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Yangon, Myanmar
Posted on April 26th, 2005

Sule Paya in central Yangon |
After enduring a metaphoric hernia of Ugly Tourists in Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok,
I naively presumed that my time in an off-the-beaten-path, still emerging tourist
destination like Myanmar would be a welcome reprieve from weeks of dipshit overload,
but this delusion was squashed before I even left Bangkok. Twelve seconds before
the shuttle bus to my Bangkok Airways plane to Yangon was going to pull away
from the gate, two loud, swearing, rambunctious Aussies blasted into the area
like sticks of unwashed, hungover, foul mouthed TNT. After holding all of us
up on the boiling bus, while they search for tickets and flirted with the check-in
girls, they slogged onto the bus and insincerely apologized to anyone who would
listen, explaining that they pride themselves on being late for, or better yet
missing, all of their flights, proudly adding that they had managed to only
suffer through an average of three hours of sobriety per day since they arrived
in Asia. Then, in eerie unison, the pair looked at each other as similar dim
light bulbs flickered on in their heads at the realization that they were about
to board an international flight and, fuck oth!, they would probably get free
booze!!! (Note: for the non-Aussies, that wasn’t a typo, for some reason
“fuck oth” is akin to “fuck yeah!” in the cannon of
Aussie slang)
Bangkok Airways “Asia’s Boutique Airline” turned out to be
shockingly nice, considering the paltry price I had paid for my seat and the
fact that we were on a mere one hour flight into a decidedly non-boutique-like
place. The food they served was generously portioned, tasty, they did indeed
doll out free wine and beer and the service, like everything Thai, was exceptional.
April is well into the “hot season” in Southeast Asia and walking
through Yangon after 8:00AM was like taking a stroll through a smoldering bonfire
pit, including the dirt and ash part. Myanmar is on the arid side (at least
it is right now, I can’t speak for the rest of the year) and the dried
up soil from the plains gets lifted up by passing wind, wheels and feet and
carried into the city and in turn gets into everything, including on one occasion,
I swear, a sealed bottle of water that I had cracked open mere seconds earlier.
Like in Bangkok, I drank untold bottles of water all day long and yet hardly
ever had to pee. All of that liquid was going straight from my stomach back
out into the world through my sweat glands with alarming speed.
Both Lonely Planet and a few fellow travelers who had preceded me into Myanmar
insisted that I stay at Motherland Inn II in Yangon and it was everything they
promised and more. The staff were angels, the rooms were air conditioned cooled,
large and spotless, a hearty breakfast was included in the price (I later realized
that this is a Myanmar guest house standard) and they provided free airport
pickup which is pricelessly comforting when you are arriving in a new country
culturally blind and without a glimmer of local savvy or currency. Despite the
daunting challenge of acquiring an email address in Myanmar and the spotty reliability
of the service, my reservation request email to Motherland was answered in mere
hours and everything else in regards to them went off without a hitch, except
when I checked out in a mad rush two days later to catch my bus and inadvertently
took my room key with me to Inle Lake, but we’ll get to that exasperating
embarrassment in due time.

