Preface:
One person in particular is the specific reason behind the resounding success of my Myanmar trip. Her name is Teacher May, and she was my guide.
If you would like to obtain her contact details, or if you have questions that are not covered in this TR, please feel free to PM me. Teacher May, a
veritable, well-traveled polyglot who speaks several Asian and European languages (in particular, she is fluent in French and English), is the
owner/director of
Myanmar Sung May Lwin (Travels and Tours), a small, family-operated, private tour company
that also acts as a community reinvestment vehicle and a de facto nonprofit. I most highly and emphatically recommend Myanmar Sung May
Lwin and certainly the pinnacle of excellence, efficiency, and knowledge that is Teacher May. The agency is easy to communicate with, her English is
outstanding, she and her staff respond to email (they use Gmail) promptly, and in addition to being my guide and host, she arranged, coordinated, and
managed every aspect of my five-day stay, including hotels, domestic air tickets, local ground transport, entrance fees, sightseeing, and meals.
“Five-star service” does not begin to describe just how professionally and competently she conducts business. It was a huge honor to meet her and be
her guest – it has been an even greater honor to become her friend, and to learn from her about Buddhism, Myanmar, and life itself. As was customary at
the time, I paid the entire price of the trip (all-inclusive, except lunches / dinners / incidentals) in cash upon my arrival. I had ordered the pristine crisp
unfolded newer-than-2006 US currency (hundred-dollar bills are preferred) from my bank before the trip.
During my trip, I saw how MSML acts to foster integrity, transparency, and higher customer service standards in Myanmar’s still-fledgling, but already-
problematic, tourism industry. The outfit donates much of its profits to local orphanages, as well as to homes for the disabled and the mentally ill,
facilities that do not have any foreign sponsors or sources of non-state support. Based on my experience, I can say with confidence that, if you
allow Teacher May to be your window into Myanmar, then you will have more than just a great time: you will not regret it, you will not forget it, and you
will have likely helped the people of Myanmar.
Although my trip was a momentous eye-opener, a start of what has the potential become a long-term or lifelong learning experience, I still know very
little about Myanmar or Buddhism. If you would like to study, from a formal Western academic perspective, the history of the sites pictured or described
here, as well as the reasons behind the unique interplay of Buddhism with animist beliefs and historical facts in Myanmar, I would encourage you to read
the excellent and thought-provoking book by Donald M. Stadtner, “Sacred Sites of Burma: Myth and Folklore in an Evolving Spiritual Realm.” Stadtner’s
stunning photo illustrations, which accompany his in-depth scholarly study of Myanmar’s contemporary Theravada Buddhist spirituality, are vastly superior
to my snapshots below, too. I had bought my copy at the Asia Books, The Emporium, Bangkok.
Myanmar vignettes
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Myanmar, Day 1
The Golden Rock: getting there is, and isn’t, half the fun
In Bago, on our way to Mon State and the Golden Rock, we ate yummy vegetarian egg rolls. Our table, on the balcony of the small and surprisingly
clean restaurant, featured this amazing view of the Shwemadaw Pagoda, the highest stupa in Myanmar (it is even taller than Yangon’s iconic Shwedagon)
and one of the holiest sites in the land that was known in colonial times as “Lower Burma:”
The view on the other side of the restaurant’s terrace was also relaxing, in a different, low-key way:
With my mind completely at ease after the relaxing lunch in Bago, and genuinely happy with the good fortune of having none other than Teacher
May as my interface with, and window into, Myanmar, I confidently regarded our plans for the rest of the day. Further along, outside of Bago, we were
treated to expansive and peaceful vistas of brilliant green rice paddies, under a clear blue sky. The verdant color gave the words “Burma jade” a whole new
meaning, for me. But as the car slowed down on its way into a dusty town that made Bago look positively metropolitan in comparison, Teacher May very
calmly informed me that “We shall leave the driver and the car here overnight… We must ride in the back of an open truck for 30 or 45 minutes
until halfway up the mountain. Foreigners cannot ride all the way up. At the halfway point, we will get off the truck, and we will walk, hike, the final 45
minutes to the top. There are no other alternatives, unless we wish to be carried up by porters, who cannot be completely trusted.” Little did I know
what was behind this innocent description. (And, kudos to Teacher May for offering me no details until that point in the trip. Had I known, I probably
wouldn’t have gone – and I would have missed the definitive highlight of this particular visit to Myanmar.) A glimpse of the porters (foreground) and our
means of transport, the open-top trucks (background):
To make a long story short, the “truck” portion of this journey was the most frightening trip (of any kind) that I have taken to date. Driving through
white-out snow and ice on I-90 in upstate New York during my college days in the 1990, and traveling on many nasty roads with dodgy drivers in several
SEAsian countries over the years – none of this had prepared me, at all, for these 30-40 minutes of sheer horror. The one-lane road up the mountain
consists almost entirely of hairpin curves, which are loosely negotiated (think “one wheel close to being over the cliff, three wheels still on the road”) by
