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Published: January 29th 2007
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Burmese Ways
Yangon
Well after a doing little research then weighing up the pros and cons we decided to go and booked a flight to Myanmar (Burma). With the British Embassy advising tourists not to go coupled with the strict military regime it’s easy to see why Myanmar receives less than 1% of the tourists that visit Asia.
On arrival we checked into our hotel and explored the streets, there wasn’t the familiar buzz of mopeds or mile long traffic jams which plague most of Asia’s big cities. It’s quite the opposite, few people have cars and only government officials are allowed to drive motor bikes. Instead of dodging traffic we had to dodge the spit and smell of betel nut spat out by everyone, the reddish colour staining the old cobbled streets. Similar to the fashion in India, the sight of men clad in dresses like longyis and women smeared in yellow thanakha leaving me in complete awe of the place. Without any other tourists in sight I'd never been anywhere quite like this.
With military everywhere politics is a subject visitors should not openly discuss with the locals as they could easily be arrested, never
to be seen again. Our first sight of the military presence here was along the main harbour road, there were huge ‘No Foreigners’ signs posted up on some streets enforced with angry looking armed guards. I’m presuming this was to keep tourists eyes from witnessing the forced labour or maybe this is where some of Myanmar's three main export products are shipped from; Gas, Heroin and Cocaine.
The Monks
The first attraction we stumbled across was the Sule Pagoda, an old shrine in the heart of the city serving as both a place of worship for Buddhists and a roundabout! We took off our shoes and climbed the stairs and were greeted by a bunch of monks who were eager to practice their English with us in exchange for showing us around the city. It seemed like a fair deal and we had our guides for the day.
It was not long before the monks turned to the topic of conversation to religion and I listened to how the monks described Buddhism and their way of life. All though still fairly young (25!) the most senior Monk Tinwin gave his account, and following our conversation my understanding
is this...
Burmese Buddhism is very strict, very demanding. Many Burmese could be called Buddhist extremists... although there is hardly anything really negative to find with that. The belief that you need to try, in this life, to act so as to get a better reincarnation, is very strong. Those who behave badly? Well that's their problem, they will be reincarnated into a dog. The main way of "buying" a better reincarnation, though, is to make offerings: applying golden leaves on Buddha’s, building stupas or pagodas. Hence the totally stupid quantity of religious buildings where everything else (schools, infrastructure) is still a few centuries behind.
Usually every Burmese have to be a monk when they are young. They can join or leave monastic life whenever they want. There again, if you have a monk in your family, that's good for your next reincarnation so fathers often push for at least one of their sons to become a Monk! Monks basically spend their time studying and collecting donations. I was told the monks live quite simply, and strictly follow the Buddhist rules. The ultimate goal for each monk is to become a Buddha and the only way to do
this is through suffering - which according to Tinwin is the true meaning of life. I was convinced Tinwin was trying to convert me to a Buddhist as the conversation started to get a little too deep. At one point I had to change the topic onto football and tried instead to convert him from Chelsea to a Liverpool Fan!
Shwedagon
Led by our guides for the day, we visited Yangon’s most famous attraction, the Shwedagon pagoda. The monks proudly boasted that Shwedagon pagoda is over 2000 years old, and the holiest of Buddhist sites in Burma. It is the countries equivalent of the Hajj in Mecca, Yangon Monks visit daily and most Burmese people try to visit it at least once in their lives. The pagoda itself is 99 metres high, and visible from almost any point in Yangon. The southern entrance was quite magnificent, with a huge covered stairway lined on both sides with small shops leading the way to the main platform... The hundreds of stupas, zedis and Buddha’s bathed in colour, surrounding the huge Shwedagon stupa, were being admired by Burmese from all walks of life, including a huge number of monks and nuns
not surprisingly.
I must say, knowing full well the plight of the ordinary Burmese people, that I found Yangon a dirty but fascinating city. There is an odd atmosphere here, the people generally don’t seem particularly happy but at the same time offer big smiles and waves as we pass by. Burmese, Chinese, Indian and other nationalities gave it a real strange cosmopolitan feel, and combined with the men's longyis and women's thanakha I felt like I was in a city unlike any other on the planet.
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