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Published: March 20th 2012
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YANGON (FORMERLY RANGOON) - CULTURAL SHOW & SHWEDAGON PAGODA. Thursday 8 March, 2012 pm.
We eventually managed to disembark the ship at around 6.00 pm. We had docked at 3.30 and it took ages for immigration to clear the ship and check the passports. We were worried as we were (hopefully) being met at the dock gates by a representative from Nobel Treasure Tours. This was a company that M had found on TripAdvisor before we left the UK - and with whom we had arranged our whole Myanmar experience. We began to wonder if they would have waited that long. Once we got our passports we walked the half hour to the port gate. Luckily our representative Su Su was there looking a bit hot and bothered, but she was obviously as relieved to see us as we were to see her!
We were due to go to the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon so we could see it at sunset. However, as we were so late, the sun was already setting as we left Thilawa Port. It was also an hour-long drive into Yangon. Su Su therefore changed the plans and took us for the dinner they had
arranged first. The dinner was at a fantastic restaurant which was floating on the lake in Yangon. The restaurant was called Karaweik Palace and was formerly a wedding palace. The dining room was a long narrow affair filled with trestle tables and some smaller, round tables. At one end was a stage.
The dinner was an all-you-could-eat buffet of International, Burmese or Thai food. We had a small square table for 4 in a prime location at the front in the centre. All through the meal various different performers came onto the stage and performed traditional Burmese dances from different eras each celebrating different festivals. They were all excellent but our personal favourites were the Dance of the Peacocks and the Elephant Dance. The Elephant dance made use of the most fantastic costume. Goodness knows how many dancers were inside. There was definitely one dancer in each leg and someone operating the head and trunk but we are sure there were more than 5 people inside - we never did find out though. The dancers made the elephant costume come alive. It was incredibly realistic.
After dinner we were taken to the Shwedagon Pagoda. First we had to
remove our shoes, then we took the lift to the pagoda's main area (less interesting than the stairs but a lot easier!). This is the most sacred religious building in the whole of Myanmar. It has 4 entrances to the North, South, East and West. Each entrance is guarded by two lion statues.
The Shwedagon Pagoda stands gloriously 3 km north of the city centre and dominates Yangon's skyline with its golden spire 99 metres (325 feet) thrusting upwards. According to legend, in 528 BC Gautama Buddha presented 8 of his hairs to two Burmese merchants who had given him food. When they returned to Yangon, King Okkalapa decided to keep these precious relics (the aforementioned hairs) on the hill where those of earlier Buddhas had been buried, and a huge golden stupa was built on top. Later King Anawrahta from Bagan, who was the first to visit the new shrine, donated his weight in gold to cover the pagoda. Subsequent kings and queens followed suit and the top is now encrusted with more than 7,000 diamonds, rubies and saphires. The main spire of a pagoda is called the umbrella and is also heavily decorated. The hairs are now
(supposedly) sealed deep inside the pagoda.
Nowadays the site is a miniature city of gleaming spires, with a myriad of stupas, shrines and pavillions. As it was dark these were all lit and outlined with glittering fairy lights. It looked a bit like (we would imagine) Alice in Wonderland at Christmas Time! Personally, we felt it may have been better in its natural state (with maybe a few strategically positioned uplighters). The site has many supurb stairways decorated with mythological animals that lead up to the main terrace. The lovely thing about this place is that it is where families come to pray and to meet each other. They sit amongst the beautiful glittering spires with metal picnic pales just talking and spending time together.
The other reason that people come to the pagoda is pray to Buddha for help with various aspects of their lives. They make offerings to Buddha to this end. The Buddhists have 8 days to their week. (These are the same as ours except that Wednesday is two days -split into morning and afternoon.) Every Buddhist knows what day of the week they were born on. There are eight shrines (one for each
week day) arranged in a circle around a pavillion. If you want help getting a job, or new TV or anything like that you come along and make an offering at the appropriate shrine for your day of the week.
If you are feeling unwell you can buy a piece of gold leaf and attach it to the appropriate part of a specially designated Buddha. You attach the gold to the part of his body that corresponds to where your pain is. There is a stall, just outside the pavillion housing this Buddha, selling the gold leaf which is sealed between two pieces of rice paper (otherwise it would simply blow away). Needless to say, this Buddha is now rather a strange shape because some ailments seem to be more common than others and the constant build up of gold leaf on 'popular' body parts has led to him looking a bit disfigured!
We were then driven to our hotel which was near Yangon Internation Airport some half hour,s drive north of the city. It was a modern hotel only 3 minutes from the domestic terminal. This was great as it meant we could get a reasonably good
nights sleep before catching our flight to Bagan early tomorrow morning.
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