Bagan: Myanmar Day 3

Bagan is stunning.

View from Mt Popa.

Apparently, this place was created in the 1100s, when the King of the area was convinced to switch over to Theravada Buddhism (still practiced today) from the native Hindu religion.  He celebrated, and perhaps competed with other regions or other kings, by building as many temples as he could.  At one point, or so they say, there were up to 10,000 temples in the complex.  Now, Bagan does sprawl a bit, but it’s not nearly the size of Angkor Wat, so 10,000 temples must have meant a temple every few steps.   Even now, with just 2,000 temples (many restored after earthquakes and looting by UNESCO) there is almost a temple every few steps.  Some a big and tall, some tiny and quiet, and all are surrounded with trees, farmland, and dusty dirt roads.

Crazy Italian friends.

It seems to me as well that Bagan is what Siem Reap (home of the Angkor Wat complex) once was, before it was ravaged by tourism and the “development” that it brought.  I spent a few hours on the e-bike scooter and never saw a soul on the roads, which is unlikely at Angkor except in the area where I once lived in the north.  Bagan is compact enough that you can ride around for hours and still be near to your village.  The (somewhat) small scale also gives the opportunity to see hundreds of temples from one vantage point.  It’s a miraculous site, to see the sun setting behind temple peaks.

But, back to the beginning. 

Some of the 777 stairs.

I got into Bagan Airport, after one of the easiest transits, around sunset.  The size of both the airports is such that I was out of the plane and in a taxi on the way to the city in less than 10 minutes.  I honestly can’t remember the last time that’s happened.  The drive into the city passed temple after temple right at dusk, and it stunned me at the first moment.  I asked my driver how the tourists get around, and he told me that they had banned motos for tourist after one too many accident with the locals.  This doesn’t surprise me; tourists (myself included) aren’t really known for their Myanmar street savvy, particularly on powerful machines.  What I saw was people on bicycles and e-bikes, which are small and light battery-powered scooters.  I personally found the balance of the e-bike to be a bit off, especially on the sand, but it appears that the tourists are less threatening when they are only travelling at 30 kilometers per hour (at the absolute maximum). 

I had a pleasant evening at the hostel, Ostello Bello, a lovely little refuge run by some Italians, just observing the people and getting a feel for the place.  I recommend staying with them; they have free coffee and tea at all hours, nice food, and a positive atmosphere with some foreign and local staff.  There was one staff member that I found very intriguing, an older man, perhaps 60, who wore his winter hat and longyi with a heavy jacket.  I didn’t see him crack a smile until Christmas dinner, where he was dancing and laughing with his new gift.

Obligatory Temple Shot.

In the morning, I sat down to breakfast with some other travellers, Italians, one of whom was a lively 56 (?) and one who was my age.  They said they were headed to a place called Mt. Popa, and I decided to join them.  I had no knowledge of this place, o expectations, but we set off around 9:00 and were on the road.  The air is thick with dust here, and the road to the temple was long and winding.  On one leg of the journey, we went past person after person waiting on the side of the road.  Having lived in Asia for some time, I was surprised to see this; behind these people was no village, no home.  It was never uncommon in Cambodia to see people outside their homes, watching the road for entertainment, but to see people sitting in what appears to be the dry countryside, with no work, was very odd.  It was even more odd that they had spaced themselves out, not in a group but lone figures.  Most were very old, obviously weak with age.  Some were younger, down to childhood.  Many would wave, but most would put their arms out as if begging for us to stop and help.  I regret not asking the driver about these people, but it appears that the tourism (both from foreign tourists and locals) has made begging on the dusty street an option.

We continue on our road, with a brief stop for a local palm-sugar seller and maker, and two hours later, Mt. Popa.  It’s quite incredible to drive up to this place, because it looks like a steep, rectangle ridge with this bright gold pagoda sitting on top.  Beneath, a small town with a large fruit market.  No one will go hungry here in Myanmar.  We pile out of the van and begin the walk up the 777 steps to the top of this mountain.  The whole mountain is overrun with monkeys, and tended by a huge staff asking for tea money for donations.  My Italian friends and I begin our ascent, stopping here and there for a photograph or a rest.  The younger woman is overwhelmed with excitement about the monkeys.  I’m looking at them wondering if they are going to try to steal something.  Monkeys are little thieves. 

Beautiful noodle seller.

It’s a lovely place, truly, but I’m somewhat surprised at how unclean it seems here.  The pagodas in Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos are immaculate, spotless.  Here they are not nearly so pristine, and I feel the dust on my bare feet as I walk up the stairs.  At the top is shrine after shrine dedicated to each of the 37 nats, or spirits, that watch over the mountain.  I was thrilled to see that at least one spirit is a woman.  Her mural was outside her shrine, showing her dedication to Buddha and the spiritual way.   There are tall golden temples, a gong to ring, monks, and shrine watchers.  The main draw (at least for the tourists) was the view.  Each way you look, you can see miles and miles of the Burmese countryside.  Plus, the sun is bright, but the air is cool.  Winter is actually something of winter here, and I never felt inclined to remove my sweater.

