The morning after our trek found us on the road to a small village of Pindaya to visit its famous cave that contains more than 8000 Buddha statues made of marble, brick, teak, bamboo… basically whatever you can scrape up to make a Buddha. We shared a taxi with the ying and yang of Germany. A really nice laid back guy, Jans, and complete neurotic chick with fingernails chewed till they bled who talked incessantly. The cave was good, though somewhat of a tourist trap. It really was a maze of Buddha statues that ranged in size form 1 to 20 feet in height, most painted gold. Close to this was a parasol workshop where they make umbrellas from scratch without the use of electricity. The paper, woodturning and frame all made by hand. It takes about 12 hours to produce one of these beautiful umbrellas. After the demonstration I was ready for the jacked up price that the demonstration of all the work required. As he worked out the price for a really nice canvas one I had my dismayed look already to go for this game when he laid a price of 3000 Kyat on me. After a quick calculation it worked out to $3 or about 25 cents an hour. Even I could not ask him to reduce his price. So cheap!

We then made our way to Inle Lake famous for its clear waters nestled between high mountains on either side. There are over 70,000 people that live directly on the lake. Not on the shoreline but right on the lake! After a stalking episode with “yang” that left us trapped in our hotel, we ventured out to secure a guided canoe to explore the lake. We opted for the canoe as the powerboats are operated by the government and we continue to try to spend our money with the people of Myanmar rather than the oppressive government. Our guide’s name was Mr. Latte and he picked us up and plunked us in a small shallow dug out canoe for the days exploring. The morning was cool so a fog shrouded the county side reducing visibility to 100 feet. Mr. Latte paddled our tipsy little vessel through narrow channels and the sun cooperated by burning off the mist as we entered waterways cut out of reed jungles. Homes sat upon tall stilts with shuttered window open to the cool morning. Children hung out of the windows waving, women tended hogs that had their own home on stilts, men set fish and turtle traps. These people were as comfortable on their little tipsy canoes as we are on our Nikes. Children rowed to school dressed in their uniforms, men dove for clay-filled mud for building floating gardens and when cut fodder all from their canoes. The area is famous also for the people’s ability to row their canoes with just one leg as they stand on the stern of their craft allowing them to work with their free hands. I was invited to give it a try but there was no way, I would have ended up in the drink.

We visited larger villages on the lake where people had large plots for farming of floating soil staked to the bottom and tended all by canoe as to step on these floating rows would cause them to sink. Row after row of tomatoes, carrots, peas, lettuce… all floating. Toilets are outhouses away from the village that everyone has to row to when nature calls. Our stopping for tea at a home caused a ripple through the village that brought 6 or so canoes out so they could just watch us eat our lunch and have our guide ask us questions of interest to them. As usual the child question comes up right away and they of course cannot believe that we have been married for five years but have no children. It is incredibly beautiful here, lush gardens hemmed in by high reads, the gardens wave like a serpent when larger boats pass by. The uniqueness of landless villages visited that day will be something that I will not forget.

Our next stop was Myanmar’s second largest city of Mandalay. While the city holds many treasures it was not meant to be that we would experience them. We were limited in time to three days of which thanks to our night bus’s dinner stop we would be out of commission for two of them and the sights in town are controlled by the government. So we settled on basically some walk around time and a visit to the Moustache Brothers Troupe before we boarded a river boat to Bagan. The Moustache Brothers are a famous for not only the long linage of entertainers but also the fact that they gained notoriety as examples of the over the top oppressive government. Several years ago two of the three brothers were jailed for seven years of hard labour for joking that government officials are the new term for thief. Since their release they have not been able to get a “permit” to perform their century old crafts handed down through the generations. So they perform a “demonstration” with curtains drawn so as to not be spied upon by government agents. It was demonstrated in a cramped room of their communal home that barely allowed for two dancers to move at one time. Comedy, traditional dancing, story telling and singing were quickly spilled upon the crowed of 8 tourists and then wrapped up as quickly as it started. To think that any time the government could swoop in to haul them away for this highlights the tyranny.

