.  We bought tickets for the short ride across the river to the town of Dallah.  Here are the intrepid travelers, as well as our guide, Ronald.  His real name is San Thein, but he thought Americans would like a guide who named himself after a famous U.S. President.  (His cell phone worked; nobody else’s did.)

 

Riding on the ferry was like being in the middle of a floating market, with all the goods being offered. Fresh watermelon was available, as were other fruits, cigarettes and cheroots, lots of local foods and trinkets of all sorts.  

Note that these women’s faces are decorated with thanaka, the traditional Burmese make-up/sunscreen, made by grinding small pieces of wood from the Chinese Box Tree.  Burmese children wear thanaka as sun protection – light skin is highly desirable in the Burmese culture.  Women wear it for sun-protection, but they also use thanaka because it makes them beautiful and because it encourages romance (it smells good).  We tried it – it does seem to work well as a sunscreen, couldn’t really confirm the rest 

And the people were just wonderful – the adults were tolerant of the crazy tourists, but the kids were downright curious.  Who could not fall in love with the bright eyes and smile of this very young nun? Talk about local color. 

 

We made it across the river and were met by a small army of trishaws eager to take American tourists for a spin. 

 

In spite of the trishaws with American flags, it’s quickly obvious Dallah is not a tourist town.  The road is mostly paved, but quite narrow.  We passed bamboo houses and shops, the morning market, and the local temple.  Many people called out a greeting to us – we were rewarded with big smiles when we responded in Burmese, “Mingalaba!”

 

 
 

Back across the river, more adventure awaited us along the waterfront.  We watched all manner of goods loaded on and off of ships – not a mechanical device in sight – lots of old-fashioned hard work. 

 

Most interesting was the method for counting the number of bags hauled per person: with each bag of rice (or whatever else was being loaded or unloaded), the hauler was given a colored stick, which he hid somehow in his longyi.  At the end of the day, he carried the sticks to the boss man and was paid for the number of bags he had loaded or unloaded.  Simple, but ingenious.

 

Between jobs, men sat in small groups – talking, gambling, reading the paper, just killing time.

 

The waterfront was alive with ships and boats of all sizes.  We came upon another ferry – this one was for a long-distance haul, from Yangon 12 hours downstream to the delta region.  Passengers were loading, cargo was loading, and vendors were everywhere – some selling food for the trip, some selling betel leaves for chewing and spitting.

 

Some of us brave (or demented) travelers went on board to have a look around.  We were in real danger of getting slammed in the head with a 100-pound bag of rice, but – at our guide’s urging – we went to visit with some of the passengers.  Well, nobody spoke English, but they did find us quite entertaining – gave them something to talk about for the long ride ahead.

 

 

And finally, enough of the waterfront, we headed to Chinatown to check out the afternoon market.  Our guide says nobody in Burma goes to bed hungry – rice, vegetables and fruit are plentiful and inexpensive.  This market would seem to support his notion – the variety was quite wonderful and the quality very good.

 

 

Before leaving the city, we also stopped at Yangon’s historic Bogyoke Aung San Market.  It’s a major bazaar, known for its colonial architecture and inner cobblestone streets.  For tourists, there are shops selling antiques, handicrafts, jewelry, art and clothing.  For locals, there are stores for medicine, foodstuffs, garments, and foreign goods.  It would have been easy to spend the day wandering around this sprawling market, but we had a plane to catch …

BAGAN is known as the “City of Four Million Pagodas.”  Many of the pagodas and temples are small, but the sheer number of them is staggering.  These centuries-old shrines, pagodas and stupas don’t actually total in the millions, but there are well over 2000 of them scattered along a remote 26-square mile plain in central Burma.  The majority of these monuments were constructed between the 11^th and 13^th centuries, a time when Bagan was the capital of the First Burmese Empire.  We had two full days in Bagan – so many temples, so little time …

Dhammayangi Pahto is visible from all parts of Bagan.  This massive, walled, 12^th-century temple is infamous for its mysterious, bricked-up inner passageways and cruel history.  An ancient king built the temple to atone for his sins; he smothered his father and brother and executed one of his wives.  He mandated that the mortarless brickwork fit so tightly that a pin couldn't pass between any two bricks; workers who failed in this task had their arms chopped off.  After the king died (by assassination) the interior was filled with brick rubble – as payback. 

Sulamani Pahto is a large two-story temple, with lush grounds behind its surrounding walls.  This temple with five doorways was constructed around 1181 and is known as the Crowning Jewel of Bagan.  Outside the walls, a local farmer and his family were harvesting pigeon beans.  Other crops in the area include peanuts and sesame seeds.

 

Pyathatgyi Pagoda is a huge building, with a giant open terrace atop the steps and another small deck further up.  Climbing a steep brick stairway in the dark was a little dicey, but it was a good view of the Bagan plain, with temples and pagodas in every direction.  

The structure itself is unusual – it’s a ‘double-cave’ monument built as a monastery, with vaults and broad corridors that make it possible to pass from one building to the other.  It is thought to be the last great construction of the dynasty of Bagan.  In the exterior vaults of Pyathatgyi, there are giant Buddha images facing in the four cardinal directions.

In between temples, we took a break at the market in the nearby town of Nyanug U.  The market was a colorful display of fruit, vegetables, flowers, fish and textiles.  And puppets!