When we went down, we stopped for some quick noodles at one of the shops at the entrance.  They were delicious cold wheat noodles with some tomato sauce on top, as well as some ingredients that I would never know in English, much less Burmese.  Throughout the meal, I was watching the sellers, two women who carried a slingshot around to ward off the (thieving) monkeys.  There was never anything in the slingshot, and a swift pull in their direction was more than enough reason for them to leave.  The one seller had a stunning face, her eyes ringed with eyeliner, solemn and serious.  She kept opening a notebook and writing something, perhaps the sales of the day. 

Effing monkeys.

On the way out, the Italians acquired some bananas and attracted the attention of the monkeys while I avoided the scene with my own bananas.

This is Christmas Eve, by the way, and also the eve of some Buddhist or National holiday here in Myanmar.  As we left, we saw a group of teenaged school girls headed up to the mountain, all with emerald green longyi and bright neon ball caps.

Later that evening, I was eating and talking, as the social butterfly had emerged.  I encountered a British man who’s work brought him to Myanmar to work in the gas and crude oil industry aboard ships.  I did not like this man.  He called himself the devil with his industry (especially for green peace people like me) and I can’t help but agree.  He spoke about tragedies of human life as though they were inevitable, tragedies from his boat and sea slavery that exists in excess in this part of the world. 

I escaped him by meeting to lovely (and older) French women who were working with ActionAid, a social enterprise that brings craft work to women across the country.  They had set up a shop at the front of our hostel, and I bought far more than I needed from their table.  They had also worked in Cambodia, and they highlighted some of the differences they’d noticed in their line of work.  They said that Myanmar people were quite willing to work, to learn, to grow, and that this trait wasn’t always present in the ‘Bodge.  They also mentioned problems with malnutrition in Cambodia, with young mothers feeding rice water to their children instead of healthy fruits and milk, which may contribute to the lack of learning in the youth. 

I also met an American man, which is something of a rare find.  We Americans are not known for our travels to SE Asia, not nearly in the same scale as in Europe or Australia.  He taught digital music at a university in Miami, and we argued about race relations and musical purity (as different topics, that it). 

Steve the Pilot.

Oddly enough, this motley crew ended up together for the Christmas Eve trivia pub quiz.  Our “Dream Machine” almost won, but fell behind by one point in the final round.  Between me and the college professor, with some help from the French with the alcohol question (Brandy), and a bonus bit of help from the Italian hostel owner (Pannatonne), we did pretty well for ourselves.  The Brit was mostly useless, though I concede that he did help once or twice.

The next morning, Christmas.

I’d been planning my trip to Burma since October, so I was able to acquire a ride on a Balloon over Bagan for Christmas day.  At the moment, the hot air balloons are booked up until well into January.  It’s easily the best (and most pricey) way to see Bagan. 

LOOK AT THIS.

So, I was up at 5, wearing every bit of warm clothing that I had.  Another traveller from my hostel, a Japanese girl living in Singapore, was also going to the balloon, so naturally we chatted and sat together.  They picked us up in these old restored trucks, and we puttered down the road in absolute darkness toward the launch point.  Note: the windows were open, and many of us were obviously freezing cold.  I kept looking at this one guy in shorts and a t-shirt (only), wondering how on earth he wasn’t shivering.  He had some mad mutton chops.

It turns out that many members of our balloon were expats living abroad.  Risa, the Japanese girl, lived in Singapore and found Myanmar as cold as I did as a Bangkok expat.  Another couple was from USA/Philippines and living in Manila, and one from Scotland, in Seoul and French from Tokyo. 

Christmas hat in the sky.

We sat in a circle in the dark and drank some coffee and tea, warming ourselves up before the sun rose.  The field was bustling with activity from the lovely staff who were setting up the balloons for launch: 12 around the field.  We met our pilot, Steve, a loud Brit wearing a nice Santa hat.  He gave us our safety demonstration, which basically consisted of him telling us to listen to his instructions.  One of the thin staff members also climbed into the basket to demonstrate the landing position. He divided us up in our cubicles, four by four, with me, Risa, and the Scots in one basket and the French family in the basket in front of us. 

Temple from the sky.

Then, we got to watch the balloons inflate.  The light was just rising and the flames were making the red balloons glow.  The flames also made the weather a bit more pleasant and tolerable for those of us living in the tropics.  Most of the people were clicking photo after photo, but I was just pleased to watch and enjoy.

We climbed into the baskets (with the grace of stick figures), and our balloon was the first to set off. 

I can’t express how amazing this was.  Pictures will never do justice to the experience.  Everywhere you looked, another temple, another set of trees, another rice field, a farmer waking up to begin the day.  From afar, the sun was just peeking up from the horizon, washing the landscape in pale light.  I waved to a person tending her cows, and just gazed at the sight of Bagan from the sky.  One pagoda had a complex design from the sky, a star shape in bright white, rimmed with gold.  It was simply incredible.

#selfie

We landed in a field and watched the other balloons touch down in various locations near and far.  We drank some champagne, and talked and laughed.  At least 4 other people in my balloon were teachers, living the winter holiday in style.  I believe that I need to make a pledge to ride all the balloons in all the places that I visit.  It really is stunning, and it reminded me of home on a day that I wanted to be reminded.