the truck driver – and the driver who took us up that day drove as if he just might have been on amphetamines, or worse. With my rear sliding left and
right on the slippery wooden bench over every hairpin turn, I had precious little to hold on to, and falling out of the uncovered truck (left, right, or even
straight behind, a distinct possibility as I was in the penultimate row) felt like a real possibility. Even the normally serene Burmese were becoming evidently
scared. For physical rather than spiritual security – because holding on to the narrow and slippery bench with my sweaty hands in the day’s rising,
stifling heat quickly became well-nigh impossible - hence, I ended up holding hands tightly (on my right side) with my neighbors (a pilgrimage group from
Moulmein). On my left side, however, Teacher May was an unshakeable oasis of utter and absolute calm. Admittedly, the Golden Rock trip might be a
routine commute for my “Official Tour Guide and Boss of Travel Company,” but I was nevertheless very highly impressed by her calm and peaceful demeanor
during the entire length of the scary trip up the mountain. “Look at the sky! The hills! Look at the beautiful trees, on both sides of the road! The sky is so
blue… and these trees are so green,” commented Teacher May to me in her slow, grammatically perfect English, as she noticed my growing discomfort.
“But we’re all going to hell in a handbasket, and once we’re off a cliff, nobody will even know about this for a few days,” I silently thought to myself (I
knew better than to say anything out loud at this point). Of course, I was wrong. We arrived at the halfway stop. I was never so happy to be alive.
Myanmar certainly holds the power to make our private Western problems recede into the infinite distance… while replacing them with the forgotten,
albeit hard-earned, joy of merely living in the here-and-now.
The 45-minute hike, the final stage of the trip up to the Golden Rock, turned out to be so arduous that I understood – after just the first few minutes –
why some travelers choose to “pay unreliable porters who will carry you up.” The path is surprisingly deserted and almost devoid of Myanmar’s otherwise-
omnipresent drink sellers, although one stand was selling very dubious-looking bottled water, which we did not partake of, and warm made-in-Thailand
canned Coca Cola, which we did imbibe. It provided precious little hydration, and cleaning the top of the cans with alcohol wipes before opening
(because, who knows what was lurking in the melted-ice bucket these cans had been sitting in…) reminded me just how far from “home” I was. Toward
the end of this walk, I (a bragging “veteran” of 10-mile up-and-down hikes in the Cascades and the Olympics in the glorious summers of my grad-school
years) felt that my heart was jumping out of my body and that I have never known that it was even possible to become so severely dehydrated. "Walking
meditation... left... right... left... right..." and "Breathing meditation... in... out... in... out..." suggested Teacher May, advice powerful enough to see me
through the remainder of our ordeal. When I saw THIS at the end of the road, I realized that the truck ride and the hike were not the end of my
world, but rather, a purifying experience, or even the gateway to a new beginning:
The Golden Rock (Kyaik Htiyo Pagoda) appears to be a physically impossible phenomenon, its huge gilded boulder balanced precariously on its platform in
seeming defiance of gravity. According to local lore, as discussed in Donald Stadtner’s “Sacred Sites of Burma,” the Golden Rock used to levitate in the
distant past, then descended to the top of its boulder, owing to all the bad things people do in “our degenerate age.” When you are there, looking at it,
this is almost believable. Teacher May explained a prevalent local belief, one that Myanmar will be safe for as long as the Golden Rock remains balanced
on its boulder – and that people need to behave in the right way (live in accordance with Buddhist precepts) so that this amazing site can retain its
sacred and precarious balance:
The golden glow of sunset, reflecting upon the Golden Rock:
The overnight stay at the mountain was booked at The Mountain Top Hotel. While the front desk clerk was examining my well-worn passport, the
realization finally hit me. We survived the trip here, but a significant problem remained: I had left all my luggage in the car, at the bottom of the hill. I had
absolutely nothing to my name, except: my passport, my wallet, the clothing I had on, a bamboo walking stick bought along the way, and (fortunately) my
camera. “So, this is what it might be like to forsake all things material and to become a monk,” I daydreamed, but Teacher May brought me graciously back
to reality: “You left everything at the bottom. We should consider visiting the night market!” My modest needs for a change of clothes had been
well-served by the market, when it dawned on me that another danger loomed: my doxycycline pills (a prophylactic antimalarial that must be taken
daily to be effective) were also in the car. With truly angelic patience after the arduous day, Teacher May – as soon as I made the mistake of explaining
the sudden look of concern on my face – walked with me to the local medical clinic. Despite the late hour, the clinic was brightly lit, and a couple of
patients were waiting. The middle-aged female doctor, who saw us after a half-hour wait, spoke in great English to me (surprisingly for such a remote
place), and clearly understood my concern. She then apologetically and regretfully informed us that “doxy” was out of stock, but that “there is no
malaria here in Mon State now, in the dry season, at this altitude. Therefore, there is nothing to worry about.”