 

 

Fortified by our market “fix” for the day, we went to visit the Shwezigon Pagoda. We had begun to think that all Bagan’s temples were in ruins, so this beautiful gold-domed pagoda was quite a shining surprise.  A gilded stupa, built to enshrine a bone and tooth of Gautama Buddha, sits on three rising terraces.  At the cardinal points, there are four shrines – each housing a 13-foot high bronze standing Buddha.  These were cast in 1102 and are Bagan’s largest surviving bronze Buddhas.  Shwezigon is important historically because it marked the first royal endorsement of the 37 nat (spirits), a central focus of Burmese religion before the arrival of Buddhism.  The king placed 37 figures representing the nat on the lower terraces; these were later moved to another building.  (More on nat later)

 

More souvenir stands, more shoes and socks off and on, and one more little girl with painted face.

 

With its gold corncob 170-foot stupa shimmering across the plains, Ananda Pahto is one of the finest, largest, best-preserved and most revered of all Bagan souvenir stands, oops – I mean temples.  (Folks selling books, postcards, and paintings are very persistent and it does get a bit annoying.)  The four entranceways to the temple make the structure a perfect Greek cross; each entrance is crowned with a stupa finial.  The base and terraces are decorated with glazed tiles, and the huge doors are carved from teak.  Inside there are four 31-ft standing Buddha statues.

We walked around outside the temple walls to take a look at the local traffic – carts pulled by oxen – that’s how most folks get from one place to another and how they carry their goods to and from the market.

 

Time for a lunch break – visiting temples is hard work.  A printed menu was on the table, so we knew in advance what was coming:  bean curd chips, gourd leaf soup, fish curry, beef curry, rice, eggplant, and some sort of salad.  We were to get very familiar with this menu, which was typical of most meals in Burma.

While we’re in town, we stopped at Tun Handicrafts, a lacquerware workshop that produces bowls, trays and other products.  Here craftsmen first weave a bamboo frame, which is then coated over the framework and allowed to dry.  After several days, it is sanded down with rice husks and another coating of lacquer is applied.  The finished product may have 7-15 layers of lacquer.  The lacquerware is then engraved, painted and polished repeatedly – from start to finish, it can take 5-6 months to create a high-quality piece that may have as many as five colors. 

 

 

Pahtothamya, known for its wall murals, was our next stop.  This pagoda was built in the 10th Century.  It is single story temple, but is quite large and has steps leading to viewing areas on the top.  Inside there is a hall for the Buddha's image and an inner passage decorated with figurines and frescoes from 11th century. It was dark as a cave inside – good thing we had flashlights.

Waiting for us outside the temple was our very own horse cart – we enjoyed a lovely (somewhat bumpy) ride around the area.  The late afternoon sun playing off the ancient temples and pagodas was an unforgettable experience.

 

Our ride ended at Taung Guni Temple, which was built in the early 12^th century. We arrived just before sunset, so we made our way to the top – enjoyed the view and company. It was a beautiful ending to a wondrous day.

 

Day Two in Bagan:  What better way to appreciate Bagan’s size and sprawl than from the basket of a hot-air balloon?  Balloons over Bagan picked us up at our hotel in a lovingly-restored pre-World War II Chevrolet CMP bus – partly made of teak. We had coffee/tea and snacks while the balloons were filled with hot air, and then we were off on a magical ride.  

 

We recognized some of the temples we’d seen the day before, but mostly we just looked and wished the ride would never end.  The balloon ride did end – with a champagne breakfast!

 

 

NOTE: There have been efforts to secure UNESCO World Heritage Site designation for the Bagan Archaeological Area.  At first glance, it seems like a no-brainer.  Bagan was the capital city of the first Burmese Kingdom and contains more than 2500 Buddhist temples, stupas, monasteries and other monuments.  The problem is with maintenance and construction.  Under the military dictatorship, repairs have been made with little regard to accepted procedures for historical conservation.  This brand-new, under construction pagoda is a good example of the problem - one of the Army generals (trying to atone for his sins?) is paying for this structure - right in the middle of the archaeological zone.  UNESCO was not amused.

After breakfast we headed out of town for a half-day outing to Mt. Popa (see below).  After that side trip, we returned to Bagan for some free time and then to the jetty just behind our hotel.  Here we boarded a boat to view the locale from a different perspective – the waters of the Irrawaddy River.  There was a lot of activity here – including the usual array of souvenir sellers who seemed to follow us everywhere. 

 

 

Our last night in Bagan included a home-hosted meal.  Having seen much poverty in Burma, we were quite surprised to be dropped off at a very fine house, with lots of furniture.  Most homes we’d visited had almost no furniture – just mats for sitting or sleeping.  Here there were plenty of chairs and tables for dining – this family was much better off than most and had plenty of experience in hosting these meals.  The menu was much the same as everywhere else, with one notable exception.  We had the chance to try Burmese tea leaf salad, or laphet.  The salad was served in a shallow lacquerware dish divided into small compartments. Pickled tea leaves laced with sesame oil was in the central compartment which was surrounded by other ingredients such as fried garlic, peas and peanuts, toasted sesame, crushed dried shrimp, preserved shredded ginger and fried shredded coconut.  This was one dish we really enjoyed.

Mount Popa, like a Burmese Mt. Olympus, is the spiritual headquarters to Burma’s infamous 37 nat or spirit beings.  The mountain itself is a 5000-ft extinct volcano covered in lush forests.  On the mountain’s lower flank is Popa Taung Kalat, a tower-like 2400-ft volcanic plug crowned with a gilded Buddhist temple. 