The next morning we awoke to black skies and pouring rain that did not let up for our entire government boat trip down Myanmar’s shipping artery, Ayeyarwady River. At the few stops that the boat makes villagers rushed us in their canoes or just waded into the water trying to sell their village crafts. The views were drowned out and/or hidden by rain heavy clouds that hung low upon the soaring trees and low hills. We made our way up the muddy banks of the river in Old Bagan upon arrival to find a dry taxi and hopefully a warm room. Through the fogged windows of our little taxi we excitedly glimpsed ancient pagoda bells and huge ancient payas (temples) hidden for the most part by trees and fog. But they were there, hell they were every where. We had heard about the Bagan Plain being “full” of ancient ruins and true enough it looked as though this place was brimming with pagodas and payas. The next morning was gray but dry and we decided to hire a horse and carriage to be guided on our first day in Bagan. This is a great way to see some sights and to get your bearings for self exploration on bicycles, clip clopping along old dirt tracks through a maze of temples and pagodas ranging in size of a small house to 10 storey buildings - some 500 years old, some 2000 years old with crops or pasture separating them in no particular order. Very recently there were over 5000 such structures crammed onto this plain but in 1975 a large earthquake directly under Bagan damaged all and completely destroyed half of them. Now there are about 3000 still standing with some 100 to 200 built every year. Again the rumors of forced labour to rebuild these structures abound here. The large completely restored payas such as Pyathada and Shwegugyi are amazing but of course that is where the government tour buses stop and the blaring tour guides belching their commentary through the narrow temple halls was enough to drive us away from these magnificent structures.

As usual it is a waste of time for me to try to verbalize the place so I will leave that up to the photos. The next two days saw us on bicycles exploring what felt like were forgotten temples and simple farming villages, spending most of the time lost wandering around on our bikes. You can’t help but wonder what drives Buddhist followers to erect structure after structure in an endless game of one upmanship.

Yes the sun did come out to frame white, yellow and golden temple bell tops against the famous deep Burma blue skies. It is an awesome sight! Finding temples that appealed to us for our own reasons, crawling though little passage ways, up dusty stairs, past snakes and bats to “discover” treasures such as fresco paintings, Buddha statues or breathtaking panoramic views of the ruins jutting up from the flat as a pancake plain filled the next two days. I must admit I did feel a little like Indiana Jones a couple of times, especially when we crawled up a small passage staircase that had a few cobra skins hanging like cob webs from the walls and ceiling. Dodging self appointed child tour guides, getting flat tires (or tyres if our British friends are reading this), playing chicken with herds of cows and goats was the order of day on the bikes. We found an artist in a small temple copying with paint the ancient frescos by candlelight onto sand coated canvas. Brandy browsed his other works settling on a scene of dancing girls who try and tempt Buddha. He even gave us the keys to the temple where the copied fresco lives. It was great to get an actual photograph of it.

For me Bagan belongs on a list that includes Petra, Luxor, Angor Wat, Chichen Itza, Ephesus and Hampi. Where it belongs on a list depends on the day. But it now sits safely in our treasure rich memories that this trip continues to reap upon us.

Of course as in most places we met some great people here that provided evenings of great conversations, David, Jean Paul, Walter and Magda. We look forward to future meetings.

Now the biggest news…. (type writer sound effect in the back ground)…

We are taking a work sabbatical for a few weeks and have flown back to Canada from Asia and will pick up the adventure in South America missing the Philippines and Japan.
A prior commitment could not be delayed any longer and we just made the quick trip from Bagan to Yangon on bus (12hrs), Yangon to Bangkok on plane (2hrs), train to Butterwoth for Malaysia (20hrs), bus to Kuala Lumpur (6hrs), flight to Vancouver (18hrs), and finally a flight to Toronto (5hrs). As you can see really no big deal to pop back for a few weeks.

We surprised our families in Vancouver and there were endless freak-outs. But we are now sitting in a hotel room in Oakville, through Christmas and New Years and it is winter here!

We wish everyone a very happy holiday season. Health and happiness to all in the New Year. Those of other denominations have a good weekend.

KLH

Photos:
Buddha Cave at Pindaya
Parasol Factory
Inle Lake
Inle Lake Farmer
Inle Lake Outhouse
Floating Gardens
Mr. Latte Rows With One Leg
A Day's Catch
Moustache Brothers
Horsecart at Bagan
Us at Bagan
Our Horsecart
Us with Walter, David and Magda
Temples of Bagan
Sand Painting Artist
Bagan
Us at Bagan
Bagan Landscape
Brandy at River Temple
Riding Through Bagan

Also, check out the latest addition to the "Food" section... "Malaysia, Thailand, and Burma".