Power outage, Mon State, 3 am
If you ever stay at the Mountain Top Hotel near the Kyaik Htiyo Pagoda (address: “Next to Foreigners’ Registration Office”), ask for room 106. The
secluded downstairs room has an irregular ceiling with exposed rock formations – not quite your regular hotel room! After an MSG-laden fried rice
dinner, an excellent (hot and high-pressure) shower, and a perfunctory effort to watch ChannelNewsAsia on the ancient “tube” TV (news from the outside
world – after what I had seen in that one day – seemed utterly irrelevant anyway, as if coming from a distant universe), I turned on the fan (there are
no air conditioners at the Mountain Top) and called it a night, on a “nothing to worry about” note.
I woke up, not from a light or a sound, but from a complete absence thereof: an unfamiliar feeling of complete and profound quiet and stillness. “Is this
how it might feel to a monk or a hermit, meditating alone on one of Myanmar’s legendary mountain tops in the predawn hour?” I naively thought,
consulting my ancient Nokia cell phone (used only as a clock and an alarm) on the bedstand. I surmised that it was just past 3 am local time. There was
not a sound in the room. Outside, I could see stars shining in the clear night Mon State sky, and on the terrace, silhouettes of the orchid plants were
barely visible in the moonlight. I finally realized what was happening… a power outage. I had woken up because the comforting white-noise sound of
the fan was gone. Myanmar’s power outages have been much in the news lately, but in this grotto-style room, steps away from the spectacular Golden
Rock, this particular power outage felt… benign and even poetic.
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Myanmar, Day 2
Early morning, a few steps away from Golden Rock. Monks (and novices) returning from the Pagoda encounter a hermit:
After enjoying sunrise at the Golden Rock (definitely worth getting up extra early for), we returned to Yangon. We first hiked back down the trail, where
there were a few refreshment stands such as this one (Monkey Coffee and Alpine Water are one of the many outcomes of the years of Western
sanctions; there is no Nescafe or Evian in Myanmar outside of top-end hotels, since Western governments have largely made it impossible for the
familiar multinational companies to do business here, although sanctions are on the verge of being lifted now and some companies are already heading in):
We then rode in a truck’s cab (rather than on the open benches out back) this time, with a driver who behaved a whole lot more responsibly than his
colleague from the previous day. Safely reunited with our own ex-Yangon ride, we stopped in Bago on the way back, visiting several sites in town,
including the majestic Shwemadaw Pagoda, which is surrounded by these fanciful gilded stupas all around its perimeter:
I spent the next night at the excellent Inya Lake Hotel in Yangon. The wireless internet in my room did not work. From the balcony of my room, I
had a dramatic and outstanding direct view of the Shwedagon Pagoda, lit up by brilliant floodlights in the distance, its gilded surface shining over the city
through the balmy tropical night. (If memory serves me correctly, I was in room 534.) As I paused to admire the view, the wireless internet’s failure just
didn’t matter any longer. With a view like that, who could possibly think of asking to change to another room? Myanmar, still a great place to be out of
touch with the world. A place offering an opportunity to reconnect, perhaps, with what is genuinely important in life.
