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Published: February 1st 2015
This Website could Not cope with inputting Myanmar so Not much hope for me getting it right ! We are now at the end of this short but beautiful journey. It has been different from many though I'm not sure why. Perhaps its the delightful people, the amazing geography and sights , its po!itical history , or maybe just that for so long its been a closed country.
It is a country full of contrasts trying to cope with an influx of tourists but without much of the infrastructure or know how to support it. A country of around 55 million with 8 ethnic groups dominated by the Burmese and boarded by two great nations India and China not to mention Thailand and Laos. India and China have influenced the culture food and development of Myanmar though it has a distinct persona , its own language and way of doing things. The people are friendly helpful and charming, The rural community is poor and life is tough .But around 90% of kids go to school and spend 12 years in Education with oportunities for university later.
The economy is dominated by forestry , mostly hard woods , and arable farming
. It is a fertile country with several great rivers transversing its territory. There is little industry and Myamar trades with its neighbours and further afield. Mobile usuage and access to mobile networks is not possible for foreigners but WiFi in the larger cities and hotels is available.
So enough of background how was it for me?! We had a great group of 15 with an age range from 26 to 76 and most decades in between!! That made for a mighty fine mix and as usual on these tours people have travelled widely and come from across the globe. Yung our tour leader helped aquaint us with this charasmatic country and a grand job he did.
Yangon the capital is a busy bustling city of around 5 million, absolutely chocher block with thousands of taxis , there is little public transport only very old crowded buses, and motor bikes are banned from the city by the government after an incident some years ago. Crossing the road is a nightmare as it sreems to be in all of asia. sharon and I arrived there a day early and wandered around the nearby beautiful gardens and chanced upon one
of many pagodas . it turns out this was the magnificent Shwedagon Pagoda which we visited again the next day with the group- not very clever of us!!
We flew out of Yangon to what I thought would be a magical city brimming with atmosphere , ancient colonial buildings and pretty coffee shops offering delights to wet the appetite.Sadly Mandalay known as the jewel city, is not a place to behold , it is rundown, smelly and not at all pretty . I now know where all the forbidden motor bikes from Yangon ,go to play thousands of them!!!! However it does have 3 redeeming features, its happy friendly inhabitants, it is a place from which one can visit some wonderful sites and it perpetuates the myth of its past!!!!
So we boarded boats with rickity gangplanks with no rails only bamboo poles held by 2 crew members, and sailed up the Ayeyarwaddy to Mingun . We watched while lovely Tom had a reluctant fitting for a lonjy which he didn't buy!! We visited markets , the largest pagoda in the world ( if you believe what you'reyou're told,) and watched the sun set over the city on
Mandalay Hill now that was something.
Our third destination was the home of thousands of ancient pagodas dating back to between the 11 and 13 centuries, the beguiling city of Began. We took another ferry not across the Mersey but down the Ayeyarwaddy. It was absoluety freezing on our 7 am start but we watched the sun rise and after ,12 hours watched it set!!! We travelled a mere 50 miles and worked out we sailed more hours on that boat than it took to get from Heathrow to Bangkok!!! I thought I was going to continued hot climbs and did not take enough, well actually , no warm clothes, now that was a huge mistake and I'm suffering still . The days are hot but early mornings and evenings are cool cool cool!! Bagan is famous for these old Stupors (pagodas) they range from little ones through all the sizes , are in various states of disrepair and are dotted about the countryside randomly. They are of natural stone in various states of deterioation, not gilded in gold with ritzy lights , and stalls selling all things known to man. They were utterly beautiful and conjured up times
gone by and reminded me of mini Ankor Wat. I suppose the downside is that local people were moved out of their homed amonst the ruins into new quarters in new Began, not too sure about that. They were my favs by miles.
We also visited Mount Popa which has a shrine at the summit of a rather steep hillaroony. A mere 777 steps to climb which I did!!!!! Popar means flower and in this region the Toddy palm is grown which gives palm sugar every part of the tree is used , the sweeties are very very sweet and the alcohol tastes like vodka ...yum! We also visited villages specialising in Buddha carving needlework oof the finest sort making embroidered carpets , cushions , bags and lots more very impressive. We were instructed in the art of lacquer work quite a complex process which is why they can charge such high prices, the Americans fell for it!
Our next trip out of Bagan was to Pyin O Lwin 2 hours away by coach up in the mountains founded by the Brits to escape the heat of the plain they are good at that!! Here there are coffee and strawberry
plantations It is a fertile atrrea but everything looks very dry and brown the leaves on trees are withering waiting for the rains which won't arrive for a few months yet.Amongst some great things we encounted was the lovely Botanical gardens modled on Kew indeed it was developed by a botanist who trained at Kew . We really didn't have enough time there in the peace and tranquility after all our hectic schedules but that's touring for you , its not for everyone!!!
On our jounrney back to our base we were lucky enough to see a huge procession to celetrate young monk and nun novices investiture. There were elephants, camels,horses dancing tribes men, loud music and children in traditional coustume looking a tad bewilded , how lucky was that since it only happens once a year!
So our final three day stay brought us to the beautiful Inlie Lake in Shan State central Myanmar. It is 22 klms long, 9 Klms wide not hugely deep depending on the season 6 to 10 metres and 9000 metres above sea level . Yung told us that originally there were only four villages on yhe lake now thetre are dozens and
more on tjhr rim and surrou ding ateas. Here we took canoes and long tailed boats out and visited quite an area of the lake. We saw floating gardens where vegetables and fruit are grown . The local farmers scoop up the mud from the bottom of the lake and compact it somehow to grow the produce on floating islands. We saw stilted houses making up villages specialising in various handicrafts actually if I'm truthfull we were rather overdosed on weaving spinning, jade and silver ware cigar making beautiful as they were. However most of us had never seen lotus flower silk being harvested and used to make beautiful and hugely expensive garments and scarves so that was a first,! We were fascinated by the boat building and watched how they are made mostly by hand using traditional techniques, though we did spot the odd power tool. The villages do have electricity either solar or by lines strung across ythe water on huge poles.... Interesting!!!!
Om our last day on the lake we took a long tailed boat and some of us went on a trekkette . While originally were were told we would be going up into the hills
, we had a family flat but interesting walk across fields and forests . We visited a local school, a farmer weaving huge bamboo baskets , a very small business of traditional brick making, and were absolutely thrilled to hit upon a Burmese wedding and I together with 3 others wete invited into the wedding hut up a bamboo ladder eeekkkkkk!! I thought the bamboo floor would collapse under the weight of us all but no we and the wedding party wrere safe. What a prevalidge despite having to take sustainence from a spoon that had been touched by many lips!!!
Finally we walked through the most amazing area where hundreds of stupors these dating back to the 8 century were dodded about . Quite awe inspiring and it left me feeling tranquil and pensive.
Just a little word about the food ........ Great wonderful just how I like it . Its a mix of Chinese and Indian with s touch of Thai and French ( the French were in Burma for nearly 70 yeats) Lots of fish which you would expect with such a long coast line chicken beef and pork. Curries and stir fries and lots of
cakes and sweeties. In one of the villagers we watched how they made toffee and other goodies from cane sugar quite an experience. Our last suppdt to gethetr was a traditional Shan feast of tempouer vegetables unusual salads and spiced accompliments , whole spicy fish, pork, noodles and rice it was grand
On this trip we learnt much we understood the history and beliefs of Buddhism and for me personally while I had encounted it in India and China , it hit a bell. Now I'm not going g off to come retreat somewhere but it has I fluenced me somewhat. Maybe it will all disappear on my return who knows but I hope not
So Sharon and I had a couple more days in Yangon together we said our tearful fairwells to the group and she and I flew off to Bangkok where we too parted. I'm now in Chiang rai where I meet the next group before we set off for Laos. Watch this space!!! xx
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Patricia
non-member comment
OMG
no words to describe the envy as usual ...looking forward to hearing all about it when you are next passing by!! LOL XXHUGS