Interesting geology, but we’re here for the nat, whose worship predates Buddhism in Burma.  These spirit beings are believed to hold dominion over a place, person or field of experience.  Nowhere are they more alive than at Mount Popa, where there is a special shrine, guarded by tigers, for the 37 nat descended from actual historic personages who died violent, unjust deaths.  These extraordinary nat, when properly appeased, could aid worshipers in accomplishing important tasks, vanquishing enemies and so on.  The 11^th-century king who brought Buddhism to Burma wisely conceded the nat’s coexistence with Buddha, leading to the common practice of worshiping both.

Inside the Mother Spirit of Popa Nat Shrine, there is a large display of mannequins representing the 37 official nat.  One of these is the Popa-born Lord Kyawswa (aka Drunk Nat), who spent his time cockfighting and drinking.  He’s the guardian of gamblers and drunks and sits on a horse decked in rum and whiskey bottles.  Offerings of food and money are everywhere. 

 

Across the street from the nat shrine steps flanked by elephant statues – under a covered walkway and past rows of shops and shrines, this is the path to the Mount Popa temple and monastery.  The path is guarded by platoons of cheeky monkeys who try to steal hats, glasses, cameras – anything that can be detached from an unsuspecting tourist.  They also leave their droppings all over the path and encouraged us to cut short our walk. 

 

On our way back to Bagan, we stopped for a cold drink at the Mt. Popa Resort.  The drink was fine, but we really went for the view.  Nice spot – wonder why OAT doesn’t use this as our hotel?

Also along the road between Mt. Popa and Bagan, we saw lots of farms, many of which had roadside stands for selling their produce.  We stopped at one of these to learn about palm sugar and to marvel at what can be done with the sap from a palm tree.  We watched a man climb a tree to collect the sap, saying a prayer before he started up.  He carried two containers with him, and exchanged them for two full containers at the top of the tree.

Sugar is made from the sap, and also a type of beer and palm whiskey.  Samples were offered all around – we liked a snack made from lumps of palm sugar and toasted sesame seeds – the whiskey was surprising smooth.

 

We also stopped to watch a man making peanut oil, using a time-tested device turned by an ox.  Another cute little kid was playing nearby - they're everywhere. 

MANDALAY served briefly as capital of the last Burmese kingdom in the mid-19^th century.  Its name conjures up images of Asia at its most traditional and timeless, but the reality is lots of traffic and anonymous concrete buildings.  Fortunately, our guide took us beyond the obvious – to tree-shaded monasteries and side streets filled with craft-workers. 

Seen from the air, Mandalay seems to have a giant square cut out of its middle.  This is the Mandalay Fort, ringed by a 230-ft-wide moat and 26-ft-high walls cut from deep reddish-brown stone.  The walls are punctuated a regular intervals with gate-towers topped by pyramids of carved woodwork.  Built in 1857, the forked was a walled city within a city; at the center was the royal palace.  The palace was destroyed during World War II and was rebuilt in the late 1990s by the military dictatorship – our guide did not think it was worth any time to visit, but we did enjoy walking around the exterior.  Here are two views of the moat and walls - one in morning facing Mandalay Hill, the other from the opposite corner in late afternoon.  And here's Mandalay's version of public transportation, plus a delightful old man we met at the moat.

 

 

One of the royal buildings that escaped destruction is the Golden Palace Monastery, or Shwenandaw Kyaung.  The teak monastery-temple with its elaborate carved panels was originally built as the royal apartment of the king, who died inside it in 1878.  Unable to cope with the king’s ghost, his successor had the building dismantled, carted out of the palace complex and re-assembled outside the walls, where it was converted into a monastery in 1880.

 

This young woman was selling flowers, just in case we wanted to make an offering inside the temple. 

Nearby is Kuthodaw Paya, a gilt and gold stupa from the mid-19^th-century, surrounded by 729 text-inscribed marble slabs, each housed in its own small stupa and together representing the entire 15 books of the Tripitaka (Buddhist scriptures).  Another 1774 similarly ensconced marble slabs, inscribed with Tripitaka commentary, ring the nearly Sandamuni Paya.  Collectively, these slabs are cited as the “World’s Biggest Book.” 

 

And of course, there are kids.  Inside the pagoda, one little girl was selling flowers to the faithful - lots of people place flowers in the temples.  Near the front entrance, more kids - these were with their mother who was selling birds which could be purchased and released for good luck.  

 

We ended this day with a trek up Mandalay Hill for sunset-viewing.  There’s a stairway starting between the two giant chinthe (guardian lion-dog creatures) at the base of the hill.  The 45-minute barefoot climb might be a part of the experience, but our guide had other plans.  He seems to be on a quest to have us try every possible mode of transportation – and today, we loaded into the back of a couple of pickup trucks which took us close to the top of the 760-ft hill.  At the summit, there are Buddha images, pagodas and a monastery – and a nice view of sunset over Mandalay and the Irrawaddy River.   We did walk back down the hill as darkness fell on a seemingly endless stairway.

 

Day Two in Mandalay was a whirlwind.  We started out the morning at a gold-pounding workshop that makes one-inch-square gold-leaf sheets that worshipers put onto shining Buddha images.  It’s a laborious process, with muscle-bound gold-beaters pound hammers for hours by hand.   

