Shwedagon pagoda

Streets overflowing with bicycles. Stacks of firewood slowly dragged by rickety wooden ox-carts. Horse drawn carriages stuffed with people. Tiny trucks powered by make-shift tractor engines toppling over with bamboo poles. Pick ups trucks overflowing with people; men hanging from the roof and sides. Lorries packed three times their size impossibly held with knotted ropes and tarps giving them the attributes of snails as they teeter along scattered pieces of tarmac in the dust. Water buffalo, goats and oxen wander ownerless amongst the traffic. Everyone wears a long skirt called a longyi, checkered for men and knotted in a manly fashion, different designs for the women who neatly tuck theirs in at the waist. Thanake, a yellowish tree bark paste, is smeared like war paint on cheeks and foreheads to keep skin smooth and protected from the sun. A whole monastery of bare headed monks robed in blood red walk single file with their black alms bowls tucked under their arms - Myanmar is home to over 500,000 of them. There are very few cars on the road but every now and then a brand new Mercedes Benz with tinted windows would drive by reminding you that some people do have money in this twenty first century. This is the Myanmar of today but so much of yesterday remains. It is a place that has suffered a lifetime of oppression from warring tribes, ruthless kings, self serving British colonists, Japanese occupation and the present corrupt military junta. But here, life goes on and the people do what they can to stay off the radar and make it in this world with little or no help from their government.

On our first day in Yangon, Brett and I made friends with a couple of monks that adopted us for the day in order to improve their English. They took us to Botataung Pagoda, their English class and then the famous Shwedagon Pagoda. The Shwedagon Pagoda is the most startling example of which life Myanmar Buddhists’ believe counts – the next one. While their city is in a state of disrepair, the buddhas and pagodas are sheathed in layers upon layers of gold leaf and topped with priceless diamonds and rubies. While monks attempt to reach a state of complete wisdom and nondesire to attain true happiness by following the eightfold path and adhering to moral rules, many average people try for a better life by feeding monks, worshiping at the local paya (Buddhist monument) and donating to temples. If the sum of your good deeds must outweigh the sum of the bad ones, the military officials may need to donate a whole lot of gold leaves to ensure an upgrade in their next life.

Our monk guides

My highlight of the day was the English Class. Brett and I were separately surrounded by students all asking us in turn the same questions. What is your country? What is your age? Are you married? Do you have children? Do you like Myanmar? When they ran out of things to say they simply repeated the questions. We were also a bit puzzled by the teacher’s methods…several students asked us to explain the meanings of old English idioms. What is meant by the pot calling the kettle black? Why should you not show your teeth unless you are ready to fight? What is the benefit of killing two birds with one stone? We found it amusing when one monk would tell us that English wasn’t his cup of tea while another was “walking on air” since he met us.

We weren’t prepared for the insanity of Yangon. We poked our heads out of our hostel that first night into the dark empty street lit sporadically with one or two florescent light bulbs dangling dangerously low at the side of the building from which they were attached. They offered no warning for the rubble of sidewalk or the human-sized holes plummeting to the sewer below. Had several major earthquakes struck with no one bothering to straighten out the walkways? We turned onto a main street and were arrested with activity. Cement slabs are balanced so precariously that if you step on one end you may end up unsettling someone sipping their tea on the opposite side. Amongst all the rubble, tea shop owners have set up children’s tables and chairs in every available space and at each tiny table are miniature cups for grownups to sip their sweet Myanmar tea from. In the absence of tea shops there are people selling street food, drinks, flashlights, acid wash jeans, familiar music tapes or CDs (but in Burmese), short wave radios and Q-tips. The most useful of these items is the flashlight as the power cuts out at least twice a night for half hour intervals or more. It is interesting to see how little people seem to be affected by this - candles are always handy and it is business as usual. Little did I know that Yangon is one of the few places that electricity is readily available. Most towns rely mainly on generators for power.

