Robin, the tour guide

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On our last day – having missed out on the Grasshopper Yangon tour – Robin decides he can do the job just as well, using a phone app.  We are staying downtown at Traders Hotel, close by the old colonial centre so, camera at the ready, we hit the streets. 

The colonial buildings remain though most are in poor condition, but the street life is vibrant.  Flower sellers, fresh and cooked food stalls, pavement tea shops, sugar cane juice crushed on demand, ancient tricycle rickshaws, betel nut stalls, phone from here stalls – linking into the overhead lines – shoe menders, gold and jewellery sellers, offal and things I’d rather not think about stalls, all life is here. 

We wander through the streets to Independence Square, marked by a needle like monument guarded by chinthes and rising way into the sky.  Many of the other buildings on Robin’s app surround this square, including Yangon’s other golden pagoda, Sule. 

By this stage I decide I must have carried out some meritorious deeds of my own, which means I get to bang the gong, something I’ve been dying to do since I first saw one. To make sure, I put donation money in a golden bird, which flies heavenwards (ok – it’s on a pulley). Sounding the gong lets the spirits know about your good deed, but it to be done in threes – just as well as it takes me 3 goes to get a clear ringing sound.

Sticking to the colonial theme for our final meal, we head to House of Memories a restored colonial house made out of teak, which served at General Aung Sang’s office during WW2, when he was a Japanese officer.  The father of Aung Sang Suu Kyi was a freedom fighter prepared to take any action to drive the British out.  He eventually changed sides and negotiated the end to British rule, but was assassinated in the weeks leading up to the handover.  Who knows what would have happened to this country if he had led it after independence.

It was a fitting end to an amazing journey through Burma.

Schwedagon Pagoda

Arriving in Yangon in the middle of the day, it’s HOT.  We’ve chosen a downtown hotel so we will be relatively near the main sights, but the only sight we want to see right now is the pool. After a couple of hours more relaxing we are ready to tackle the Schwedagon Pagoda, the most famous and sacred in Burma.

There has been a shrine on this site enclosing 8 strands of Buddha’s hair and other relics for over 2500 years.  The pagoda has been rebuilt – and grown in size – over the centuries and now stands at over 300ft. In its latest guise this really is bling overload.   Apart from the main stupa, there are several other pagodas here and many famous Buddha images – there is almost too much to see. 

We arrive about an hour before sunset, in time to see the nightly ceremony of people sweeping the marble floors surrounding the main stupa, which is more of a meritorious deed than a real act of cleaning.  Meritorious deeds abound. The main stupa has seven corners containing a shrine for a different day of the week.  You are meant to find out the day you were born on and tend to the Buddha representing that day.  These Buddhas are decorated with flowers and white umbrellas and washed in scented water by crowds of devotees.

This place is vast and crowded with locals and tourists, so when I lose sight of Robin for a full 10 minutes, I start to get a bit concerned.  It’s getting dark and I can’t remember which entrance we came in (our shoes, of course, are at the bottom), and on past experience, Robin will be totally unaware that I’m at all worried and head back to the hotel without me. Luckily, on my second circuit, I find him and stick close while we take a final look at this extraordinary expanse of gold and jewelled devotion.

   

Ngapali beach

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Ngapali Beach on the Bay of Bengal is south west of Bagan, but for some reason our plane journey first takes us north east, back to Heho, before heading south to the coast.  A misty start to the New Year in the Shan Hills means our flight is delayed for a couple of hours, leaving us thankful for our hotel breakfast box as there is no food or drink available in the departure lounge.

Eventually we are on our way with Air Mandalay.  Neither leg of the journey is very long 45 minutes and 1 hour, but there is plenty of time to read the glossy airline brochure and discover they increased their fleet by 50% last year and now have 3 planes! I’m impressed by their marketing – the only internal flight with a glossy brochure – and by their in-flight snack a Danish pastry presented in beautiful eau-de-nil box from the Acacia Tea Salon.  They get my vote.

We may have been in the country for 12 days but at Thandwe airport we have to present our passports at immigration once again – and go through the same process on departure. We take three internal flights, but this is the only airport where we encounter this – may be a hangover from military rule, or another job creation scheme.    

Having been registered we have leave the airport before collecting our luggage, which is taken beyond the airport gates to waiting hotel buses and taxis.  While it may sound a recipe for disaster, it worked very well as a hotel rep took our luggage tags and sorted it all out for us.  The hotel bus is another example of 1940s transport (a la Balloons over Bagan) with a varnished timber interior.