In fact, when I got back to the hostel, I made an attempt to Skype into Christmas Eve with my family.  The connections on both sides were so poor that all we really saw was blurry owl eyes, but it was fun to see the kids and the cousins and visit grandma’s house on the busiest night of the year. 

There was no champagne on our head.

Risa and I decided to get an e-bike and bike around the three cities of Bagan to see the sights, since she both couldn’t really drive and only had a day to spend in Bagan.  I drove us from New Bagan, to Nyuang OO, to Old Bagan, to see some pagodas and temples.  Luckily she had a map on her phone that got us from place to place, because I had no clue where we were headed.  The upside of not knowing anything about a place when you visit is you get to discover everything with no expectations.  The downside of this approach is that sometimes you miss discoveries that may have been very cool.  C’est la Vie.

She and I pagoda hopped in the three cities, and since she is a very Asian girl, we took many a selfie.  At some point, we even took a 360 degree selfie with her GoPro, a feat I had never considered.  Pagodas are, understandably I think, not remarkably thrilling to me after 6 years in Asia, but it’s fun to see differences in behavior and tradition between the various countries. 

We found lunch in a restaurant overlooking the Ayerwaddy River, the lifeblood of the city (and arguably, the country).  The seat situation had us sitting with another foreign couple, expats living in Yangoon, the capital.  It was this conversation that made me think I was in A Christmas Carol, finding ghosts of present, past, and future.  This man, a Brit, had worked in Cambodia in 1991, with the advent of the Halo Trust.  Not just that, but his work took the mines out of my Peace Corps Village, and began the work that employs a large group of the Thmar Pouk residents.  In fact, their vans from the border always arrived in our village just a few feet away from my house, on the same corner that I lived on.  Not only did he know my area, he knew it before there was anything in it.  I’m stunned that my random tour around this old city could put me at the same table with this human, and it reminds me that the world is incredibly small. 

We headed back to the hostel for a small rest before the evening’s activities, and found ourselves stranded on the side of the road.  The problem with e-bikes? Battery.  But, this was not hardly a problem.  A nice Burmese man stopped on his moto and helped us call the company to bring another battery.  Of course, he was also asking us to visit the lacquer ware shop in his village, but he was also very kind.  We waited a bit and were quickly on our way. 

It always looks like this... every day.

A sunset.

It’s a beautiful sunset, made ethereal with the dusty air and the shadows of temples.  I met there a man trekking continents on his bicycle, looking old with his experiences and the wear on his body.

As I was waiting for Christmas dinner, I met more people.  A tall German man who lives in Tokyo, studying, and his cousin, a short, Egyptian-German man living in Jakarta.  They must see shock every time they mention their relation to one another, because I have never seen two people look more different.

And Christmas Dinner, an Italian feast.

Every Italian food you’ve ever heard of was on this buffet table, and there must have been at least 100 people vying for spots on the floor of the roof, near the buffet table.  We sat, we joked, we laughed, we ate.   I’m full just thinking about the delicious food that we had.

I took a small break from the party to enjoy Christmas morning Skype with Mom, Mike, and Grandma, and watched them open their gifts.  Two Skype sessions in one day for me, and all the Christmas packed into just a short time. 

I finished it all off by helping Risa fight off the UK humor of the biker, who was teasing her out of ease.  I sat down with Emmanuel, the owner of the hostel, and had a lovely conversation late into the evening.  I may have to visit him in Florence, where they are opening a new hostel. 

And then, a rest.  I spent the 26^th in a lazy way, sitting at the hostel.  I wrote, I talked, I ate, and celebrated the Iowa way, with small movements and too much food.

My perch on the temple.

I spent the next day driving around on the e-bike, through the city and the market, then lazing at one of the temples watching the sun slowly dip down.  The market was every market, although I find the Myanmar people to be very good salespeople.  There’s a saying about rice (and laziness) in this region.  They say that the Thais plant the rice, the Cambodians watch it grow, and the Vietnamese harvest it.  Some versions have the Laotians listening to the rice grow.  It is somewhat fitting… the Thais work, but not always, and the Vietnamese are fierce with their work ethic.  If I were to add Myanmar into this saying, I may say that they sell the rice. 

Temples everywhere.

In the market and the temple, I saw first hand just how sharp the sales were, with many sellers using social influence principles.  One gave me a gift so I felt compelled to reciprocate.  One put tanaka on my face for a similar reason (it feels quite cool, and supposedly deters the sun).  One had tears in her eyes begging for a sale.  One told me that there hadn’t been any sales recently.  One utilized the power of comparison.  I’m not sure where this comes from, this tenacity, but they are very effective techniques.  I’m comforted at least with the little boy (who got me to buy a sand painting… how I’ve no clue) who told me that school is on holiday for the Buddhist holiday.  At least he may not be selling at the temple every day; he was much too clever for that.

That evening ended with dinner in the backpacker part of Nyuang Oo, with some Italians from my hotel.  They lived in Shanghai, which I’m hoping is a prediction of the future for a certain friend of mine.

Bagan is truly phenomenal.  Everything about it begs for another visit.