Full Circle in Myanmar

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Current capital of Myanmar, bustling port town on the flat plains alongside the Yangon River. The Myanmar regime was in the process of moving the capital to a secret alternative destination when I arrived, possibly the 5 mile column of army vehicles that were heading away from Yangon as our luxury bus made it's way towards the city was related to this move. Possibly. Or it could have been another inexplicable military movement, redeployment or reinforcement.

This blog entry will be short. I spent an entire day in Yangon, problems with the travelblog server meant that I had to get back to Bangkok as quickly as possible. One day to change my ticket and visit Shwedagon Paya, one of the most holy sites in the entire Buddhist world.

Shwedagon Paya is impressive, beautiful and gaudy, covered with gold on every conceivable surface, more holy artefacts per square foot than St. Peters (possibly). I couldn't avoid the $5 entrance fee, but fortunately avoided any sharting. I met a guide at the paya who said she'd guide me around the sites for free to practice, oh well, a brief sob story later and I had a guide, who I obviously gave some money to as I am a soft touch.

But it was interesting, most of the interesting facts I have since forgotten. One thing that did stick with me is, the Hindu (I think) day of the week birth animals. I think I was born on a Thursday, and my spirit animal turns out to be a rat. So I get to pour holy water on the the rat and make a wish, I successfully word my wish so that whatever the outcome my wish has been granted and I can keep up my belief in irrational superstitions. (You too can do this by making wishes with the word “if” in them, a trick I learnt coding computers for a living) Is this a rat like quality? Probably.

We stayed at the White House Guesthouse, which wins the “best breakfast in Myanmar” award by a mile. It was fairly close to the centre of Yangon, a few blocks from the Sule Pagoda. Jessica and Katrijn knew the area fairly well from having to wait for me to arrive at the start of our Myanmar meanderings. Now we had come full circle, back to the start of it all, back to the airport, and for me back to Bangkok, for my Belgian companions back to Singapore.

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Photos

Zedi at Shwedagon Paya
53 metric tons of gold, 5000 diamonds and 2000 other precious stones.

Zedi at Shwedagon Paya
Alternative view.

And my spirit animal is... a rat.
Ok - it's my birth days animal which is thursday I think - "thursdays' child is loving and giving..." and so are rats?

Sule Pagoda
Centre of Yangon and the best rates for black market money changing... which is 3x as much as the government rate so go for it...

Comments

[islam alhourani]

hi
thank u to the pictur its very nice this country is so cool

[Andy Lew]

Merry X'mas
Merry X'mas to you! Ali, how you celebrate your X'mas in Laos? Looking forward to your write up about your trip to Laos.