The hotel itself – Thande Beach – our home for the next four nights, is just what we need after our previously full-on tour schedule.  Set on a stunningly unspoilt beach that curves for 1.5km in one direction and 1km in the other, with a plentiful and well-trained staff tending to the rooms, gardens, beach loungers and bar, we couldn’t ask for more. 

While breakfast is included, no-one takes dinner at the hotel.  There is much better, and cheaper, food to be had at the row of ten or so local bar/restaurants just along the beach and we check out as many as possible during our stay. All serve wonderful fresh fish – you can see the lights of the fishing boats while eating – and delicious vegetables or salads, with a free pudding thrown in. Even with beer and cocktails we struggle to spend more than £10 a night.

 Most of the restaurants have a bamboo massage room attached and all offer sunset happy hours, so we swiftly settle into a relaxing daily round of breakfast, beach, reading, quick swim, reading, lunch, beach, reading, stroll, massage, sunset drinks, shower, cocktails and dinner, bed.  The most energetic thing we do during our time here is walk the length of the beach. After a big breakfast we don’t even have to move for lunch, just buy some fresh coconut juice and fruit from the ladies who walk up and down the beach displaying the fruit on their heads.  

Paradise!

Balloons over Bagan

The plains of Bagan are most famous for the hundreds, if not thousands of pagodas and temples spread across a vast area.  Even our hotel on the banks of the Irrawaddy has its own ruin in the grounds.  They have to be seen in all their splendour, and from dawn to dusk on New Year’s Eve this is exactly what we do.

Robin and I are up before dawn to see this extraordinary site from the skies. Robin has described this so well, I’m just going to link to his blog at this point!  Click here to read all about it.

It was a truly wonderful start to the day.  I have never flown in a balloon before and I’m sure the smoothness of this flight can never be beaten, I would only repeat the experience to see another wonder of the world.  Though it has to be said that seeing all the other balloons in the air at the same time made the experience even better – an added photo-opportunity.

This must be one of the world’s greatest archeological sites, ancient temples large and small rising out of the plain studded with stands of palm trees and greenery alongside the Irrawaddy.  Over 4000 pagodas were built over several hundred years when Bagan was the royal city, starting around the time that the Normans sailed into Hastings and took over the English crown. And built for the same reason that images of Buddha are placed in caves – as a meritorious act.  Amazingly many are fairly well preserved and still contain carvings and statues of Buddha – as we found out when we followed up our balloon ride with a bike tour of a few of the temples.  There is even one with its internal frescoes still intact – though no photographs were allowed in here.

Our morning’s biking finishes with a boat trip back to Bagan town.  But there isn’t too long to relax before we are heading back to the plains for sunset.  Sunset is around 5.30pm, but our guide says we must leave at 4.15pm – we soon see why.  While we have avoided the crowds touring the pagodas earlier in the day, we are heading to Shwesandaw, known as the “sunset” pagoda, and the destination for virtually every other tourist in the area!

There are no restrictions on people climbing on the pagodas here, and hundreds of tourists haul themselves up the steep steps, hanging onto the handrail provided.  We are not early enough to get in the front line of the top tier, so we grab the best spots on the second (there are five in total) and get our cameras ready.  Even my new camera is no match for the enormous zoom lenses set on tripods behind me.  But having seen a perfect sunrise, we are treated to a perfect sunset.  

Then its back to the hotel to see the New Year in in style – I am even wearing my smart new (female) longhi.  The calendar new year isn’t traditionally celebrated in Burma – the Buddhist new year is in April – but our hotel hosts a western and local food feast for its guests, complete with local entertainment followed by a DJ, fireworks and much dancing.  It is our last night with the tour group and our lovely tour guide, Chan, joins in the fun – to such an extent that we are up and waiting for him to take us to the airport for our early flight to following morning

Laquerware and luxury

After a night of luxury and delicious, in my case western, food at Popa Mountain, we swoop back down the hill and head back to Bagan on a nice tarmac road.  Our stops take in a local teahouse – tea and snacks are popular in Burma – and one of Bagan’s famous lacquerware workshops, reputedly amongst the finest in the world.  

It’s another skilled process using a combination of horsehair and bamboo before the lacquer surface is applied in many layers, polished, engraved and painted.  One of the painters takes my camera and applies a gold elephant – sadly it rubs off before it has time to dry!  The quality of the work here is evident and I am keen to return to UK with an example and eventually buy three dark engraved bowls in Yangon which look very smart back home.