 

The thumping rhythm of the gold-beaters was interrupted by cheers and music in the street – a parade!  Who knew that it was the birthday of the prophet Mohammad?  Lots of people in Mandalay knew about it, and we were treated to a colorful display, complete with marching bands and pom-pom girls.  An unexpected bit of learning and discovery…

 

 

Our next stop was Mahamuni Paya, where the star attraction is a highly venerated 13-ft-high seated Buddha image, one of Burma’s most famous.  Over the centuries, so much gold leaf has been applied by the faithful that the figure is now entirely covered in a knobby 6-in-thick layer of pure gold.  Entirely, that is, except for his radiantly gleaming face, which is lovingly washed every day at 4 am by the head monk. 

The Buddha sits under a multi-tiered golden shrine roof.  It is approached through a long concrete passageway crammed with stalls selling all manner of religious trinkets.  

 

Only men are allowed to apply gold leaf to Mahamuni’s torso.  Female devotees may kneel nearby, but no contact is allowed.  Many think that this is contrary to the Buddha’s teachings and believe that desegregation is long overdue.

Mahamuni Paya is a popular place of pilgrimage, with thousands of faithful arriving daily, including families bringing their colorfully robed children for coming-of-age celebrations. 

Also in the temple is a collection of Hindu-Buddhist Khmer bronze figures, which were originally snatched centuries earlier from Angkor Wat, reached Thailand by a series of other historical thefts, and were brought to Burma in 1784.  The most impressive image is the statue of the Hindu god Shiva; locals told us that any afflictions could be cured by rubbing the corresponding body part on the bronze image.  It did wonders for my headache….

Mya Wa Di Nunnery was founded in 1979.  It is the largest nunnery in Burma, with 400 resident nuns.  All of the nuns have shaved heads and wear pale pink robes.  We arrived just as the nuns were lining up (from oldest to youngest) to file into the dining hall for lunch.  They aren’t allowed to eat after 12 noon, so we didn’t want to delay them.  

 

The abbess invited us to come in for a short time to see how they take meals.  After prayers, they ate pretty much in silence.  Their food was mostly rice, along with some vegetables and fruit.

 

One of the nuns showed us around the main building, where the nuns spend much of their time.  On the roof of the building is a beautiful temple, filled with flowers and images of Buddha.

 

We then went to the main office for a Q&A/discussion with the Head Abbess and two of her lieutenants.  She was a delightful hostess, and we learned a great deal about a day in the life of these nuns.  Have a look at the daily schedule:

Our next stop was a workshop producing tapestries, puppets and wonderful wood carvings.

 

 

Our last adventure in Mandalay was another trishaw ride… Ronald’s Optional Tour #2.  Once again he rounded up a bunch of trishaws, with drivers psyched up about showing Americans “real” life in their city.  Today the emphasis was on sports.  We watched two ball games that we’d never seen before and still don’t quite understand.

 

The first was sepak takraw, meaning ‘kick ball.’ It looks a bit like 3-man volleyball, but the ball is made of rattan and players may only use their feet, knees, chest and head to touch the ball.  It’s a big sport in Southeast Asia and is played in the Asian Games, as well as the King’s Cup World Championship in Thailand.  Check out the video.

The second game was chinlone, the traditional sport of Burma.  It is a combination of sport and dance, a team sport with no opposing team.  The focus is not on winning or losing, but on how beautifully one plays the game.  A team of 6-8 players pass the rattan ball back and forth with their feet, knees and heads as they walk around in a circle.  One player goes into the center to solo, creating a dance of various moves strung together.  The soloist is supported by the other players who try to pass the ball back with one kick.  When the ball hits the ground it is dead, and the play starts again.  The video below does a better job of explaining this!  The game is over 1500 years old and was once played for Burma royalty; over the centuries, players have developed more than 200 different ways to kick the ball.  Amazing.  The chinlone game was being played in the courtyard of a monastery.  One young monk kept a close eye on the game, perhaps wishing he could play, too.  

 

INWA served as Burma’s royal capital four different times - for over half of the past 650 years.  Nowadays it is a rural backwater of empty fields sparsely dotted with ruins, monastic buildings and stupas.  It’s a world away from the bustling city of Mandalay, and for us, exploring the area by plodding old horse cart was part of its charm.

First we had to get there.  We joined some locals in a small wooden boat that carried us across the river from Mandalay to Inwa.  As always, there was a woman washing clothes at the dock.

 

At the top of the hill, there was a dusty road, a few shops, and horse carts.  We loaded up, two to a cart and ambled off to see the sights.

Our first stop was not an ‘official’ tourist destination; rather, it was a roadside business with the whole family busy making grass mats that are used in every Burmese home.  The men did the weaving, while the women and children stitched bright red trim around the edges.

 

And then we were out in the countryside – more dusty roads, farms, ancient ruins and some newer Buddhist monuments (many of which were whitewashed).  It was like riding through a picture book – whoever dreamed of such a place?

 

Our first official stop was at Bagaya Kyaung, a monastery built in 1834 entirely of teak wood.  The building is supported by 267 huge teak posts, the largest measuring 60 feet tall and 9 feet in circumference.  Inside, the head monk was busy – he did a fine job of pretending we weren't there.

 

The entire building is decorated with carvings, lotus flower designs, figurines, and reliefs of birds and animals.  The large teak doors are also beautifully carved.

We enjoyed walking around the grounds, too.  Nothing fancy – water jugs and kids playing.

 

Next stop was at Nanmyin, the leaning Watch Tower, all that remains of a royal palace built in 1822.  An earthquake in 1838 destroyed the palace and added a little tilt to the tower.  The pathway to the tower was lined with souvenir stands. 

