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.

Rough tracks

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It has to be said that many of the roads we are cycling on in this area are not the best. There are a few roads with a decent tarmac surface, but they are few and far between.  Of the rest, some are rough tracks of dry mud (thankfully we are travelling in the dry season).  Others are crumbing, potholed roads.  While still others are tracks covered in loose gravel.  Around Bagan the mud tracks change to sand – which is ok for bullock carts, but not much else!  

My right hand, affected by carpal tunnel syndrome, is suffering badly as we bump our way along.  On the plus – and the minus – side, there is an awful lot of road building going on.  This means that the roads will be better for those coming next year, but if anything, it’s even bumpier for us through the roadworks.  

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Road building in Burma is labour intensive – possibly a necessary job creation scheme, but it seems hard labour for those involved, a few men but mainly women paid just US$4 dollars a day.  The women sort the stones by size and place them by hand to form the basis of the road surface before tarmac is overlaid to bond them.  The men wield pick axes and work the tarmac machines.  I’m not sure if both sexes are paid equally, but I doubt it.  In some temples, women are not allowed onto the platform containing the Buddha – though we are told this is not sexist!  There is much we can’t understand in such a short period of travel….

Elephants and teak

 

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The remote forests of Burma are home to many different species – tigers, bears and elephants.   We are not in the right area to see elephants in the wild but before we start our third day of cycling we visit the small, and extremely charming, Green Hill elephant sanctuary set up by a retired vet and his family just two years ago.  The sanctuary is a perfect retirement home for 6 elderly elephants pensioned off from government logging projects and one young orphaned elephant that was readily adopted by one of the older females.

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The sanctuary not only provides a comfortable home for the elephants – with plenty of land for them to roam and forage for food each night – it also has to house each elephant’s mahout (handler) and their extended families!  There are wooden houses and carefully tended gardens for each mahout, and the sanctuary owners also set up a school for their children and others from the local area. 

 

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Asian elephants eat 150kg of food a day, so making sure the land can support them is vital to the success of the project.  They are also given food supplements at the central compound, and visitors are encouraged to feed them bananas and to help the mahouts wash them in the river.  Luckily we had two willing volunteers to help with the bathing, leaving the rest of us on camera duty.

  Over the last 20 years much of Burma’s primary teak forest has been cut down and sold to raise cash for the military government.  Sadly no one thought to plant more trees until now.  I believe some secondary forests are being established and the elephant sanctuary is doing its bit to help, with each visitor planting a teak seedling – essentially as an advertisement to locals that this is a good thing to do. 

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Before we set off on the day’s cycle to Pindaya we have one final treat in store.  Back at the owner’s house a table on the terrace is set with an array of delicious local food for us to taste.  It’s not long since breakfast, but we tuck in heartily and forgo lunch later in the day.  If you are in the Kalaw area, this is definitely worth a visit.