The precariously balanced Golden Rock

Kinpin was one of these towns and the base camp for our hike to the major Buddhist pilgrimage site of Golden Rock. We walked eleven kilometers for five hours at a steady comfortable climb, encountering tea shops and rest stations around every corner. We were often met with a hearty “Mingalaba!” so we started to initiate the greeting and it was often returned with a smile or a giggle. Most of the people that we encountered were women and children carrying their equivalent in weight or more on their heads. At tea shops, they would take a break and heave their heavy burdens onto awaiting tables and chat with the shop owners as they unraveled the strategically placed scarves on their head that aided their balancing act. No sooner had they rested, they were off again enlisting help to heave the great bundle back onto their heads. It was at one of these tea shops where we started to feel a little uncomfortable at the style of service that we continually encountered. The woman serving us was constantly attentive and stood at the foot of the table staring at us while we ate. When we brought out our Burmese-English dictionary a crowd formed around us and we gained some new friends. We figured out that most people want to talk to us but they just don’t know how.

When we reached the actual Golden Rock, we were disappointed to see a sign indicating that women are not allowed sleeveless shirts, shorts, mini skirts or trousers. We were very careful to respect the delicate eyes of the Golden Buddhas but we were not expecting that trousers would be inappropriate. Having paid my six dollar foreigner fee, I went in regardless but that sign and others prohibiting women from certain areas made me uncomfortable…especially since were no limitations for men. The gravity defying rock balances delicately on the edge of a cliff on Mount Kyaikto. Legend has it that the gigantic gold-leafed boulder maintains its balance because of the strategically placed Buddha hair in the stupa built atop it. We didn’t linger. On the alternate way down where we could catch a truck back to Kinpin, we amused ourselves by watching several tourists being carried on thrones balanced by four Myanmar men up the steep hill. In their defense, they were prohibited from being driven up with the locals – foreigners either had to walk or be carried! The packed truck that took us back to base camp sped down the switchback road with seventy people that I could count in the back including the ones on the cab of the truck and hanging from the sides (and we still picked up more passengers on the way). Back in Kinpin we were overjoyed to discover that the repetitive chants emanating from the neon Buddha down the street would continue throughout the night and into the early hours of the morning ad infinitum.

Not much leg room on this ride

We travel eighty kilometers in ten hours perched atop bags of rice piled seat high beneath the seats and in the aisles. Looking behind me at the others sitting cross-legged or with knees up to their chins, I realize that at the front we have the only seats which afford a little leg room. Our driver sits on the right side of the bus which makes driving on the right side of the road a bit of a challenge; however, he makes very good use of his horn. Three honks to let someone know he’s going to pass (regardless of oncoming traffic), two honks as he passes and a final toot to get the last word in. The horn is also directed liberally at anything that moves within earshot of the road. We watch men, women and children – systematically chisel away at rock with a pick axe, large stones are pounded into smaller ones and carried in baskets to the roadside where a tar mixture heats in a large metal barrel. The stones are laid into the holes by hand and tar is poured over them.

We disembark from a ten hour journey only to find out that our next leg will take over eight hours. Instead, we hop on the roof of a packed mini bus and bump along the miserable roads west into the beautiful setting sun. For four hours we travel amongst the luggage with only a tiny amount of space in which to maneouver, but happy in the fact that we are not in the stifling inferno below. With a friendly “See you in Bagan!” from our friend on the roof, we are left in a town only eleven kilometers to our destination, Mount Popa. We decide to rest for the night and set out in the morning, but discover that by law, no guesthouse in town can accept foreigners. We ask where we can get a taxi, but there are none. In fact, when we look around there aren’t even any cars. We finally chased down a pick-up truck and out of the goodness of his own heart the driver brought us to his friend’s dirty overpriced guesthouse and charged us $20 USD for a trip that would have cost us fifty cents in the morning. We were so upset by the time I discovered that my shampoo had exploded all over my bag, that we didn’t give Mount Popa chance and took the first transport out the next morning. Fortunately we were headed to the ancient city of Bagan, where our previous days headaches were quickly forgotten.

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