 

Nearby was the Brick Monastery, Maha Aungmye Bonzan, built in 1822.  It also was damaged by the earthquake of 1838, but was later repaired.  It is considered a good example of 19^th Burmese architecture, stucco-covered brick simulating wooden monasteries with multiple roofs.  

 

As we learned about the monastery and its history, the souvenir sellers took a break and one of our travelers entertained the locals with pictures of her grandchildren.  The local kids were cute, too.

 

While we were at the monastery, we could hear music and loudspeaker announcement from the nearby pavilion.  As we got closer, the noise was deafening, but the colors were fantastic.  There were lots of kids, dressed in beautiful costumes, sitting on the floor, surrounded by their families.  Our guide said this was a noviation ceremony, the time at which boys enter the monastery to be initiated into the rites of monkhood.  Their heads are shorn, and they will wear saffron robes and lead lives of self-denial and alms-seeking – for about one week.  Most will then return home, but many stay longer, particularly those from poor families.  Monkhood offers room and board, and more importantly, a chance to get an education.  (It was less clear why the girls were participating in this even.  Our guide thought they were there for ear-piercing, but it looked like most of them already had pierced ears.)

Heading back to the river, we had a close encounter with a double-wide ox cart.  We thought our little cart might end up in the ditch, but our driver somehow squeezed through.

At the dock, we waited for an incoming boat loaded with women hauling some kind of grass.  They moved those bags and bundles without even breathing hard. On the boat, they had left their lunch pails.  We saw these little aluminum boxes everywhere, in the hands of office workers, school kids, and fishermen.  Each bowl would be filled with a different food item – rice, meat, vegetables – nobody seemed concerned about refrigeration (or lack thereof).

 

AMAURAPURA, which means “City of Immortality,” was Burma’s penultimate royal capital, though its period of prominence was short-lived.  Starting in 1857, the king dismantled most of the palace buildings and shipped them seven miles north to Mandalay, which was to become the new capital according to a Buddhist prophecy.  Today it’s essentially a suburb of Mandalay, set on a wide, shallow lake named for an ogre who supposedly came looking for Buddha here. 

We are here to see the world’s longest teak footbridge, which gently curves for 1300 yards across Taungthaman Lake.  It is called U Bein’s Bridge, named for the mayor who built it using unwanted teak columns from the old palace during the move to Mandalay.  It’s dry season, the water level is low, and the bridge feels surreally high. 

The bridge is busy throughout the day, but the most activity is at dusk:  fishermen in the still waters, tourists in paddle boats waiting for sunset, monks heading back to the monastery, Burmese biking home from work.  We joined the crowds and walked the bridge, at least halfway across the lake.

 

Did we mention the ever-present souvenir sellers?  This young woman followed us everywhere, patiently explaining the virtues of her necklaces and key chains made from watermelon seeds.  One of us finally caved in.

We joined hordes of other tourists for a ride in a wooden gondola.   Our guide met us in the middle of the lake with champagne for everyone – we drank a toast to all things Burmese and then sat back to enjoy a spectacular sunset.  Another fine day.

MINGUN is a compact riverside village that is home to a trio of unique pagodas.  It’s an hour away from Mandalay by boat, and puttering up the wide Irrawaddy River is definitely part of the attraction.  The scene at the jetty was semi-organized chaos – lots of boats, lots of people.  We only had to walk across three other boats to get to our vessel. 

 

The cruise gave us a good opportunity to see some waterfront villages, as well as other boats hauling people and products up and down the river.

 

Our arrival at Mingun was not unexpected – the locals were out in force – a gang of souvenir sellers as well as the local taxi, just in case anyone wanted a ride into town.   We walked – and enjoyed looking at the shops, street food, and interesting people.

 

 

Mingun Paya, the town’s main attraction which is early visible from the water, would have been the world’s biggest stupa IF it had ever been finished.  Work stopped when King Bodawpaya died in 1819, leaving only the bottom one-third complete.  That is still a huge structure – a roughly 240-ft cube on a 460-ft lower terrace – it is often described as the world’s largest pile of bricks.  For added drama, there are a couple of deep cracks caused by that 1838 earthquake.  The white structure to the right is Pondaw Paya, a scale model of what Mingun Paya would have looked like had it ever been completed.

 

Across the road from the pagoda ruin, a couple of huge lumps are all that remain of two brick chinthe (half-lion, half-dragon guardians) that would have guarded the pagoda. 

Continuing his biggest-is-best obsession, in 1808, King Bowdapaya commissioned a gigantic bronze bell.  Weighing nearly 100 tons, the Mingun Bell is 13 feet high and over 16 feet across the lip, making it the world’s largest uncracked bell.  (Moscow has a bigger one, but it’s split and not hung.)  It’s also a favorite spot for family photos.

The Hsinbyume Paya was built in 1816, possibly using materials from Mingun Paya.  It is supposed to be a representation of the Sulamani Paya which, according to the Buddhist plan of the cosmos, stands atop Mt. Meru, the mountain that stands at the center of the universe.  The stupa is surrounded by seven whitewashed terraces representing the seven mountain ranges around Mt. Meru. Our guide calls it the ‘unusual architecture pagoda.’

 

One last stop in Mingun was to have a look at the memorial built over the tomb of the monk, Bhandanta Vicitsara, who is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as a record holder in the Human memory category. He recited 16,000 pages of Buddhist canonical text in Rangoon, Burma in May 1954.

Reboarding the boat, you can see the bamboo railing used to keep the tourists from falling in - yep, it's hand-held.  A couple of the crew held it in place while we boarded - these folks are very resourceful.  The ride home was rest time ...

