Another Day Another Temple ... or Baganarama

After so many temples in so many Southeast Asian countries, it's hard to get excited about seeing ANOTHER temple and yet we found ourselves on a slow boat from Mandalay down the Irawaddy to visit the temple-strewn plains of Bagan.

The temples started sprouting up here like weeds a thousand years ago. There are now around 2000 temples remaining - with a few brand new ones to offset the thousands that have been destroyed over the years. That sounds pretty incredible, and it sort of is. It is hard to find a spot where there is not a temple of some sort in site. Some of the temples can be climbed and offer unreal panoramas of a galaxy of stupas rising above the trees. The temples are fairly spread out over 16 or so square miles of farmland, so we rented bicycles for a few days to explore. That turned out to be a bit of work on some of the sandy paths, but at least there weren't any real hills. I woke up at 5:30am one day to capture the temples rising through the misty jungle sunrise. Instead, I got a 5 mile bikeride in the darkness and rain and a few gloomy photos. Yay!Like the rest of Myanmar, Bagan was largely devoid of tourists. On our biking adventures, we came across hundreds of temples, but only a handful of foreigners. Only sunset at one of the big temples near a posh hotel drew them from their air conditioned lives. OK...we had A/C, too. But we managed to go outside and see stuff during the day.

We also found the moral equivalent of the Thai "No Whammies" Prayer Machine. Here, you throw money at target wishes a spinning wedding cake. I'm shooting for "May you win in lottery".

No, please not another water village!

Next stop: Inle Lake, probably the #2 tourist destination in Myanmar. Inle is surrounded by villages that start on the lake itself and gradually move up and onto dry land. There are even water bungalow resorts on the lake. I can't think of any reason you'd come here and isolate yourself from Myanmar by staying in a beachless resort, but people do. We stayed in Nyuangshwe, a short canoe ride up a canal from the lake itself where we were surrounded by a great local scene and a few businesses close to our hearts.

Our neighbor had an authentic homemade wood fired pizza oven that he knew how to use and just an appetite-whetting walk away was Pancake Kingdom serving up chocolate covered strawberry and banana love for breakfast, lunch or dinner. For us, it seemed like we stayed in a very local town, but Nyuangshwe is normally well touristed. More than once we found ourselves sitting alone in a cafe hearing from the owner that there were now only 10-20% the number of tourists as the same time last year.

Back on the lake, we wandered through a handful of villages on foot and also by boat through the many canals. As many fishermen as we saw on the lake we couldn't figure out what they are really doing because we never saw a single fish in a net or boat. There was very little fish in town, either. No wonder one person we met said the fishermen were the poorest people in the area. The lake edge does house large "floating gardens", though. Tomatoes and sugar cane are grown in great enough quantity to export from the area. We got really lucky and passed a shack where the sugar cane is pressed and boiled down into bars of pure goodness for easy transport to the sugar refineries. Oh, it's so yummy. They should just wrap it up with the label "instant cavity" and ship to America.

Aside from the general beauty, friendly people and interesting villages, the
highlight of the lake is the temple complex at Indein. After braving a half mile of
souvenir stall-laden covered walkway up to the temple, we continued on to a hill
behind that overlooks the temple and lake. What a view.

My vote for best religious sellout in Southeast Asia also sits on the lake: Jumping Cat Monastery. It has a real name, too, but that hasn't been relevant since the monks first taught cats to jump through hoops for their kibble.

Fashion is Function

Skirts for men - IN. Except they're called longji. This traditional wear is worn prominently throughout Myanmar though pants are nowadays widely seen on the streets.

Rouge on cheeks - OUT. Women, children and pansy men wear sandalwood powder on their cheeks as make-up that doubles for sunscreen. Most people wear it smeared neatly in squares prominently on their faces. Other variations include messier shapeless blobs, rebellious mickey mouse outlines and the all over spread.