Motherland II |

Trishaws |
I spent my first afternoon in Yangon simply walking around, taking measure
of my latest destination. The number of westerners on the street was as thin
as I have ever seen and better yet, I never saw those bungling Aussies again.
As in the past, these circumstances made me into an instant celebrity. A large
part of my popularity was due to the army of bored and restless trishaw - a
bicycle with a side car bolted onto it - drivers hailing me for a ride, but
equally there was also a general barrage of people just wanting to say hello
and ask where I was from. In many cases after this short exchange was over,
so was the conversation as the speaker had reached the limit of their English
language abilities. For the entirety of my time in Myanmar, I had this verbatim
conversation about 137 times a day:
Local: “Hello!”
Me: “Hello!”
Local: “Where you come from?”
Me: “America.”
Local: “Ah! Very good country! Goodbye!”
The people who had a larger command of English nearly always inquired and then
showed great concern in hearing that I wasn’t married at my age. Usually
the language barrier prevented me from explaining that I had already been to
that particular ring of Hell and back and could only recently talk about it
without my eye involuntarily twitching, my jaw clenching and my wallet bursting
into flames.
My initial foray into the city to the “black market” (I was assured
that this was just a name and that nothing truly unlawful was going down) was
enriched by the company of a chattering, middle-aged, socially awkward Chinese
Singaporean. He latched onto me at the airport while quizzing me about my accommodations
arrangements (he hadn’t thought that far ahead) and when I let it slip
that I had a car waiting for me, I couldn’t get rid of him. He was lurking
in the Motherland lobby when I emerged from a much needed two hour nap that
afternoon and invited himself along for the 45 minute, “30 minute walk”
into the city center. Our journey together was unnecessarily drawn out an extra
15 minutes due to him wanting to check his map every 50 yards and ask directions
from uncomprehending locals every other block to make sure we were still on
course – aside from a single turn, it was a straight shot all the way
to the market, but this fact didn’t pacify him.
At the market, we found many takers for a US dollar cash exchange in the jewelry
section, most giving a rate just a hair under what the people at Motherland
told us to expect (about 920 kyat to the US dollar). We finally settled on one
lady just so we could get on with our lives and, as a final stroke to cement
his dubious grasp on the obvious, the Singaporean naively asked the woman changing
our money if this exchange rate was the “best price.” What was she
supposed to say? “Actually, the next stall will give you a much
better rate. I give this shitty exchange rate to make a few more kyat on the
deal, but you’d be much better off if you went to my direct competition
over there. Send them my love.” No, instead she nodded vigorously while
shorting him by 60 kyat per dollar. Idiot. I had problems of my own. I ambitiously
changed a hundred dollar bill and was presented with a rubber banded stack of
92 crisp, new, 1,000 kyat notes as thick as my thumb. It turns out that the
1,000 kyat note (about US$1.10) is the largest denomination. Have you ever tried
to shove 92 bills into your wallet? Give it a try. Yes, right now. How’d
it go? It was like trying to fold a Reader’s Digest in there, fold it
in half and then stuff the whole mess into your pocket, wasn’t it? I stood
there for a moment staring at this wad of money, trying to figure out what to
do. Finally I just peeled 10 notes off the top, put them in my wallet and shoved
the rest into my day bag, which I held onto with a death-grip for the rest of
the afternoon.
On that note, after weeks of sweating the complexities of money in Myanmar,
it turned out to be pretty straightforward. Until recently, travelers had to
juggle three currencies to get by here and invariably one left the country with
a bunch of money that was impossible to use or exchange anywhere else in the
world. To start, one needed kyat (pronounced “chat”). This is Myanmar’s
everyday currency, which is used for buying food, paying for some, but not all,
transportation, purchasing souvenirs and incidentals. Unfortunately, with Myanmar’s
position as a naughty sanctioned nation, the rest of the world does not recognize
this currency – even my beloved XE.com
universal currency exchange converter web site doesn’t list kyat –
so if you don’t spend it, it becomes a worthless souvenir as soon as you
leave the country. Additionally one needs a stack of US dollars which serves
as a general fall-back currency that you use to pay for hotel rooms, domestic
plane tickets and industrious tourist touts. Finally, there are/were FEC (Foreign
Exchange Certificates), a kind of pretend currency invented by the government
for the sole purpose of padding their pockets with tourist cash without actually
having to do much of anything. You see, until 2003, independent tourists were
required to purchase US$200 worth of FECs upon arrival in Myanmar, which they
in turn could only spend at a precious few government-approved hotels, tour
companies and transportation conglomerates. If you didn’t give these government-backed
businesses your patronage you couldn’t spend your FEC and you would end
up going home with US$200 of a useless currency that is not officially recognized
by any other country in the world, even at the best of political times, and
of course no sane person in Myanmar would exchange FECs back to dollars for
you. Meanwhile the gummet has your $200 without having had to do anything except
station a stooge in the airport arrivals area to enforce the rule. Although
it goes directly against the spirit of the Myanmar government to take pains
to make life less complicated for anyone, after generously dropping the mandatory
$200 purchase rule, FECs appear to have quietly dropped off the radar. I was
never asked to pay for anything in FEC – to my knowledge I only reluctantly
gave my voluntary business to one government entity during my stay - and indeed
I didn’t see a single FEC note the entire time I was there. Whew!
After ditching the Singaporean at the market by stating a desire to wander
down by the river jetty which intentionally conflicted with his goal to see
more of the market, I crisscrossed central Yangon, taking in the few notable
sights in the city, namely the golden, 1,000 year old Sule Paya and the Independence
Monument, both smack in the middle of the city center and wonderful landmarks
for recently arrived tourists.