 Back at our hotel, Riverview, we have a surprise in store.  We have a bit of a wait for our room to be ready, but we don’t mind at all when we get the key – we have been upgraded to our very own Villa, with two bedrooms, a sitting room and even a galleried sleeping platform with another 5 beds!  Fortunately no-one else arrives to occupy them, so we enjoy another two days of luxurious space.

Mount Popa & the Nats

I’ve not talked much about the cycling in this blog, so here's a cycling story.  After the bumpy tracks earlier in the trip,  around Bagan the off road surface changed to sand, which can stop bicycle wheels dead in their tracks.  Despite this, our lovely tour guides decide that the best way to cycle from Bagan to Mount Popa includes an 11km section off the main road on, you guessed it, sand!  You need the ability to stop suddenly and safely in these conditions so I spent most of the time pedalling with my heel to make sure my shoes don’t accidentally clip into the pedal cleats.  This precaution isn’t fool proof one ouf our group found out.  Taking a left turn over a small bridge his back wheel slipped away and he went over the handlebars, landing unhurt but much to the amusement of the family perched on the back of a bullock cart who had stopped to make way for us.  They had definitely chosen the best way to travel on this surface!

Back on tarmac we headed onwards and upwards to our hotel for the night, Popa Mountain Resort.  This was definitely the star hotel of our trip with fabulous rooms, a spa offering fantastic massage, and of course the view.  Our wooden veranda overlooked dense forest.  No traffic noise, just birdsong.  From the restaurant terrace the view was even better – Mount Popa itself topped with a golden monastery and the home of Burma’s Nat spirits.

Even after our visit to Mount Popa, and climbing its 777 steps, I’m not sure I understand the Nats.  They definitely pre-date Buddhism in Burma, which is over 2500 years old.  And they are still worshipped so seem to sit comfortably alongside the Buddha, in one tableau are worshiping him themselves.  But they are quite strange – 37 superhumans who appear to have gained their superpowers by meeting violent deaths, and then there are a kind of sub-Nat, who gained special powers by eating a dead Nat.  I think.  But they are obviously important to the Burmese – we saw two very old women being carried up and down the incredibly steep steps to the temple.  

The site is also home to macaque monkeys.  They greet us as the bottom of the steps.  We hear them jumping on the tin roof covering the walkway as we ascend, and they cheekily eat the flowers left by the Buddha images. 

There is a protocol for visiting holy sites in Burma.  No shoes, no socks, no shorts above the knee, no spaghetti straps or low cut tops. This is not a problem for me and I grow to enjoy the feel of cool marble or tile under my feet as we walk around.  Occasionally one of our group is caught out by the no shorts requirement, at which point our well-prepared guide steps in with a concealing longhi.  In this innocent country, this was the cause of much amusement.

The longhi is traditional dress for both men and women and daily wear for most of the population, especially outside of the major cities.  But there are differences between the male and female longhi – not just in their colour and pattern, but also in the way they are tied.  The female version is essentially a sarong; the male version, a cylindrical tube that you fold across the front of your body and tie over your tummy, is actually far more practical.  As our guides are male, the spare longhis are also male versions, which are given to the female members of our group when needed.  Without exception, every Burmese woman who saw them wearing the “wrong” longhi burst into giggles and nudged her friend to point out the silly tourist.  Another example of a land steeped in tradition. Long may it continue.

Pagodas, Buddhas and bling

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I doubt there is a country in the world where daily life is as imbued with Buddhism as Burma. Possibly because Burma was closed off for so many years, Buddhist culture is still very pure.

It is sometimes hard for jaded westerners to appreciate and understand the depth of belief and devotion encountered in the temples of Burma.  But their faith is sincerely held and the philosophy of kindness and support for others has much to commend.

While the devotion is striking, so is the bling.  Burma isn’t known as the Golden Land for nothing. Golden pagodas gleam down from hills.  Golden Buddha images are housed in pagodas, monasteries and caves – at one monastery devotees constantly apply more gold leaf to five special Buddha images rendering them little more than golden blobs. And neon and led lighting is utilised to the full to create flashing halos around many. You are even led to the pagodas via ornate covered walkways, with glittering roof decoration and walls covered in mirror mosaic. 

Every day it seems the bling quota grows.

I spotted the first flashing halo in a small monastery near out hotel by Inle Lake, followed swiftly by the gold leaf Buddhas at a pagoda on the lake. In Kalaw, we visited our first Buddha cave, which was quickly overtaken by a much larger Golden Cave in Pindaya.....               

