Ancient Capitals & Delicious curries

---

It is an awkward night's rest on the top bunk, hopping and rocking the rails from Yangon to the old capital of Mandalay. The monk on the bottom bunk is awake. The doctor lies burrowed under his blanket, snoring. I watch out the window, the sun rise above the Shan mountains. We approach Mandalay three hours behind schedule. The doctor is irate speaking into his mobile, arranging his day and return trip that evening. Taungthaman Lake passes by outside the window. White pagodas rise above the greenery along the far bank where in the distance I can make out the century old U Bein Bridge. Outside the train station I manage to find the oldest trishaw driver and the most rundown trishaw. Every 400m we stop to fix the chain, the seat, the breaks, the chain again. We stop to watch a game of five on five soccer in a blocked off neighbourhood street. Two boys wear cleats, the others run barefoot. The trishaw driver delivers me to a guesthouse in the west of town, a few blocks past the old English clocktower, in the old market neighbourhood fronting Eindawya Paya. I check-in, shower and climb to the roof for a late breakfast. I feel rejuvenated and wander to nearby Eindawya Paya, bright, spacious, empty, rundown. I check out a produce market where half the goods are folded in baskets balanced on the women's heads. I buy a cheap longyi. My first few steps feel awkward. The streets in the city centre team with cyclists, trucks, taxis and motorbikes but I join a few pedestrians following the curb-side rather than navigate the potholes and shifting continental plates of the sidewalk. The castle moat, I read, was built by slave labour. The government forcing the local population to give a day of service each month. I boycott the palace. I have read enough of its former glory in Amitav Ghosh' The Glass Palace . I eat a delicious lunch of curries and vegetables. A friendly trishaw driver suggests a trip up the western moat to Mandalay Hill for sunset. His name is WinTin. He tells me about his family and shows me his journal signed by numerous foreign guests praising his tours of the city and environs. Hiking in a longyi proves difficult. Half the climb is shared with a young, moustached monk keen to practice his English on me. On the hilltop a handful of westerners stand amid groups of Burmese students also practising their English or French. A young man and woman speak with me in Japanese. The sun sets quickly across the valley behind a low mountain chain. The Ayeyerwady is a silver snake. WinTin takes me to a bar popular with trishaw drivers. His English is hard to follow. He tells of the death of his first wife and the sacrifices he made to put his two children through school. His eldest son drives a taxi cab. WinTin tells me about police control, all the fenced areas in the city and the money they make from the shops fronting them. My first day in Mandalay concludes with a performance by the famed local marionettes manipulating complex acrobatics, rocking, tugging, spinning their fingers, animating little dolls, accompanied by a traditional six player orchestra. I am for a half hour transported back to childhood and its innocent wonder.
I rent a bicycle the next day, pedal to the Ayeyerwady and follow it south before cutting across a series of manmade recreational lakes. By midday I reach Amarapura and the banks of Taungthaman Lake. On a small village street, I venture inside the front yard of a teashop. The owner and his sister-in law and two neighbourhood boys watch me curiously until a young woman returns to her chair and turns on a VCD of pop music. Sitting in he shade of the Tamarind trees, sipping lepeye, I watch all the foreign shapes and colours as though it were a puppet show - only I am the puppet. I cross U Bein Bridge under a hot and vast blue sky. On the far bank an umbrella's shelter lures me over where I order a fruit shake and admire a garden of sunflowers. On my bike again, I head further down river to a pair of golden pagodas perched on a bluff peering across the Ayeyerwady to Sagaing.
Day three, I hire a moto driver, a friend of Wintin's, who takes me south of town to Paleik, a small village dotted with temples falling into ruin and inhabited by lazy looking bovine. Paleik's home to the Python temple. Three specimens lie curled and intertwined around a stone image of the Buddha. A tall skinny proprietor watches over their well-being, muttering a prayer, "don't bite me, don't bite anyone, I'll lose my job." The temple itself, blue and white walls, green and yellow tiled floors, is a bathroom straight out of some 60s rocker's mansion. The tour continues to Inwa, an ancient capital on an island in the river, reached by a small motor boat. I board one of a dozen horse and carriages parked inside the gates. The horse clip clops along the narrow well beaten dirt path. Tall tamarind trees lend their leafy shade over the dyke separating field of rice lying a foot deep in water. A tourist picks jasmine from the bank. A row of farmers in cone hats plant stalks of rice beneath a towering pagoda and its golden reflection. A young man with dark defined muscles works a pump directing water through a hose across the dyke. The machine chugs and spews thick