Inside Sule Paya |

Independence Monument |
Before I go too much further I should quickly cover a couple terms for places
of worship. Thankfully a similar, more comprehensive list is conveniently available
in my Lonely Planet SE Asia book or I would have been hosed. Briefly:
· · “Pathos” (A.K.A. “temple”
for westerners) are places you can walk into, with one or four
entrances and a gaggle of Buddha statues and maybe some wall and
ceiling murals inside.
· · “Stupas” (A.K.A. “pagoda”) are places
that you walk around, solid domes, often gold, sometimes white washed, that
usually taper into a weathervane-like spire at the top. Many stupas have Buddha
artifacts (a few hairs or a bone), though these are usually only representations,
entombed inside them along with a collection of riches. The spires at high-end
stupas will have donated gold and jewels dangling from them. These opulent donations
are all but invisible to the naked eye as they are so high up that they become
indistinguishable specks making it impossible to marvel them, but then Buddhists
intend these donations to be humble gifts and expect no recognition or appreciation.
· “Zayats” are smaller rest houses scattered around a stupa
featuring more discrete Buddha images and statues.

Apparently it isn't that hard to get your hands on a satallite dish in
Myanmar anymore |
Moving on… After a bit of wandering on my own I was one-twoed by child
beggars. One looked pretty bad. He was about eight, filthy, holding a mostly
naked infant and adamant that he was starving. Usually in these cases, a parent
has sent the kids out to beg and is stationed just a short distance away monitoring
the situation. I wanted the kid to actually eat what I was going to give him,
so I offered to take him to a hawker stall and buy him lunch. He agreed to this
and we did just that. It was touching to see that he fed the infant before eating
himself. I lingered just long enough to pay and see if a caregiver was going
to materialize and take a share of the booty. When one didn’t, I took
my leave. Not even 20 seconds later a little girl corralled me and followed
me for two blocks trying to sell me postcards. After much refusal, she started
in on the “I’m soooo hungry” routine. I didn’t want
to spend another 10 minutes at a hawker stall, so I just gave her 200 kyat (about
30 cents) which is exactly what I paid for the other kid’s meal.
Walking around it was evident that the Myanmar people were the last bastion
of some SE Asia fashion statements, notably the longyi, an oversized, ankle-length
skirt that is wrapped around the waist and fastened with a simple fold-over.
Without a clasp or solid fastener of any kind, people end up having to adjust
or tighten up their longyis seemingly every few minutes, particularly after
having been in a sitting position. This exercise appears to be performed half
in the effort to keep it from falling off - an event that seems as if it might
occur frequently, particularly as this happens to old men wearing genuine pants
in America all too often, but I never witnessed a longyi drop myself - and half
simply out of habit, an absentminded exercise for the hands. Most of the women
are in longyis and about 85% of the men as well. Otherwise, dress is very modest
for the most part, especially for women. Though in a nod to the punishing heat,
their outfits are often topped off in thin, see through shirts, the potential
for a risqué display is squashed by the half-torso, corset-like undergarments
they wear, with four or more hooks in the back and enough cover and padding
so as to leave pretty much everything to the imagination. Even when the inevitable
need to bathe in public arises, the women do so with full-length, strapless
gowns that cover from the armpits right down to the ankles. The few women who
were bold enough to appear in public in pants and t-shirts were still carefully
conservative. No low cut shirts, absolutely no shorts and only loose fitting
jeans. Despite this unwavering dedication to their modesty, there was still
plenty of semi-nudity available. After going to such great lengths to stay covered
at all other times in their lives, when it comes time to breastfeed, the women
suddenly take on the equivalent modesty of a Spanish beach during high season.
From what I observed, and there was plenty to observe, women don’t even
make a passing attempt to duck into a corner or even turn away from people while
breastfeeding. They whip their tits out in crowded squares, in intimate restaurants
and even while minding their souvenir stalls at the pagodas, with their shirts