The Shwe Oo Min Natural Cave Pagoda – complete with Harry Potteresque giant spider guarding the entrance – is a series of natural limestone caves containing almost 9,000 mostly golden Buddha images some placed there hundreds of years ago, others far more recently and judging by the labels a good number donated by local businesses as well as overseas families.  Does placing an image here buy blessings?  I guess it must be a meritorious act. Whatever, the sheer scale of the golden images on display is pretty overwhelming.  Can that be topped?  Of course it can.

Mandalay Hill kept the bling quota warm, as did the views of pagodas over the Sagaing hills until we stopped in Monywa to see two of the biggest Buddhas in the world. The reclining Buddha at 300ft is officially the longest in the world.  I only found out afterwards that the inside is hollow and you can walk from head to toe. Despite arriving just as everything was closing for the day, we did get to go inside the standing Buddha which, at over 400ft, was also billed as the tallest in the world.  Sadly, we couldn’t find a lift to take us to the top – but it lends itself to a hotel conversion, with windows all the way up Buddha’s golden cloak!    But we ain’t seen nothing yet -Yangon and the Shwedagon Pagoda is still to come.

Ancient ways

The landscape changes during our journey, but outside of the major cities, life is simple. There is little mechanisation but much of the countryside we pass through is fertile, pigs peep through pens next to village houses and food is plentiful.

Between Mandalay and Monywa we cycle through busy villages with small businesses weaving and making cheroots.  Cheroots are a big deal in Burm  ut they are no better for your health than cigarettes, U Thant, the former UN general secretary and a long term cheroot smoker succumbed to lung cancer.

In another backyard they are making alms bowls – the simple lacquered bowls carried by the maroon clad monks to collect donations of food or money.  We are amazed to see the first stage of the process involves beating a metal disc taken from an old oil drum into the shape of a bowl.  It is then coated in clay, bamboo and finally lacquered.  

 

These villages are scattered among ancient pagodas, remnants of the ancient royal capitals of Ava and Amanapura – the latter reached by U Bein bridge, the longest teak bridge in the world, which is still more visited by locals than by tourists.

Beneath the bridge, farmers till the soil with bullock drawn ploughs. Bullocks are huge in Burma.  Not physically huge, but used for just about everything. Around Bagan they are used to crush sesame and ground nuts to make oil. Bagan is also known for its palm wine - a potent local hooch - and palm sugar snacks. They are absolutely delicious as is fresh cane sugar juice served over ice but thankfully neither is available in the UK, as we return to health scare stories on sugar’s hidden horrors.

 

Contentment comes in many forms. At one photo-stop, an elderly farmer driving his small herd of cattle asks where we are from.  From England, I say and, pointing at my cycling companions, from Australia and the USA.  He nods happily and points to himself, “From Myanmar” he says, and walked away content that his image will be seen around the world.  I’m left feeling that relatively rich western tourists are not necessarily more content.

Throughout the trip two “vital” things are missing – a decent internet connection and a bottle of Schhhh you know who’s tonic water!  Virtually every hotel we stay in promises free wifi – which is useless if the wifi doesn’t connect to the internet.  Which it rarely does. I soon realise it’s much easier to abandon any effort to contact the outside world and enjoy an old fashioned holiday.  By the time we get to Yangon – where broadband rules – I can’t be bothered to log on. 

Communication is improving for locals though. I see several people using satellite phones in their gardens and, while there are no roaming arrangements for overseas phones, our guides seem to have a mobile signal most of the time. 

The quest for a decent gin and tonic is another matter entirely and Robin is determined to find one, asking at every hotel!  We quickly discover there is a countrywide shortage of tonic, Coke and other imported soft drinks.  Someone not paying import duties?  Problems at customs?  Stuck in Thailand?  Who knows. But there’s no need to feel sorry for us, we managed to improvise through our cocktail hours.  Gin martini, gin fizz, gin sours are all delicious – and we did finally enjoy an improvised gin and tonic (duty free gin and airport lounge tonic) at Doha airport on our return flight.

But again it left me wondering, how difficult is it to get imported goods into the country?  How open are the borders here?

A day in Mandalay

We arrive in Mandalay on the evening of Christmas Day, just in time for a meal at a BBQ restaurant with Anne, our tour company, Grasshopper’s, country manager, who presents us with another Christmas gift and our very own turkey and Christmas cake, which no-one was expecting!  After a jolly evening we have the following day off from cycling to explore Burma’s second largest city – giving me an opportunity to try out my Christmas present from Robin, a whizzy new camera.

