Mandalay and Bagan

Mandalay was is not far from Inle Lake but it took all day to drive there due to the condition of the roads, most of which are currently being repaired at the rate of about 25 yards a day. To break up the ride we stopped at a massive natural cave in the limestone hills at Pindae. Several hundred years ago the ruler in this area invited neighboring royalty to visit the cave. This Prince was so impressed that he gave a gift of a Buddha to be placed in the cave, ultimately leading to the destruction of it's natural beauty and the death of all of it's stalactites, culminating in it's current state of refuge for 8000 +/- gilded Buddhas of all sizes forming a maize of passages.



In some ways a new surreal beauty transcends the lost natural wonder but, like many things created by humans to sanctify their religious icons, I can't help but think what the enlightened person, in this case the last Buddha, Guatamo Siddartha, would have thought of this destruction of a natural wonder in his honor.

Mandalay, the capital of Burma before the English took over in 1885 ending roughly 800 years of Monarchy, is a bustling big city melding a rich ancient history with embryonic signs of a modern future. The hot moist air, grueling in the middle of the day, lush flora and mosquitos reminded us that we were in the tropics. Each day we crossed the Irrawady River, which winds its way through the town, to visit a different region; it's pagodas, villages, peoples and crafts,


(tapestry, silk and lotus weaving, wood carving, stone carving - mostly buddhas,


bronze statues, bamboo products of all types, jewelry, production of gold leaf for coating buddhas).


The Mandalay market


is huge and diverse, filled with odors ranging from interesting and exotic to nauseating to our western senses, like dried fish, fish paste


and meat displayed without refrigeration.

A very pleasant one hour boat ride up the Irrawady River one morning took us to the city of Mingun. Approaching by boat we saw from a distance what appeared to be a huge steeply inclined, almost surreal, geological structure arising behind the town.


Our guide informed us that it was the ruins of what would have been the largest pagoda in the world. Had it been completed, at five hundred feet high, it would have rivaled the Egyptian pyramids. This structure, began under the personal direction of Bodawpaya the "Grandfather" King, so named for the 207 wives and concubines with their 120 children, in the last quarter of the 18th century, was left unfinished when the King and his sons simply lost interest. During this period the Burmese Kingdom was at a peak, stretching from the Bengal Sea across Siam, into what is now Thailand and parts of Cambodia and Laos. The next hundred years or so, until the occupation by the British in 1885, were blessed with peaceful Royal Rule and advancement of the arts, things that are quite unusual in Burmese history.
From Mandalay we flew south following the Irrawaddy river. The city of Bagan (Pagan) in the great central plain, with it's thousands of pagodas, was destroyed during the Mongol hordes which invaded Europe and Asia in the late 13th century (1284). This ancient city of ruins was one of our favorite places in Myanmar.






It must have been phenomenal before it's destruction, and you really have to use your imagination since there has been very little restoration or reconstruction, as there are five to fifteen pagodas or temples in every visual field.


The inside walls were covered with beautiful paintings, which are fading, cracked and worn off. We are not sure how long the surviving paintings will last as we saw the care takers cleaning the walls with a sponge mop. The development of Pagan as a great and beautiful city along the Irrawaddy began in 1044 when one of the most liked and honored Kings of Burma, Aniruddha, rose to power and subsequently united the kingdom, fairly closely resembling the boarders of today, under one rule.






Our guide Myint showed us many of the key temples on our first day by car but we really wanted to get out on our own and explore. The following day we toured by bicycle but by 1 pm; several pagodas, hundred of Buddhas, many miles and two flat tires later, we had to retire to the hotel pool to avoid heat stroke.

From Bagan we flew back to Yangon for the return trip to Bangkok and the end of our Burmese adventure. It is an interesting place, with nice people




















and you really get a feeling for how a Buddhist country, only slightly tarnished by modern western culture, looks and functions, but we were conflicted by the poverty and the difficulty traveling and sometimes eating in what is still part of the third world. We grew to understand, appreciate and admire the Buddhist Philosophy although we were disappointed in how, despite having no concepts of god, heaven or hell, they managed to turn it into a religion.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Bangkok