Final Edition!

Except for a brief stopover to pick up our luggage, Rossana and I are effectively leaving Yangon later this week to return to Atlanta, so I thought I’d sneak in one final blog post before we go.

As she started handing over her work responsibilities lately, Rossana has finally had time to squeeze in a couple of visits to sights around Yangon, and even a few of overnight trips. What this really means is that while she’s still working day and night, she’s now managed to take off Saturday and Sunday (consecutively!). What a slacker.

Golden Rock...
Our first road trip was to Kyaikhtiyo Pagoda. Thankfully, it’s also commonly referred to as “Golden Rock Pagoda” because I have yet to master the correct pronunciation for Kyaikhtiyo. For this journey we were accompanied by two of Rossana’s work colleagues and her driver, so we definitely got the local experience – albeit with the benefit of a private car from Yangon instead of the back of a pickup truck or crowded bus that it seemed most were travelling in.

Profile of Golden Rock with worshipers affixing gold leaf offerings. 

A bit of background regarding the pagoda copied directly from Wikipedia…

According to legend, the Golden Rock itself is precariously perched on a strand of the Buddha's hair. The balancing rock seems to defy gravity, as it perpetually appears to be on the verge of rolling down the hill. The rock and the pagoda are at the top of Mt. Kyaikhtiyo. It is the third most important Buddhist pilgrimage site in Burma after the Shwedagon Pagoda and the Mahamuni Pagoda. A glimpse of the "gravity defying" Golden Rock is believed to be enough of an inspiration for any person to turn to Buddhism.
To that last claim, I can only add that I’ve defied adoption of yet another religion.

Our visit was over a holiday weekend in Myanmar, and anticipating a large crowd, our “guides” had recommended we leave Yangon at midnight for the several hour drive to the base of the mountain. This was clearly the common strategy as it became obvious as soon as we left Yangon that many of the trucks and buses on the road along with us were packed with folks making the same pilgrimage.

The small town of Yatetaung is located at the base of Mt. Kyaikhtiyo, and here we transferred to large trucks that are the only vehicles allowed up the steep single track mountain roads. The trucks start running at 6am, and by 430am people began crowding the loading platforms and forming long lines to board. The cost to ride in the back of the truck is 2,500 kyat each way (about $2.50), but for another 50 cents, you can actually “reserve” a seat in the cab alongside or right behind the driver – no standing in line. For the ride up, this was what we opted to do. Good thing too because as soon as the trucks pulled into the passenger loading bays, all hell broke loose. Before the trucks even came to a stop, swarms of people were climbing up the sides of the truck like it was the last helicopter out of Saigon, filling the available seats before the folks who had been patiently standing in line (for hours) could board. In an incredible display of Buddhist tranquility, nobody got shot, beat up, or even yelled at. In fact the waiting passengers appeared almost serene as the full trucks pulled away, leaving them to hope for a seat on the next truck.

All aboard!

The only person who appeared to get worked up about this whole injustice was Rossana who was ready to start yanking these queue jumpers out of their seats and throwing them overboard. Her colleagues just shrugged off the whole affair as normal.

After surviving the ride up the mountain (now that should be enough of an inspiration for any person to turn to religion) and a tasty breakfast of Mohinga at a trailside restaurant, we shed our footwear and walked on to the actual pagoda.

Somewhat blurred photo of the trucks carrying us up the twisting mountain roadway.

Mohinga, the official breakfast, lunch, and dinner of Myanmar.

Well, most of us walked. Some made the pilgrimage via sedan chair.

Now why didn't I think of that?

The custom here, as well as a number of other pagodas and shrines, is to purchase whisper thin sheets of gold leaf and affix them onto the rock as an offering. I should add that although anybody can purchase the gold leaf, only men are permitted to actually apply it to the rock. Although everyone I’ve questioned is unanimous in the fact that there is nothing in the teachings of Buddha that says woman shouldn’t have equal rights, nobody can explain where this prohibition comes from.

View of the back side of the mountain top, lined with guesthouses and small shops.

Thuzar, Rossana, and Chan Myae visiting a fortune teller.

Although Golden Rock is part of virtually every package tour of Myanmar, Rossana and I saw only a small handful of other Westerners the entire day. In fact, foreigners have to sign in (and pay a fee, naturally) to enter the site, and when we were leaving we stopped in to use their restrooms, and the sign-in book had only a few additional names registered.

For the ride home, we opted to ride in the back of the truck down the mountain. Each row of seating is supposed to fit seven passengers. Our little group ended up buying up extra seating, so that we could sit just 5 across – and we were still “cheek to cheek”.