 

Mandalay was Burma’s last royal capital – they seem to have moved around the country according the whim of the ruling family, but Mandalay apparently fulfilled the Buddha’s prophecy to found a metropolis of Buddhism at the foot of Mandalay Hill.  It remains the country’s second city (Rangoon/Yangon being the largest by far) but little remains of the 19^th century royal city, which was devastated in WW2.  You can still see the large rectangular site surrounded by water, which makes for some pretty reflections in photographs, but the only original royal building to survive stands elsewhere in Mandalay and is now the Shwenandaw Monastery.  It is an ornate teak building complete with many elaborate carvings, but looks very fragile today.

Close by is another highlight, the Kuthodaw Pagoda which contains the World’s Largest Book, over 700 marble slabs inscribed with the entire teachings of the Buddha, each slab protected by its own white “house”.  Lots more photo-opportunities here!

 

Our final photo-op of the the day is from the top of Mandalay Hill.  There are four covered walkways, guarded at the entrance by fierce-looking chinthes, leading up to top of the 790ft hill.  We walk up – considered a meritorous deed – but find we are virtually alone in doing so, while the motorcycle taxis are doing a brisk trade.  The road may be quicker, but our 20 minute climb is filled with delights, from the stalls lining the stairway - Aung Sang Suu Kyi poster, anyone? – to the many Buddhas at key points, including a Stalinist Buddha pointing down hill to prophesy the building of the city.  By the time we get to the top the crowds have arrived in force and line the terrace waiting for their sunset photograph.  But tonight the weather gods are not co-operating, and the sun sinks behind cloud way above the horizon.  There is still much to photograph, including monks taking iPhone photos of other monks posing with Buddha images.  I love this collision of cultures.

After walking back down to the hotel, we clamber aboard our own motorbike taxis – there are still relatively few cars in Mandalay, so this is the best way to travel and head to a recommended restaurant.  The taxis are great – only 100cc or so – so you feel pretty safe, but the drivers whizz in and out of traffic, while using their few words of English to point out famous sights.  Though we do have to detour for one to fill up with petrol – not from a pump, but delivered by the bottle.   The restaurant was another experience.  Immediately we sat down our table was surrounded by 10 or 12 small boys (waiters) in a huge hurry – or competition? – to serve us, even though we haven’t had time to study the menu.  Food arrives immediately – though it’s not necessarily our first choice, much of what we asked for was off that night.  And it’s ridiculously cheap, even with the beers it’s less than £10 for 3 people – cheaper than the taxi-bikes!

Mingalabar!

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“Mingalabar” is the universal greeting heard across Myanmar, and one that I repeat many times a day at hotels, restaurants, shops and, most of all to the surprised, but welcoming villagers and children we pass by as we cycle through the fertile countryside.  In our cycle gear and helmets our appearance is probably as strange and exotic to them as theirs is to us. 

Our route through the West Shan hills with overnight stops in Kalaw and Pindaya before a Christmas Day 100km cycling marathon, culminates in the final 30km of downhill hairpin bends onto the flat plains of the Mandalay region.   These three days take us through some of the most beautiful and unchanged landscape of our journey through Burma.

 

There is a government directive to “warmly welcome and take care of tourists” – we see it on official signs and posters wherever we go.  We are warmly welcomed, and nothing but kindness is shown to us; but I think this is the true nature of the people rather than the result of an official command.

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For example, on Christmas Eve in Pindaya – an area not known for its Christian community  (though around 6% of the country’s inhabitants are) – our small hotel builds a warming charcoal fire in the courtyard, invites us for a pre-dinner drink of local plum wine and presents every guest with a gift wrapped in beautiful handmade paper, a handwoven scarf made by the Inle Lake weavers.  While we are escaping a western over-commercialised Christmas, our Buddhist hosts are anxious to help us celebrate our festival in their country.

On Christmas Day, I barely think of the family back home feasting on turkey and exchanging gifts.  I have the best gift in the world, cycling through this peaceful landscape, populated by shyly smiling children who wave their “minglabar” greeting as we pass, but run giggling into the safety of their houses if you stop to take their photo.  Their parents on their way to work in their fields on foot or on bullock carts are far more amenable, happy to pose and smile – as well as exchange “mingalabars”.

 

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It strikes me that little has changed here for hundreds of years.  While some houses are now being built with concrete bricks, the majority are still wood and bamboo. And while there are some diesel-engined vehicles and small motor-bikes, bullock carts are just as evident.  It’s charming.  I love being here and seeing life lived so simply.  But it will and must change.  I just hope they keep the essential element of simplicity, while increasing comfort and wealth.