NYAUNG SHWE is a small town between Mandalay and Kalaw.  It’s a crossroads town, whose main function is to feed and fuel.  We stopped in this area to have a look around and to marvel at how much stuff (and people) can be crammed into a pickup truck.

 

We checked out the Mingalar Market, where business was booming.  This was their main market – not much English spoken and not much recognizable among the products for sale.  Still, a fun place to look around.

 

 

 

Nearby was a bamboo weaving workshop, where workers were cutting long thin strips of bamboo and making huge woven pieces that could be used for building houses.

And, of course, one more monastery.  This one, the Shwe Yawnghwe Monastery, was over 700 years old.  Built up on posts, it looked a bit like a beach house, but then not many beach houses are built out of teak.  It is notable for the unique oval windows of the ordination hall. 

 

THA YAT PU VILLAGE, inhabited by members of the Pa-O tribe, was our first stop in Burma’s hill country.  We had expected a tour of the village, but when we arrived, most of the villagers were hard at work in a clearing near the main road.  The men were building bamboo structures for an upcoming festival, and the women were busy cooking lunch for everybody.

 

 

We stood around and admired their work and attempted conversation for a while.  Many of the women were wearing the traditional Pa-O headdress – looks like a towel twisted around the head.

We left the workers and walked through the mostly deserted village, where most of the houses were made of bamboo.  We also passed a couple of oxcarts, one hauling hay and one coming back from the market.

 

We also stopped to visit with a couple of wonderful old women, too old to help with the festival preparation.  Actually, we stopped to talk to one and her neighbor quickly came over to see what she was missing.

 

We stopped at the local market for a snack and a drink and then headed on our way to Kalaw.

Note:  Burma is a country of people descended from many nations, as people migrated into the country many thousands of years ago.  Today there are 135 recognized minorities in tribes of Burma.  They have their own language, culture and customs; some even have their own literature.  These groups maintain their customs and culture – and their respect for each other.  Tribe peoples are spread all over the country, but many of them are concentrated in the hill country, where we will have a chance to meet them and learn something about how they live.

KALAW was founded as a hill station by British civil servants fleeing the heat of the plains.  Today it still feels a bit like a high-altitude holiday resort – the air is cool, the atmosphere is calm, the streets are leafy and green, and the surrounding hills are beautiful.  Leftovers from colonial days include many old British homes and buildings, a railroad station, and Christ the King Catholic Church.  The Catholic Church, which is over 100 years old, was actually founded by Portuguese traders.  We stopped there to visit with the priest, Father Paul, who holds daily mass and operates an orphanage that houses 20 boys, ages 5-21.

 

There’s also a monastery, Thein Taung Paya, at the top of hill overlooking the town of Kalaw.  It does seem that monasteries get built in hard-to-reach locations!

 

Our hotel in Kalaw was the Pine Hill Resort, the top-rated hotel in the region; it is locally owned and operated by people of the Palaung Tribe, identifiable by their traditional dress – pink longyis and multi-color hats.  We stayed in one of several wooden cottages set around an original colonial bungalow.  Charming, except for the lack of heat … and nighttime temperatures around 40 degrees.  Brrr.

MYIN KA VILLAGE is a Danu tribe community where we spent the day – our chance to get a real sense of a day in the life of ordinary people in the hill country.  We started our trip with a stop at the morning market in Kalaw.

The Kalaw market would be an interesting place to wander around, but today we were on a mission – to purchase the food needed to prepare lunch during our visit in the village today.  Our guide sorted us into four groups and gave each group a market basket, some cash, and a list of food to buy.  To make things interesting, the list was written phonetically – so we could (in theory) speak the Burmese words even though we had no idea what we were buying.  No problem, right?

We marched into the market and told some of the sellers what we wanted.  This was cause for much laughter since they had no idea what we were saying.  They took the list to see what it said, but … it wasn’t written in Burmese script so they couldn’t read it either.  Hmmm, this wasn’t going to be so easy after all.

Thank goodness the folks in the market were determined to help us – after all, we had money to spend.  We kept trying to pronounce the Burmese words and they kept trying to guess what we were saying.  Things slowly came together:  loaded up our chili peppers, salt, oil and ginger root and still had time to enjoy the market.  Again, an endless array of colorful food, products and people.

 

We thought we were ready to head to the village, but first we had to change vehicles.  Forget the mini-bus, we’ll be riding in trucks belonging to farmers in the village.  These are the same trucks they use to carry produce to market.  It’s a charming little vehicle, with a hand-cranked engine that sounds a lot like a lawn mower.

It was quite a ride, through farms and orchards.  Our driver dropped us near the gate of the schoolyard, where the kids were waiting for us.  This is the Myin Ka Primary School, with 47 kids and 4 teachers.  The school has received financial support from the Grand Circle Foundation to purchase some furniture and to build a bathroom.  (The smaller building to the left of the school is the home of the head teacher.)

 

The kids grabbed our hands and escorted us into the school building, where they welcomed us with songs and smiles.

We went back outside for a while to burn off some of their energy.  We played a few dancing/jumping/singing games – including the hokey pokey.  The kids loved it; us old folks got hot and tired.

 

Back inside we went, this time for some show-and-tell teaching.  The local teacher showed us how the kids learn English words, and some of the former teachers in our group gave it a try as well.  One of our fellow travelers even gave some lessons in getting the alphabet straight.