hiked up, breasts swinging, baby in one hand and using their free hand to gesture
urgently to their wares. Men of course have a little more all-around latitude
with modesty. While most will stick to long sleeves and ankle-length longyis,
even on the hottest days, men performing certain grunt-work type jobs can get
away with going shirtless and folding their longyis up into a mirthful diaper
configuration for more freedom of movement and, presumably, more air flow where
it counts. The diaper look is all but required when engaging in a round of Siamese
football – called Tà-krâw in Thailand, though I have to assume
there’s a different name in Myanmar – a kind of no-hands volleyball,
with a Badminton height net, where you are only allowed to use your head, legs
and feet to hit the ball, a wiffleball-like orb, made of bamboo, half the size
of a soccer ball. With the aerobic activity and physical requirements of this
game, guys can even get away with striping down to their skivvies in the middle
of the street, though generally only young kids take it that far.
A less dignified, out of control habit in Myanmar is the revolting art of chewing
betel nut. A slug of betel turns the chewer’s mouth, teeth and lips a
nasty red/brown color and requires frequent spitting. I was in Yangon a full
day before someone introduced me to betel. Before that schooling, I simply thought
that Myanmar had an out of control advanced gum disease epidemic. Betel is a
mild stimulant, with the general effect of a cup of coffee and all the appeal
of chewing tobacco, but much less attractive in practice if you can believe
it. I can’t find information on the exact origins of this appetite killer,
but I found one vague mention in a local book indicating that it’s been
in vogue from royalty on down for over 150 years. There’s a betel stand
on virtually every corner, usually consisting of just a tiny table with all
the ingredients laid out and a very wired up, and presumably eternally single,
guy with red drool down his chin preparing the chews. A few tiny pieces of betel
are set in a leaf, along with lime paste, and tobacco. There’s a betel-for-girls
as well, where the tobacco is replaced with a sweet flavoring. The whole mess
is wrapped up in the leaf like a tiny burrito and popped into the mouth as is.
In addition to being faced with a disagreeable betel smile hundreds of time
a day, us non-chewers also have to take care as to where we step as the streets
and sidewalks are minefields of fresh, red/brown goo that your guest house would
kindly appreciate that you don’t track into the lobby.
Even without all of the outdoors being one big betel spittoon, you have to
constantly watch your step in Myanmar, Yangon in particular, as the sidewalks
are in dire need of repair. It’s an obstacle course of loose rock, dips,
cracked pavement, trash, bottomless pits and open, two foot deep drainage ditches.
Sometimes what looks like a solid slab of cement will end up being precariously
balanced over a chasm of some kind and if you step in the wrong spot a trapdoor
effect takes place and if you’re lucky you only end up with a sprained
ankle.
As I made my random rounds around the city center a man speaking the best English
I had heard all day sidled up to me and kept me company for several minutes
before informing me that he was a tour guide. I really hate being approached
by independent tour guides like this. If I want a tour guide, I’ll go
to a goddamn tour office thank you. Having a guy accost me on the street and
harass me, trying to convince me that I need a guide is like being grabbed by
a guy from Pizza Hut when I’m standing in line in McDonalds, telling me
that I really want a pepperoni pizza instead of a bacon cheese burger and fries.
The problem was that he was so nice and providing the best conversation I’d
had all day, so I didn’t tell him to get bent right away. In the end,
I’m very glad I didn’t. Toe, short for U-Hla-Toe, turned out to
be a great guy. After tagging along for my walk along the river, giving me his
spiel and casually inserting some very interesting nuggets about Myanmar life
as we spied different oddities, I suddenly realized that I needed him. The following
day was going to be my only full day in Yangon and I had a lot of ground to
cover. I could have done this myself, as usual, but this would have opened me
up to the usual aggravations, getting lost, cluelessly submitting myself to
“tourist prices” and ultimately being on the go for a good 16 hours
non-stop. I determined that this would be the wrong way to launch 10 days of
high-speed touring and a little assistance was in order. We arranged to meet
early the next morning at Motherland and agreed upon a general itinerary before
going our separate ways.
It was getting dark now and I was starving. With Toe’s guidance I ate
dinner at a very decent Chinese restaurant adjacent to the Independence Monument.
There was a giant TV airing the World Cup and I noted that David Beckham had
grown his hair out into an unsightly faux-hawk again. Damn, there went my brush
with being almost-a-celebrity.
My walk back to the Motherland was executed half-blind as Yangon was suffering
one of its frequent blackouts. Street lights and traffic lights were out and
all buildings were dark. The only light available was from passing cars, candles
at the hawker food stalls that had taken over the sidewalks and the occasional
generator powered light in front of a shop or home. As I moved further away
from the city center, it became much darker, forcing me to slow down my pace
so I could cautiously judge whether or not I was about to step in a ditch or
on the tail of a stray animal. Visibility briefly improved outside an unmarked,
walled and barb-wired compound. Mysteriously, the street lights here were working.
There was a huge barrier built on the corner of the block, preventing me from
stepping onto the sidewalk, but the barrier ended just after the corner and
I took the opportunity to step out of traffic onto a notably smooth and well
kept sidewalk. I marched along with the whole sidewalk to myself for almost
half a block before a local pleaded for me to step back down into the street.
It turns out I was walking past the ministry’s compound and they do not
allow people to walk on the sidewalk outside the compound. Yangon’s best
maintained sidewalk is off-limits to pedestrians, that’s just so classic
military junta, isn’t it?
A few blocks later I was accosted by a young man with excellent
English skills. At the time I was standing on a street corner in near darkness
squinting at the writing on both my map and the soot covered street sign written
in 10 point font to make sure I hadn’t missed my turn. Soe-Win-Naing was
at my side in seconds asking me if I was looking for Motherland and assured
me I was on the right track, after which we fell into a pleasant conversation.
It turns out that he had tried to speak to me earlier in the day while Wrong
Way Singaporean Guy and I were hustling to the black market before close of
business. Considering I was burdened with babysitting Wrong Way and another
delay would have meant spending a night with no local currency, I curtly blew
off Soe-Win-Naing at the time. He led me over to his tea and soup hawker stall
and fed me some Chinese tea as we chatted. At one point he went a little overboard
extolling how handsome I was. I would learn later that Myanmar men regularly
and honestly lavish other men with compliments about their looks, even if they
aren’t trying to get money out of them. Moreover they are also much more
affectionate with each other than (sober) western men. In Muslim countries it's
common to see guys walking down the street holding hands, but in Myanmar they
also put arms around each other and idly hug one another, meanwhile the same
public display of affection between a man and woman would be hugely uncool.
Soe-Win-Naing invited me to attend his English class the following day. As
much as I would have relished in this bonding with the locals I already had
a full schedule with Toe and our race through Yangon’s widespread, most
gnarly tourist sights. In his excitement to talk about his English class, Soe-Win-Naing
showed me two of the books his class was reading at the moment; “Duty”
by some Scottish author, which was mainly about self-reliance – probably
required reading, dictated by the Myanmar government so people don’t go
crazy and expect any form of assistance - and “Beautiful Myanmar”
by native Khin Myo Chit, which dealt with general Burmese cultural, social and
religious facts and stories. I eventually excused myself saying I needed to
hoard sleep for the action of the coming day, but I promised to stop and visit
him the following evening on my way back from the city. I was heartened to see
that Motherland had one mother of a diesel generator pumping away when I arrived.
It was the only illuminated building on the entire street and even better, the
air conditioning was blowing away like nothing was wrong. The desk clerk assured
me that blackouts were very uncommon and the juice supplied by the city would
probably be back on by morning.

The non-tourist market |

Amorous fish ladies |
The next day Toe collected me at Motherland 20 minutes late (admirably punctual
by Myanmar standards) and we headed out in search of cultural excitement. We
started at a market/bazaar that was only a short walk from Motherland that Toe
assured me tourists never visited and judging by the neck-breaking double-takes
people were giving me the whole time, I believed him. I was particularly popular
with the robust fish ladies who were skinning and shredding fish, while enjoying
unladylike sized betel chews. Toe paused our tour and allowed me to work the
room, flirt and take pictures. Again, my marital status was questioned and the
answer was met with universal, undisguised horror. As we left, the women, suggested
that when I was finished with my travels that I might like to return to Myanmar
to find a wife. I told them with a wink that I was seriously considering it.

A very basic method for providing cold water to people on the street,
pouring water over a block of ice. Though this is not for non-Myanmars
unless you enjoy extended visits to the toilet. Both the water and the
ice are from the tap. |

Preparing betel chews |

Sand wood done creatively |
It was at this point that I finally asked Toe to explain why the majority of
women had gold/yellow powder smeared on themselves. Usually just the cheeks
were covered, but children in particular often had it on their foreheads, noses
and even their arms. Toe led me to a place in the market where they were selling
the lengths of sand wood that are ground down, creating said powder that is
commonly applied to the faces of women and children and sometimes men if they
are “the gay.” It is believed that the powder protects the wearer
from sun exposure while being generally good for the well-being of one’s
skin. Furthermore, wearing this conspicuous powder is akin to what western women
try to achieve by applying makeup, a general beautification of the face, though
it must be said that swiping on a little sand wood powder takes a fraction of
the time of what western women put themselves through each day and Myanmar boyfriends
and husbands are undoubtedly more sane as a result. And it really works. Once
I grew accustomed to it, seeing this powder had a sweet, pleasing effect. Some
women would go as far as to apply the powder in unique styles or designs, e.g.
using a comb to make dozens of perfect, smooth parallel lines on the cheeks
or a specially shaped sponge that they used rubber stamp style to make flawless
circles or squares.
Next we boarded a series of hair-raising buses to get across town to Yangon’s
contribution to the world of over-sized Reclining Buddhas. The public buses
in Myanmar have to be personally experienced to truly be appreciated. A bus
ride is a grand departure from the otherwise laidback way Myanmars conduct themselves.
The driver careens around town with one foot on the gas and, if I had to guess,
the other foot on the horn, with an announcer/passenger coordinator guy hanging
out one of the “doors” (usually the actual door is detached), announcing
their line number and direction to the people standing at the bus stops with
an urgent scream and then hastily pulling people on the bus, while shoving others
off while the bus is still rolling to keep the show moving. Toe explained that
the reason behind this panicky behavior was that Yangon had several independent,
competing buses companies working the exact same routes and so quite simply
the faster they went, the more customers they got and the more money they made.
The result was that passengers were crushed, yelled at and manhandled for the
pleasure of a break-neck trip across town. Toe and I were lucky in that we were
able to squeeze into the actual bus itself rather than the less appealing option
of hanging out one of the side or back doors or clinging to the roof or hood.
 |
After two of these horrific journeys we arrived at the Reclining Buddha, A.K.A.
Chauk Htat Gyee. Toe coached me that Buddhists walk around these things clockwise
for reasons of spiritual harmony and at 216 feet long it ain’t a short
walk. And you can safely rule out getting the whole thing into a single decent
photo frame without a tripod and a special panoramic still camera. Yangon’s
Reclining Buddha is a popular hangout. Apparently this is due to the cooler
than average temperatures provided by the Buddha’s canopy. Locals were
all over the place during our visit, despite being the middle of a work day.
Most had brought along thin, bamboo mats to sit on, with some munching on picnic
lunches, sleeping and a surprising amount of couples quietly getting in some
quality time and even scandalously holding hands!
Once again I was quickly surround by a small crowd of curious natives wanting
to see what the foreigner was up to. Toe led me to a place to sit where I could
be comfortably ogled and answer the numerous, odd questions that were being
relayed to me through Toe. My ongoing comparisons to English football players
was going strong in Myanmar, but here everyone thought that I resembled some
guy named Michael Owen. I made a note to Google the guy when I got back to Thailand
seeing as how my days of impersonating David Beckham were coming to a close.

Toe digging into lunch |
After holding court at the Reclining Buddha for over an hour, we made our escape
and after seeing me visibly cringe at the thought of another bus ride, Toe opted
to hop in a taxi to get lunch at a traditional Myanmar restaurant which had
the added advantage of being just a few blocks from our next objective, Shwedagon
Paya. While in Myanmar I would eventually see more payas in 10 days than most
people see in two lifetimes, including most Myanmars, but none of the subsequent
payas could hold a candle to Shwedagon. First off, the place was immense. Aside
from the towering main stupa, which was disappointingly half covered in bamboo
scaffolding for cleaning, there are 82 other buildings in the complex, some
being simple zayats with a single modest Buddha, while others were exceptional
pathos that if they were standing on their own would cause a tourist to take
pause and desperately grapple for the camera. The stupa itself and some of the
surrounding buildings, statues and religious artifacts are over 1,000 years
old according to archeologists, though Myanmars will testify that it is closer
to 2,500 years old. With various royalty and Myanmar’s rich and famous
donating their own weight in gold leaf to cover the stupa over the centuries,
it was estimated in 1995 that there was 53 metric tons of gold covering
the thing with only the security of a bunch of monks watching over it. Very
telling of the Buddhist mindset, eh? A similarly rich and unprotected goldmine
like that wouldn’t last seven seconds in any major city in the U.S.

The main stupa, look at that thing! |
 |

I have about 100 pictures like this, just surreal and wonderful |

Our napping spot |
I went native yet again at Shwedagon. Despite my best efforts I had not gotten
enough sleep the night before and our decadent lunch had dropped me into a drowsy
food hangover. Toe suggested we join the dozens of Myanmars napping in the countless
zayats. At first I wasn’t too sure about this. I am regrettably picky
about my sleeping arrangements and laying down on a filthy, hardwood floor in
a public place in a mid-afternoon heat that could liquefy hair was pretty much
as far as you can possibly get from my ideal napping conditions. Nevertheless,
I was virtually dead on my feet and was willing to try anything for some relief.
And by god if I didn’t fall asleep almost instantly. It wasn’t for
long mind you, probably less then 30 minutes, but I was definitely out for the
count. Toe was dying to take a picture of me, but my camera was in my day bag
which I was using as a pillow.

A man trying to attain reclining Buddha enlightenment |

Sweeping up at the end of the day. |
Newly refreshed, we set out to take in the wonders of Shwedagon. The entry
price to the paya is US$5, a fortune by Myanmar standards, but it was worth
every penny. We walked around for hours, during which time I rarely shut off
my camera. Every structure, every Buddha, every angle was stunning, unique and
seemingly going to be the greatest picture ever. We ducked into a past and present
photo display of the paya that included close ups of the staggering amount of
gold, silver, jade and jewels hanging off the top of the main stupa (allegedly
over 5,000 diamonds and 2,000 other rubies/emeralds). The women watching over
the photos were very taken with me (something I was beginning to really get
used to) and Toe once again, took this as a sign to sit and chat and let them
fawn over me. They gave us each a handful of some kind of tea candy and ultimately
offered to watch our shoes for us (one must remove their shoes when entering
any place of worship and we had been hauling our shoes around in plastic bags
as we intended on exiting the Paya directly opposite from where we entered which
was nearly a kilometer away).

Single Bell with Toe inside |
Next we visited the Single Bell, not the largest bell in Myanmar (that was
waiting for me in Mandalay), but still big enough to cause trouble. During their
occupation of Burma, the British decided that they were going to relieve the
residents of the Single Bell and loaded it onto a barge on the Yangon River,
headed for home. Minutes later they fumbled the possession and dropped the enormous
bell in the river. After failing to extract the bell, the British generously
decided to give the bell back to the Burmese people who promptly refloated it
using a rudimentary bamboo system. Ouch.
During yet more wandering through the compound, a small parade and ceremony
commenced for the children being inducted into the monastery. This was a big
deal and Toe was thrilled that I was getting a chance to see it. Families offer
their children to the monasteries at a shockingly young age to begin their Buddhist
training. What these people think a child that is barely old enough to speak
is going to absorb from Buddhist teachings, I don’t know, but then I’m
just a judgmental tourist. Anyway, the novice ceremony kicks off with a woman
leading the procession, throwing out candy to the children spectators. Next
comes the inductees, kids that appear to be between the ages of four and eight,
being carried through the procession by a parent. Bringing up the rear of the
procession was my personal favorite part, the young, female, virgin escorts.
The kids were dressed in ceremonial robes, orange for the boys and a weird peach-like
color for the girls, and all were wearing funny little decorative hats. Everyone
arranged themselves in front of the main stupa and the kids were put through
some kind of oath while a team of photographers and videographers documented
everything including at one point me, standing to the side taking photos.
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The Virgins, alas I got no phone numbers. |
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After this Toe and I settled down at a good vantage point and waited for the
sun to go down. Huge spot lights are trained on the main stupa after dark and
this was reportedly the only time when one could hope to catch a glimpse of
the jewels shimmering 321 feet above us. Toe tried his very best to position
me perfectly, even taking my head in his hands and fine tuning my angle, but
I was never able to see anything more than a non-descript flicker or two, though
the general sight of this gargantuan illuminated gold spire was enough of an
overall kick for me.