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Myanmar, Day 3
Amazing Bagan: on the other side of the dream
“The Buddha was a traveler. Just like you are today.” Having set an impossible-to-follow high standard with this brief remark, delivered with a
smile while looking into my eyes steadily, Teacher May proceeded to explain that our first point of interest in Amazing Bagan would be the Shwezigon
Pagoda:
Counting money from donation boxes. The floor of a temple pavilion, Shwezigon Pagoda compound:
The mandatory “I went to the morning market in Bagan, and here is what I saw” photo:
Teacher May and I had lunch at the Tharabar Gate Hotel in Bagan that day. In apparent defiance of common sense (in a country where “cook it, boil it,
peel it, or forget it” should be the prevailing guidance), we shared a fresh garden salad – soil particles were plainly visible on the uncooked vegetables,
and I didn’t want to think whether the greens had even been washed with any water (filtered or otherwise) prior to serving. We squeezed a couple of
limes onto this potential gastrointestinal catastrophe. Having enjoyed fresh-baked bread and soup to accompany this salad, we happily continued
with fulfillment of the day’s plans; we visited eight of Bagan’s most significant pagodas before Myanmar Day 3 was over. (We did not get sick.)
Bagan is truly staggering. Travel bloggers sometimes compare it with Cambodia’s Angkor Wat, but while I can connect to Angkor with a passion
too (as a three-time visitor to REP, 2001 / 2004 / 2006), the two sites are different and incomparable, and any attempt to force direct parallels is
somewhat misplaced. The sheer scale of Bagan, along with the continuing active Buddhist worship and veneration at its hundreds of pagodas (nearly
uninterrupted over its thousand-year history), boggles the mind:
The Irrawaddy River, a view from Bagan:
Sunset, viewed from the top terrace of the imposing ancient Shwesandaw Pagoda:
After a quiet night in my oversized bungalow at Thwante Hotel, unmarred by any electricity problems, I woke up at around 5 am local time… due to the
remnants of jetlag from the previous week, perhaps. For some reason, rather than staying up and reading til dawn and breakfast, I decided to – or rather,
I involuntarily returned to – sleep, again. Now, while we all have dreams every night, some people seldom recall their dreams, and I am one of those
individuals. To wake up from a dream (and to remember the dream) has always been an extremely rare event for me. That Bagan morning, I was
jolted – by the hotel’s late wake-up call well past 8 am, no less – out of a remarkable dream. In the dream, I had visited the eight pagodas… the actual
ones that we had been to, during the previous day… but in a completely opposite order. I had re-lived the entire preceding day backwards (just
imagine waking up from a stunning, graphic “DCBA” when the real order of events the previous day was “ABCD”), starting in my dream at the
Shwesandaw (sunset), and ending at the Shwezigon (which we had visited first in the morning, in real life). Do they call this place “Amazing Bagan” for a
reason? The implications of this dream lingered in my consciousness as we headed out for the day’s visit …
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Myanmar, Day 4
Sweepers of the Monkey Temple
… to Mount Popa (sometimes spelled Poppa), where 37 “nats” (spiritual beings) are worshipped (in a uniquely Myanmar tradition that combines
Theravada Buddhism with devotion to local “guardians” and deities arising out of specific legends and beliefs:
Popa is not for faint-hearted folks like SEA_lurker. If being chased by aggressive rhesus macaques grabbing bags of food, water, and devotional
flowers out of your hands – while hiking up a steep staircase in 35(C)-degree heat – is not your idea of fun, or if you can’t tolerate even a remote
possibility of monkeys running away with your camera (no, it didn’t happen to me), please give this temple a miss. But was the climb “worth it” for me? An
emphatic yes. There were awe-inspiring views of the Bagan Plain from the mountaintop, and there was the sense of being in a really far-away, not-yet-
too-touristy place that stays with you long after you’ve left the country. Some time after we had reached the top, Teacher May said, “And now, let’s
talk with this lady here… so that we can borrow some brooms for the both of us. We shall be cleaning, sweeping a part of the temple grounds here at the
top, in order to make merit.” My nightmarish thoughts of dying a slow and painful death from inhaling pathogen-laden monkey excrement were quickly
countered: “By cleaning this specific place, we attain forgiveness for debts that we owe in our past lives.” Rock on, Teacher May!.. What a lofty idea. In
comparison… a Western bankruptcy attorney or judge can offer, at best, a relief of debts that are owed in this, current, life. Knowing from the previous
three days’ experience that it was a clear “do first, ask questions later” situation, I took the groundskeeper’s broom, and I enthusiastically and
thoroughly swept clean a hefty amount of square footage of Mount Popa’s marble upper platform surrounding the central hilltop stupa.
Myanmar at the Center of the World! One of the many devotional shrines at the base of Mount Popa. Have a look at this "golden globe" / map:
Myanmar, Day 5
No trip to Myanmar is complete without Yangon – and no sight in Yangon is grander than the Shwedagon Pagoda:
Monks…
…and nuns, at the Shwedagon Pagoda: