Author Archives: Ginger

Inle Lake – near Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda

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From the deck of the restaurant where we ate lunch, we could see the splendid temple we would tour shortly.

This pagoda houses five ancient and sacred Buddha images, which are believed to have been brought to Myanmar from the Malay peninsula sometime in the twelfth century. The images are small–only nine to eighteen inches high–and so much gold leaf has been applied to them in this century alone that you can no longer even guess they were once Buddhas. I don’t have a photo, but there is a good image here.

As you might guess, these small statues are uncommonly heavy.

Therefore, it may come as no surprise that when an unexpected storm came up while the Buddhas were being transported on their annual round of the Inle Lake villages and the ceremonial boat capsized, they sank to the bottom of the lake.

The lake is not deep, and four of the five statues were recovered. But search as they may, no one could find the fifth–and largest statue. You can imagine everyone’s surprise when they returned to the temple with the other four statues, and the fifth one was waiting for them there.

Clearly, this one statue didn’t want to travel any more. And so for the last fifty years, only four of the statues make the annual round of the villages.

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After lunch, we took the back way and walked to the pagoda. Dan and I being the kind of tourists that we are, we found the backyards as interesting as the waterfront.

 

 

A canal separated us from the temple. From its bank we watched some young women doing, um, something, involving tin cans and water. Then we crossed the narrow pedestrian bridge.

 

At the temple, groups of people talked or prayed, but we didn’t see anyone applying gold leaf right then.

Inle Lake – What they carried

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In retrospect, one of the really wonderful things about Inle Lake was the absence of traffic. Hey, nothing like the absence of roads to cut down on the number of cars, motorbikes, and trucks. But that’s not to say that there wasn’t traffic of sorts; it’s just that all the vehicles were boats–mostly the same kind of long, narrow, graceful boat that we rode in all that day.

And what they carried in those boats!

Goods coming back from the market. Or perhaps going to it.

    

 

Household items.

Entire large families. Or maybe the village carpool returning from school.

 

Inle Lake – Fishermen

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He is as graceful as a performer in Cirque du Soleil. He balances on one leg on the very stern of his boat and steers the boat with his other leg wrapped around his single oar. With his hands he casts and hauls his fishing net.

But he’s not performing for an audience, and there are hundreds like him out on the lake. He’s feeding his family and perhaps also harvesting enough fish to take to market in the same traditional way his father did, and his grandfather, and on back.

The fact that he is enchanting a couple of passing visitors on the lake is of no concern to him. Or to any of the other fishermen.

   

 

Sometimes, though, the fishermen do flaunt their skill. Sometimes they have races, village against village, on the lake. The fishermen use special racing boats, twenty men on port and twenty on starboard, a team of forty-plus from each village. (As you can imagine, left-handed–or left-legged–fishermen are relatively rare and therefore much in demand.) We saw one of the boats (sorry, no picture) and wish we could have watched a race, but it was the wrong time of year. But here’s a link to a video of a race; it had me laughing with delight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A hurricane story

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As I sit writing this, Hurricane Irene is blowing outside. So far, it’s not as bad as we feared it might be. A lot of rain, yes, but all in all, not very windy. But then, it’s only 11am, the time that the National Weather Service predicted the real winds would start, so we might see something yet.

As always during rainy, windy weather, I remember a story about Adam. Adam was only three years old in September, 1985, so he probably doesn’t remember this story. That’s why I’m the one who has to tell it. He had just started Montessori School a few weeks before, where they were learning, among other things, all about the seasons.

And that’s when Hurricane Gloria blew through. September 27, 1985.

Now, Gloria was a Category 4 hurricane with winds up to 145 miles per hour. There was a storm surge of almost seven feet–thank heavens it was low tide!–when the storm made landfall in southern Connecticut. Gloria dropped up to six inches of rain in Massachusetts and left over two million people without power. The storm killed eight people and did over $900 million in damage in New England. The name ‘Gloria’ has been retired.

While the storm was raging, I was–pretty much where I am now–on an upper floor of my house in the study by the window, working on my computer. But Gloria was raging. It broke whole large branches off the mature maple by the side of our house. These branches fell on our roof with a shaking thud, clawed their way down the roof slope, landed on the roof of the screen porch below with another thud, and slid from there down into the yard.

It was terrifying.

Afraid that a branch might blow through the window or worse, the storm might take the roof off the house, I shut down my computer and went downstairs to the first floor, where I found Dan with Adam in his arms, the two of them in the kitchen standing well back from the windows watching the branches falling from the screen porch roof into the yard.

“Daddy,” Adam asked, “is this fall?”

Well, yes, Adam, the leaves are falling down off the trees, but normally they come down without the branches still attached.

 

Inle Lake – Nyaung Shwe, the Gateway to Inle Lake

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Even after the flight from Mandalay and a stop at the monastery, it was still only mid-morning when we arrived at Nyaung Shwe, the Gateway to Inle Lake. Last stop by land!

It has the feel of a frontier sort of town, though no doubt it is not. Something in the size and scale, the non-busy street. The Five-Day Market (more about this later!) was in Nyaung Shwe this morning, but it’s wrapping up when we get there. People have bought whatever they were going to buy and are heading home to cook or to restock small stores in more remote areas.

Some head home by land.

Others, by water.

This boat is full! Look how low she sits in the water. But still, the men keep packing their merchandise in.

 

 

At last our boat arrived. Car and driver dismissed, this boat was our transportation while we were here. Pretty, isn’t she?

We climbed aboard, and off we went! There’s no speed limit here.  🙂  The outskirts of Nyaung Shwe raced by.

 

You may be wondering why the water is so brown, and is the whole lake like this? The answer is silt, I think. And no. Nyaung Shwe sits on a narrow canal that flows into the lake. When we reach the lake the water is much clearer.

The pace of life changes when we’re out on the water. We relax. We’re happy to be here.

 

Inle Lake – Shwe Yan Pyay Monastery

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The nearest airport to Inle Lake is at Heho, about an hour’s drive distant. And in between Heho Airport and the lake lies this charming teak monastery, over 150 years old.

It’s not covered by ornate carvings like the royal monasteries and pagodas we saw in Mandalay. This is a regional monastery, and one dedicated to housing poor boys from the countryside, boys who might consider the monastery as a way of life. For them, it provides an education and a predictable meal–more than they might get at home otherwise.

We arrived during wash time. Monks were washing themselves and their clothing together.

 

 

The monks live in a dormitory, where each has his own space: a sleeping mat and a place to store his possessions, including a trunk. With a lock. Not that the monks aren’t honest. Of course they are, but a lock, perhaps, helps them stay that way. Or maybe it’s us tourists that they’re worried about.

The dormitory occupies half of the monastery building. The other half is a temple with an ornately carved ceiling, containing some of the sweeter Buddhas we’ve seen on this trip.

   

 

Nearby–perhaps part of the same monastery complex–is another pagoda with an abundance of Buddhas and beautiful glass mosaics.

The main Buddhas seem about to go out for a stroll.

All around the central sanctuary is a walkway with niches. In every niche is a Buddha (and a sign indicating the Buddha’s donor). There is much merit here.

 

 

The arched ceiling of this walkway is covered with mosaic murals of Buddhist themes. The one I like best shows how the righteous (men) get to pluck the fruit of the tree of virgins. Er… I am not making this up.

I do have to point out the sleeping righteous (men) at the right and below the tree, so perhaps this image depicts only the kind of pleasant dreams such people may have. Or perhaps the image refers to some canonical tale. I wouldn’t be surprised if the guy on the right is a person with a name that any good Myanmar Buddhist would know.

 

Inle Lake

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I’ve been in fear of this moment, and perhaps that’s why I’m a little late with this post.

The fact is that Inle Lake was so enchanting that Dan and I, wanting to capture everything, took maybe a thousand photographs in one day. And now I have to sort through this incredible flood of images–and memories–and figure out how to organize it in portions small enough for you to swallow in one session.

It’s a daunting task.

But to give you just the smallest glimpse of what’s coming, here are a few images of, well, nothing in particular. Just landscape. Just glorious, beautiful, exotic, enchanting landscape.

    

 

This last image, by the way, is the driveway to our hotel. There is no land access.

I hope I’ve whetted your appetite with this little sampler. There is so much more to see.

 

Mandalay – Shwe Inbin Monastery (or: an orphan makes good)

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Shwe Inbin is a remarkably well preserved teak monastery structure. It was built in 1895 by a Chinese orphan who worked himself up from an poverty to become a rich and powerful merchant, married to one of the king’s daughters, if I recall the tale correctly. Long used as a monastery, it is now being preserved as an historically significant structure; monks from the still-active monastery buildings that surround Shwe Inbin still act as caretakers.

And perhaps the mango trees on the grounds, dropping their near-ripe fruit like cannonballs on the unwary visitor, are also doing their part as caretakers.

The carvings that adorn the teak building, in the traditional Burmese style, are gorgeous. So is the building as a whole.

    

Inside, the teak carvings are also lovely, and the sanctuary contains two gold Buddhas. I don’t know why, but I find these Buddhas tasteful and restrained, despite their being gold. Maybe I am developing gold-tolerance, needing higher and higher doses before it sets off my “excessive!” button.

As we were leaving, we came across the guardian monks, hard at work in their caretaking duties.

After seeing this monastery (and surviving the attack of the guardian mango trees once again), we had yet another delicious Burmese dinner and got ready for our early morning flight the next day to Inle Lake.

 

 

 

 

 

Mandalay – a visit to Mingun

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Yesterday, as you may recall, a river boat brought our intrepid travelers up the Irrawaddy River to Mingun. As we approached the ancient royal capital, we could see one of the reasons we are here looming above the riverside.

Begun in 1790 by King Bodawpaya, the Mingun Pahtodawgyi was intended to become the world’s largest stupa. But when a prophesy foretold that the king would die upon completion of the stupa, construction was slowed down to prevent this unfortunate event. However, nature will have its way, and the king died anyway; and construction on the pagoda was halted. An earthquake in 1839 damaged the foundations. And so here we were visiting what is now archly called the world’s largest pile of bricks.

This pile of bricks, however, comes with the world’s largest ringing (that is, not cracked) bell. And it does actually ring. I know. I rang it.

You see the characters carved into the bell? Just so you know, these are the Burmese characters for “55555,” a very lucky number (hey, five times luckier than just 5) that also happens to be the weight of the bell in Burmese viss (1 viss = 3.5 pounds, so the bell is just shy of 100 tons).

But I have gotten ahead of myself. As we approached Mingun, the first thing we saw, of course, was the unfinished pagoda. The next was groups of people washing clothing. Wednesdays must be Wash Day in Mingun.

 

 

We also had a welcoming committee.

 

 

One of the children approached me, and I got over the instinctive fear of tourists everywhere that she was hustling something. Or worse yet, begging. (We saw no beggars in Myanmar.) She spoke a little English and asked my name, and I asked hers. And it turned out that what she wanted was to exchange a handful of American coins (quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies) for American bills. The coins are worthless in Myanmar, but the bills, even small ones, have some value. And I can use the coins as well as the bills. It’s a win-win proposition. We did the deal and solemnly thanked one another. And I raced to catch up with Dan and Zaw.

The guy with the oxcart taxicab followed us everywhere, hoping to give us a ride. But everything was close, and we relished the chance to stretch our legs, even in the heat and humidity. Later, I learned that our itinerary had promised us transportation via oxcart in Mingun. Poor guy. I hope they paid him anyway.

After the unfinished pagoda, we proceeded to the shining white Hsinbyume Pagoda, built by King Bagyidaw for his wife. It is modeled on the idea of the mythical but holy Mt. Meru, surrounded by seven mountain ranges (represented by the seven wavy terraces).

We climbed to the top platform, which opened to stunning views all around. And provided a few sheltered surprises.

    

 

Inside the temple on the top were two lovely Buddhas, one in front of the other. We heard a story somewhere along the way about a “decoy Buddha,” but I can’t verify whether this is that one or not.

 

 

Mandalay – Cruising the Irrawady River

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Our second day in Mandalay began with a cruise eleven kilometers up the Irrawady River (or perhaps more properly the Ayeyarwadi River) to Mingun. More about Mingun in tomorrow’s post; this post is about the river.

Over two thousand kilometers long, the Irrawady bisects Myanmar from north to south; its basin of over 400,000 square kilometers represents more than half the country’s area. And it is, according to the Burma Rivers Network, the fifth most silted river in the world.

Our journey starts with the perilous crossing of several boats across a narrow wooden plank that seems insecurely attached. Okay, well, that’s how it seemed to me. To Dan it was probably a safe crossing across a secure wooden plank that was easily wide enough.

There are houseboats and commercial activities along the river’s edge near Mandalay.

 

    

People also live in small communities built at the river’s edge. Here’s one…
  

And here’s another.

  

Of course, in the dry season, these houses are all probably high and dry. And when the monsoon season advances further, they might all be in the river. The height of those stilts is probably no accident.

Here’s some of the river and agrarian life of the people in these communities.

   

 

Of course, at the end of our visit to Mingun, the whole process was reversed, with a safe return to Mandalay.