Teeth whitening - OUT. Chewing arecanut wrapped in betel leaves is not only addictive, suppresses the appetite but it also turns everything in your mouth a rotting shade of red. Small carts are found on all the corners selling this popular pastime and is the source of all the red stains on the streets.

Kid sized furniture - IN. Food options and sanitation is heavily lacking in Rangon so many food stalls expand their space by setting up play tables and chairs on the street. So while squatting with your knees up to your chest you can join the locals in enjoying pickled tea leaves and pickled tofu with raw garlic and chili peppers for condiments. Just don't drink the tea, the cups are not washed between uses.

The Temple's so Bright I Gotta Wear Shades

High atop Rangon is a big golden temple bejeweled with diamonds and rubies. It is seriously too bright to look at with the naked eye. If you try your eyes start watering and you're forced to squint or turn away. It sits in the center of the massive shining complex of Shwegadon. Surrounding this holiest of holy temples is a smorgasbord of lesser temples each dedicated to topic and day specific buddhas. Families come packed with a day's worth of food and spend all day in the shade their religion offers. They take naps, women braid hair, rugrats run amok, and everyone takes time to make offerings to their buddha of choice. The look of the buddhas area quite different. Most are the typical golden sitting statues with coils of hair and a soft smug countenance.

But there are also the old men likenesses of revered monks and even a green troll demon. This latter one was being proffered fast food and lit cigarettes in addition to the usual incense and monetary offerings.

It took us several hours to take it all in, including a rest with the locals on a tiled floor of an open air temple under the watchful eyes of the ever present buddhas. Interestingly the entrance and exit for foreigners is distinctly separated from those of the locals. Our shoe racks were separated as well as bathrooms and even the elevators. Obviously we had to pay an entrance fee but we were also required to sign in to a log book that we found out later freelance guides peruse to pick out their next targets. Our guy had walked around for over an hour and couldn't find us until we were on our way out.

Into Yangon

It's no longer Rangoon, Burma but goes by Yangon, Myanmar now. There are limited entry points into Myanmar and you can only enter the military led country by flying into Yangon. Actually only certain parts of the country are open to tourists at all. This includes the official new capital located more centrally within the country where the government buildings are built like bunkers, locals were restricted access, and foreigners are absolute forbidden to go near. Years ago during their last election the military leadership lost but refused to give up the seat of power so their regime of oppression remains. Outside of Myanmar there is a debate over whether or not tourists should visit the country because a portion of their spending money goes directly to support the military via government taxes and visa fees. However when you ask the Burmese the same question they can only express how much taking tourist dollars away hurts them directly. And it's not just the income they need from foreigners but they want visitors to take take their stories out of the borders to be shared with the world. Those that are against the regime risk harm for themselves and their family. We heard stories of people divorcing their wives, moving to far off regions, cutting off all communication to their family, and even remarrying just to keep their families safe. Some have even tried to fake their own deaths in fear of retaliation of their political beliefs. All these things are not on the surface or evident on the streets. In fact walking around the various towns it looks like people are just busy trying to eke out a living, which they are. Much of the oppression is hidden from the west. The internet is heavily monitored within the country. Email sites like Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail are all blocked out as are blogs and many international websites. The violence that resulted from the monk protests six months ago in the Rangon made headlines in the international media and has kept many people away. That was evident in walking around bustling Rangon where we saw less than ten tourists in total over several days.
We talked to monks and local people that cautiously told us that they could not openly speak out against the government. A monk briefly recalled the demonstration months ago where monks were beaten and killed to stifle the anti-government protests. Most of the people in this largely Buddhist country are impoverished and the few that have money do their shopping overseas. The shelves in markets are lacking and hold the same basic provisions. People live in the streets and those that have nothing beg from the poor. So it's probably not surprising that as much a tenth of the population submit to the temple and don the sacred robes where they are provided with a roof, education, and food. But like I mentioned this suffering is quiet, beneath the surface of a population that has found no safe outlet for their grief so they tiptoe within the boundaries, trying not to step on the wrong toes.