 

The kids were enthusiastic about learning and excited about the school supplies and games we had brought as gifts.  As always on these trips, our time visiting the school will be one of our fondest memories.

 

 

We left the school and walked over to the Myin Ka Monastery, the next part of our ‘Day-in-the-Life’ experience.  This sprawling teak building is the home of 14: the abbot, 6 monks and 7 novices. 

We gathered in a circle around the abbot for an interesting Q&A session.  He tried to explain some fundamentals of the Buddhist faith to us and recited some sections of the Buddhist scripture.  We lit candles and he taught us how to chant, meditate and use rosary beads.  It was impossible not to be moved by the sense of peace and calm that seems to surround these holy men and their simple ceremonies.

Our chariots were waiting to carry us down to the community center, where folks were waiting for us to help prepare lunch. First we had to wash up and check out the locals’ version of a Western toilet.  They were very anxious for us to be comfortable, so they converted pit toilet into something else altogether …

Over in the kitchen, our hosts had most of the work done.  The women in our group had to help finish up the soup and fry some tempura vegetables, while the guys stirred up a batch of rum sours (Mandalay rum, lime juice and honey).  There was plenty of food; nobody went away hungry.

 

After lunch, we adjourned to the upstairs room to yet another Q&A/roundtable discussion.  We sat down for a lively conversation with 6 men (one was the village head man) and 2 women.  They were amazed to learn that some American farmers use airplanes for tending their crops.

To see us off, the villagers gathered up their musical instruments, struck up a tune and started dancing.  We were, of course, invited to join in the fun, and we tried.  No danger that any of us would be as graceful as these farmers and their wives.

 

INLE LAKE is one of Burma’s top attractions and it doesn’t take long to see why.  On paper the lake is 13.5 miles long and 7 miles wide, but up close it’s hard to tell where the lake stops and the marshes begin.  Nearly 70,000 people live here – in towns and cities bordering the lake, in numerous small villages along the lake's shores, and on the lake itself.   We wrapped up our visit to Burma here – drifting around the backwaters, admiring ruined stupas, visiting tribal craftsmen, and just soaking up the atmosphere. 

On our first afternoon at Inle Lake, we wasted little time before getting out on the water.  We boarded 2-person canoes and went for a ride.  We paddled around an Intha (ethnic group) fishing village, with all manner of houses on stilts.  Most were made of bamboo; a few had tin roofs.  

 

We were invited into the home of one of the fishermen – not sure where to leave the shoes and socks!  We all sat around on the floor, met the family, and learned about the hard life that comes with being a fisherman.

 

The next morning, we graduated to a somewhat larger boat: 4 passengers, one driver – and a motor to keep it moving.  We enjoyed looking at the floating gardens in the lake.  The floating garden beds are formed by some serious manual labor.  The farmers gather up lake-bottom weeds from the deeper parts of the lake, bring them back in boats and make then into floating beds in their garden areas, anchored by bamboo poles.  These gardens rise and fall with changes in the water level, so are resistant to flooding.  The constant availability of nutrient-laden water results in these gardens being incredibly fertile.  

 

Local fishermen are known for practicing a distinctive rowing style which involves standing at the stern on one leg and wrapping the other leg around the oar. This unique style of leg-rowing evolved for the reason that the lake is covered by reeds and floating plants making it difficult to see above them while sitting.  Some of us would have happily spent the day watching these fellows at work – incredibly graceful, almost like a dance – but … our guide insisted that there were other things to see.

Nga Hpe Kyaung is a monastery that gained some fame from its jumping cats, trained to leap through hoops by the monks during the slow hours between scripture recitals.  Alas, the old abbott died and the new headman deemed cat shows inappropriate - nowadays they just lie around in the sunshine.  A better reason to visit the pagoda is to see the collection of ancient Buddha images, displayed on ornate wood and mosaic pedestals.

 

Down the lake a bit was the small village of Nampan, built entirely on stilts over the water.  Most of the houses as simple, built of bamboo.   Most seemed to have electricity.  One even boasted a satellite dish – our guide thought that was a multi-family home.

 

Pagodas and temples appear all around the lake – this small one had a little spirit house, too.  The larger one had a yard full of stupas, donated by the faithful.

 

We visited a lakeside town that was loaded with all sorts of workshops and retail stores.  In the weaving shop, women were making beautiful cloth from silk, as well as from a special thread made from the lotus plant.  Sometimes the weaver controls the color pattern and sometimes the thread is dyed in advance.

 

 

 

Behind the weaving shop was a boat shop – for repair and construction of new boats. 

Around the corner was the blacksmith shop – these four guys were working together in perfect harmony: one working the bellows, one holding the piece of metal, and two pounding away to shape a knife.  They produced all sorts of metal gadgets, including some interesting opium pipes.

 

And then there was the shop for making cheroots, a small cigar that is traditional in Burma and India.  They’re cheap – mostly handmade in small factories like this one where six young women spent hours rolling and wrapping.  Our hotel offered fee samples …

 

They also make paper here.  These workers are of the Shan ethnic group.  Shan paper is hand-made from the pulp of mulberry bark and dried in the sun.  It takes several days of soaking, pounding and bleaching the pulp to make the fibers soft enough to make thin layers of paper sheets.  We enjoyed watching them create beautiful colored paper umbrellas.

 

 

Lunch was memorable for its location, if not its content.  We stopped at a lakeside restaurant, sitting at the spot where a small river emptied into the lake.  Our boats filled up the parking lot and we enjoyed watching other boats make their way along the river.