These girls are sporting the traditional "country girl" hair
style, a bob, with hair knotted up on top. City girls on the other hand
wear their hair very long and wouldn't be caught dead looking like this. |
Finally we left Shewdagon, taxied back into the city center and ate dinner
at the same place I ate the previous evening. Toe insisted on giving me a lengthy
Myanmar most-often-used phrases lesson, which turned out to be pure gold for
me during the remainder of my stay. I wrote down and later memorized such phrases
as “thank you,” “delicious!,” “it is very hot!”
(referring to the weather), “hello, how are you?,” “I’m
fine,” “what is your name,” “how old are you?,”
“You are very beautiful,” “I am ### years old,” “how
much?,” “too expensive!,” “Discount! I am Myanmar!”
(this line brought the house down every time) and “I already bought that”
to be used on the postcard kids. I also memorized the numbers and the refreshingly
easy large number counting conventions. Using this small arsenal of language
drove my popularity through the stratosphere everywhere I went and I resolved
to memorize similar phrases for every new country along the way. Toe also urged
me to make some changes to my itinerary. I originally had intended to go Yangon-Bagan-Inle
Lake-Mandalay-Yangon. His main concern was that I would be going to Bagan, a
wonderland of pagodas and Buddhas, too early in the trip and it would cause
my appreciation of subsequent temples to zero out. He also insisted that I go
directly to Bagan from Mandalay, so as to have the opportunity to take the scenic
ferry connecting the two cities. As I had not purchased a single bus/plane/train
ticket up to that point, I was flexible and took his advice. After much deliberation,
my new itinerary went Yangon-Inle Lake-Mandalay-Bagan-Yangon.
Toe and I parted ways after dinner. Though I asked him repeatedly, he would
never volunteer his exact fee. He said that he just asked people to give him
what they felt was appropriate. Well, it was my first full day in Myanmar and
I had no fricking idea what would be appropriate. I ended up just giving him
12,000 kyat (a little over $13), which he insisted that I put directly into
his pocket and he wouldn’t look at it until he was home. Apparently this
was pretty generous because when I saw him again a week later during my swing
back through Yangon, he was ecstatic to see me and treated me like an old friend.
(SHAMELESS TOE ADVERT: If you're heading
to Yangon and would like to contact Toe for guiding services, you can reach
him at: batin at mptmail dot net dot mm . Please bear in mind that the going
rate to send or receive an email in Myanmar is US$1 a shot, which is a forture
for the locals. If you're going to contact him, please be as complete as possible,
including all details such as travel dates, your accommodations arrangements,
so he can find you, and anything special that you'd like to see all in the one
email to save on his email expenses.)

Who's ready to disco? |
I stopped at Soe-Win-Naing’s tea stand on the way home as promised. He
had been busy thinking of stuff to show me all day and even though it was after
9:00PM and I was exhausted, I let him lead me around the neighborhood for a
while, admiring the monastery where he lived (though he was never a monk apprentice,
so I didn’t understand the living arrangements) and the stupa where he
went to worship. The stupa had the now familiar contemporary Buddha enhancement,
a halo of colored lights radiating out from his head. These jazzed up Buddhas
were all over Shwedagon and Toe told me that people refer to this type of display
as “Disco Buddha.” When I made this crack to Soe-Win-Naing, he was
not pleased and earnestly explained that these lights served to represent how
Buddha’s powers literally exuded from his head, kind of like how Christians
exhibited images of Jesus. I wanted to tell him that though I was far from a
regular church-goer, I had never seen a “Disco Jesus” anywhere and
that furthermore, in my humble opinion, the unnatural lights only served to
cheapen the image of Buddha, making his image unnecessarily showy and that if
a devout Buddhist were ferried through time from 500, 100, or even 50 years
ago, he’d probably go into horrified conniptions at the sight of Disco
Buddha. I managed to restrain myself from this lecture and instead yawned dramatically
and, begging forgiveness, took my leave and headed for bed.
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