Selfie taken sitting in the back of the truck with my 47 new best friends for the ride down the mountain.

Inle Lake...
Last weekend, our final weekend in Myanmar, we went to Inle Lake, a large freshwater lake in Shan State, about an hour’s flight north of Yangon. The lake is home to a large population called Intha, who live along the shore of the lake, as well as in bamboo or wooden huts erected on stilts above the lake itself. There are almost no roads, as virtually all transportation and commerce occurs by boat. The lake is also site of large “gardens” that grow fruit and vegetables atop floating beds that are anchored to the lakebed by bamboo stakes. The planting beds rise and fall with the water level. At 2,900 feet (880 meters) elevation, it’s appreciably cooler, and less humid than Yangon. This alone is reason to like the place, but it really offers much more. In addition to being quite lovely, it seems to have avoided many of the things that make Yangon such a challenging place to live. It’s clean, uncongested, clean, quiet, no traffic, and did I mention clean? 

Transporting goods home from market.

A few more years of climate change and this could be Miami Beach!

Rows of tomatoes grown in floating gardens.

For a few dollars, we did the obligatory hiring of a boat with driver to pilot us around the lake for a day, stopping at assorted pagodas, shops, monasteries, markets, markets inside pagodas, markets inside monasteries, and small textile mills (the cloth produced here from silk and/or lotus threads are highly prized).

Step #1 - Spinning lotus fibres into thread.

Step #2 - Weaving the threads into cloth.

Step #3 - Hiring an adorable little girl to model the clothes to encourage tourists to purchase.

Another thing that the lake is famous for (at least throughout Myanmar) are the fishermen who use their legs pushing against a single oar to row their boats around the water. I've read differing accounts of why this practice started. Some say it's so that they can keep their hands free to work their fishing nets, and others that this technique allows them to remain standing in order to see over the vegetation growing in the lake. In either event, it looks damn hard - not to mention a recipe to end up taking a swim.

Let's see the Oxford Rowing Team try this!

Like everywhere else we’ve traveled in Myanmar, people here are unbelievably friendly – despite the fact that they probably see tourists all day, every day. People on shore, and every second boat that we passed seemed to make a big point of waiving at us. At some point we noticed that they wave at each other too. Maybe we’re not as special as we thought.

Child adds his welcome from an upper story window.

Young women preparing to head home after a day at the pagoda.

Even this little girl seemed pleased to see us.

One of our more unique stops was a Burmese cat refuge called the Cat Café (they also operate an organic restaurant where we had lunch), established with the intention to re-introduce the pure Burmese breed, which had disappeared from Myanmar some time ago, back into the country.

Resting up after a long day of being cute.

And as you literally can't swing a cat without hitting a pagoda in this country, we had to visit one or two on the lake.

Another sausage fest - only men permitted to apply the gold leaf to the five blobs that used to be images of Buddha before they were completely obscured by layers of gold.

Don't even think about it!

Pagodas R Us.

Rickety footbridge crosses the canal leading to a pagoda.

Back in Yangon...
One of the biggest festivals of the year, Thadingyut, also known as The Lighting Festival took place on the full moon, a week or so ago. We went to one of the places in town to check out the celebrations. Mostly just a big rowdy street fair, with the added excitement of a lot of open flames. It was also the first time I’ve seen people powered Ferris Wheels. There is no engine to turn the ride, rather teenage boys are employed to climb up into the framework of the wheel and when enough of them shift their weight to one side at the top, an imbalance is created and gravity spins the wheel - surprisingly fast - and they leap off as they pass through the bottom of the arc. The photo below is of a relatively small version, probably no more than 25 or 30 feet high, but the same method was used to turn a couple of much larger wheels, that required about 10 guys to hang off the rigging in order to spin the wheel.

Suspect these guys have a tough time getting life insurance.

And of course what's a festival without tasty snacks...

Oh boy!  It's fried cricket season again.

Some scenes from the local bank...

Picking up a little walking around money for the weekend.

In the US, if you walk into a bank with a facemask, it's usually to rob the place.

Parting shot...

Some of you probably saw this on Rossana's Facebook page, but it amuses me so much I'm posting it again.

We made a quick trip across the Yangon river to Dala last week, and while being pedaled around, this kid attached himself to my tri-shaw. While mugging for Rossana's camera he failed to observe the bicycle parked just in front of him in this photo. Two steps further along it introduced itself to him and he went down faster than Malaysian Airlines stock price.




Before you're convinced that I'm too cruel, in typical kid fashion, he was back on his feet and chasing after us again within seconds - though I'm not entirely certain he had the same number of teeth.