black smoke. The road ends at an early XIX century teak monastery, Bagaya Kyaung. Doors, railings, bannisters, roofline are carved with figures of people in strange costumes, horses and elephants. In the walled yard young boys in novice robes kick about a soccer ball. The horse-cart continues further through fields of tall sunflowers to a leaning old clocktower from whose perch one can admire the whole island's layout. Last stop is a brick and stucco monastery, Maha Aungmye Bonzan, where I am led around the complex by a group of women only half interested in selling their postcards. The trishaw driver scoots us across the Ava bridge to Sagaing. He does not speak English. He parks and lets me out at the foot of a long staircase climbing the hillside. I continue on foot, exploring several monasteries en route. At the top stands a glowing temple of white and primary coloured tiles. A young woman approaches me, asks if she may practice her English with me, and may she offer me a tour of the monasteries. She is a law student by her father's request although she had wished to be a tour guide. We stop to fetch her younger sister. Perhaps it is dangerous for a young woman to be seen hiking with a foreign man alone. Her sister is from a nearby nunnery, wearing a white robe and pink sash, a shaved head, and serious expression. We follow the undulating hills and valleys, touring a few temples and enjoying the calm breeze. The path leads ultimately to another large temple on a cliff overlooking the river. An old monk sits in a low slung chair by his desk in a shaded open room. Two young boys in dark burgundy robes run around the building sporting power ranger masks and a toy gun with computer zap, zap sounds. Back at the river, I find my moto driver. We share a plate of samosas and chicken curry before trundling back up the river to Mandalay. We cut across the neighbourhood of manmade lakes, a romantic getaway where young couples sit on benches or in gazebos eating nuts, sipping cold drinks. It is sunset when we pass through Mahamuni Paya and the stone cutting street. The air is full of fine white powder. Men drill and cut with power tools, shaping animals and buddhas. Women use small stones and water to smooth the surfaces. Mahamuni Paya was built to house the gold and crimson Buddha where every morning at 5am attendants clean it and brush its sparkling teeth. Worshipers kneel at the four cardinal points, old women beg, a group arranges illustrious flower offerings, pilgrims pour cups of water over miniature buddhas, a team of young women sweep across the courtyards, shopkeepers close up for the night, rooms of wood, plastic, paper, coper religious paraphernalia. Birds twitter and race home.
Each morning at sunrise I walk to Eindawya Paya and in a quiet alcove I practice tai-chi. A woman sweeps the rooms. A few people shortcut across the courtyard to the market. A small child watches me. Each day he approaches a little closer. For the next two days I use the local ferry to visit upriver to Mingun. It's considerably cheaper to visit by local ferry but the travel times only afford a two and half hour visit. The journey is pleasant. We pass a sandbar island of simple huts and long wooden boats. Boys and young men with strong backs use sticks to grab at the river bottom and punt their boats along. I am greeted by a young man who offers his services as guide. Tuntun is a university student from Mandalay. He can not climb Mingun Paya. He is unclear as to why but his expression communicates an awkward authoritarian reason. Mingun Paya was never completed. Its base, although severely damaged in an earthquake conveys the mass dimensions the King had hoped to erect, not unlike the pyramids at Giza. Instead of a sphynx, Mingun Paya's guardians, two monumental chinthes, long since destroyed by earthquake, slowly return to the earth, covered in weeds and moss. I climb barefoot on the hot bricks following a chasm created by the tremors a century ago. A small boy's hand reaches for mine to help me up. He has sneaked past the authorities to offer tourists photographs with the fine panoramic background. Tuntun and I continue further through the town's sights and past a block of simple galleries all selling the same water-colour and oil paintings of market scenes and monks. The tourist stretch reaches Hsinbyume Paya, an earthly replica of Sulamani Paya atop Mount Meru surrounded by undulating lesser mountain ranges. Its delicate design and geometric perfection, something of a snowflake, motivates me to visit the next day when I will take the time to sketch it. In the Buddhist sanatorium I am introduced to the head nurse - the only nurse - who has been working 24/7 without a holiday for the past fifteen years. Back in Mandalay on a rented one speed I cycle around the Monk district, with its century old monasteries and young novice monks who look no holier than any other teenager back home. I follow a creek and turn into a series of narrow dirt roads, losing my way in a friendly neighbourhood where everybody is outdoor to enjoy the cool afternoon. Women collect the laundry, men sit and drink tea, children run barefoot chasing or each other.

---

Photos

be free, wear longyi
WinTin, trishaw driver & I, western moat