 

The restaurant was just across the lake from one of the area’s most spectacular temples, Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda. This is considered to be the holiest religious site in this part of the country.  Enshrined within are five ancient Buddha images that have been transformed into amorphous blobs by the sheer volume of gold leaf applied by devotees. 

 

Once a year at festival time, the images are paraded around the lake in a huge ornate barge that is parked next door to the temple.

This was another one of the Buddhist shrines in which women were not allowed in the inner sanctum, where the Buddhas reside.  Staging a little sit-in didn’t help – nobody paid any attention.  We probably could have walked right in without incident, but we respected the local customs – while making a wish for change in the near future.

 

Heading back across the lake to our hotel gave us a chance to see more boats, more fishermen, more local color.  Another great day.

 

Our third and final day at Lake Inle was another adventure.  We went to visit some women from the Padaung tribe, Burma’s famous ‘giraffe women.’  Their ancient custom of fitting young girls with brass neck-rings (and arm-rings and leg-rings) was originally intended to make Padaung women less attractive to raiding parties from neighboring tribes.  The application of heavy brass neck-rings causes deformation of the collar bone and upper ribs, pushing the shoulders away from the head.  Many Padaung women reach a stage where they are unable to carry the weight of their own heads with the rings as additional support.  These days, raids aren’t such a problem, and the practice is dying out.

Our guide arranged for us to visit with three Padaung women, two older women and one teenage girl (another round-table discussion).  The women were very kind and encouraged questions as they told us about their culture which is so foreign to us.  The young girl doesn't plan to continue adding rings - adding to our suspicion that the younger generation is wearing the rings as a way to make some money posing for photographs.

 

 

It was hard not to stare and to feel as if we were treating them like creatures in a zoo.  We didn’t give them any money, but we did give each of them a genuine American bandana – they seemed really tickled that we’d brought a gift. 

In addition, our guide bought everyone in the group a longyi from their shop (he may have given them money directly, but we didn’t see that happen).

 

Did we mention that the souvenir sellers are everywhere?  Here they are in their canoes, waiting for us to leave the Padaung women’s’ shop and hoping that we need some more trinkets.  They do follow us … there is no escape. 

 





Next our long boats took us up one of the canals, under some interesting bridges, past family docks and a couple of water buffalo.  After about an hour, we arrived at the Pa-O village of Intheim.  the jungle ambiance evaporates a bit when suddenly surrounded by waiting tourist boats and souvenir stalls, but no matter - it doesn't take long to lose the crowds.  

 

 

We walked further along the canal, on a path where the only other people we saw were locals – mostly going about their own affairs, not too concerned about this gang of American tourists.

 

One interesting stop was with a woman making hot rice crackers.  She had a basket of rice cakes and a pan full of hot sand, which was kept hot over a charcoal fire.  She put the rice cake into the hot sand, where it got hot and crisp and delicious (once you shook off the sand).

 

We finally reached the top of the hill and the Shwe Inn Thein Pagoda, a complex of more than a thousand weather-beaten stupas, most constructed in the 17^th and 18^th centuries.  Some of the crumbling stupas are choked in greenery, though some ornate stucco carvings are still visible.  

 

Some lean at crazy angles, while others have been reconstructed (badly) courtesy of donations from local Buddhists.  This urge to repair things has kept this site from gaining recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  On the other hand, Buddhism teaches the law of impermanence, where nothing lasts forever. So why not just let nature take its course?

 

We have a lot of favorite people from our travels through Burma, but this old woman is surely near the top of the list.  When we came upon her, she seemed to be taking a break from whatever she had been doing.  She’d just lit up a little cheroot and sat back to enjoy it.  She smiled, we smiled.  When asked if we could take her picture, she agreed and then cackled like crazy when she saw it.   More smiles for these two Pa-O women carrying wood.

 

After exploring the ruins for a while, we took a different route back to the canal.  We walked down the long covered stairway that connects the pagoda to the village.  It is lined with stalls selling lacquerware, puppets and other souvenirs.  The hat looked tempting …

 

And then it was back to the lake for the long ride home.  Nice, long ride … with lots of fishing boats to enjoy.  We even stopped to check out the day’s catch – these folks had a boat full!

 

 

As our stay in Burma drew to a close, we donned our brand new longyis and flip flops provided by the hotel and paraded down the road to the nearby pagoda to pay homage to the Buddha responsible for the day of the week on which we were born.  Our guide was horrified that none of us had this critical piece of information, since it is such an important part of the rituals of Buddhism.  

 

No worries - he’s a resourceful fellow – he looked us all up on a 100-year calendar and we were all set.  Margaret found the Sunday niche and Fran found Thursday’s; we lit candles as instructed and headed back to the hotel for our farewell dinner. 

 

Dinner was the same delightful menu as many days before – everybody is ready for a hamburger and the southern contingent would kill for a glass of sweet iced tea.  After dinner, there was folk dancing performed by staff from the hotel.  It was noisy and colorful – we enjoyed the performance and were amazed at the talents of these people we’d seen doing many other tasks for the past several days.  We saw: Shan State Flag Dance, Shan Martial Art Dance, a Palaung folk dance, the Bird Dance and the Bamboo Catcher Dance (from the Karen people), the Shan Fire Spirit Dance, and the Shan Harvest Dance.  Of course, there’s always group participation, so the dancers dragged us all out on the floor for the final number.  In spite of our costumes, we all managed to stay on our feet.

 

 

And then it was over, just like that.  Happily, the memories will last a lot longer.