A woman tapped me on the shoulder. I opened one eyebrow and raised it quizzically. "Are you flying Air Mandalay? The flight is boarding now," she said in a polite British accent. I quickly got myself together, thanked nameless British woman, and shook Jackie awake. I never fully figured out how the woman had guessed our flight. I took out my phone - it was 6:30am, and we'd been at the airport for over an hour. It seems all the flights out of Yangon took place at the crack of dawn, when the airfield wasn't quite yet an oven, and checking in we found ourselves behind several flights from the likes of Air Bagan, Asian Wings, and Myanmar Air, to the likes of Heho, Naypyidaw, and Thandwe. I was still clutching a styrofoam box with half a piece of toast, the legacy of an English breakfast our Yangon hotel staff had kindly prepared for us at 4 in the morning. We groggily made our way to the plane, and found that it was thin - the thinnest plane I can remember boarding. There were two seats on each side of the aisle, and not a lot of legroom or baggage space. I sat down and acted like I'd been here before, but I closed my eyes and secretly hoped this vessel was airworthy enough to do its job like every other flight I've ever boarded. It swayed and rattled a bit during the short flight, but it did its job.
Upon landing in Nyaung U, the whole flight boarded a bus that literally drove 60 yards before stopping 10 yards shy of the single-room airport. Maybe someone will explain to me that there's some regulation that prevents an airplane from deplaning and making its passengers walk 70 yards, and therefor forces them to load and unload from a bus, but until I get that explanation, I'm going to mock the system. We took a taxi straight from the airport to the grandest of the Bagan temples, Ananda Temple. We had decided against dropping off our luggage at the hotel and lose precious morning time, as we needed to see some sights before the oppressive heat. As of yet, the 9am sun was quite bearable. Ananda was large enough to be difficult to visually grasp up close. Its stone was naturally white, but streaked black with time. Taking off our sandals, we noticed four large openings on each side of the square base. The tile floors reminded me of Arabic geometric patterns, though the historicity of that possible link eluded me. Four enormous gold Buddha statues, definitely not of Arabic origin, stood in the terminus of each entrance. I wondered if we should have done some more research, and briefly thought about inquiring for an audio guide, but decided we were budget travelers, and I would revel in the mystery. I had seen a lot of Buddhas touring Asia. There were often 3 Buddhas, one each for the past present and future. What did four symbolize? Was Buddhism in Burma (Theravada?) different from Buddhism in China? I stared into the golden Buddha's face - he seemed to be staring right in front of him, at his nose? at his clasped hands? He didn't seem to care that I was there. I wondered briefly how many visitors he had seen over the years. Was he amazed at all the westerners that were now coming in? Probably not, we were all from this world...
I really had to step back from the temple to get some understanding of what this temple looked like. The architecture was very marvelous, with smaller temple forms protruding from the base up and up. At this point I remembered I had my disc with me and took it out for some photo ops. The outcome was the shot you see above, as well as some guy from Ohio asking if we wanted to toss for a bit.
Off to the side of the temple, a room full of painted murals told a story from the Buddhist scriptures, just like stained glass windows in a church. This story was very bloody though and involved mermaids and dark demons, people getting cut up or boiled alive. I was mesmerized and scared and utterly confused. I hadn't studied Buddhism enough to have ever seen dark stories such as this.
We weren't quite sure what to do after we were finished with Ananda, but it was still morning and I saw an open plane ahead of us and some large temples in the distance, and the urge to explore by foot overtook me. My gym bag bouncing behind me, we walked and were passed by a handful of tour buses. At first, I thought the tourists inside must be Japanese, because the tour bus had Japanese in it, but at a closer glance they did not appear to be. I realized that the cars themselves were Japanese - in fact, Burma is a huge market for second hand Japanese cars. The Japanese words for exit, which I could read, is still visible. We passed by crumbling orange brick stupas, the base of the structures still flat and solid - perhaps partially restored or perhaps well built to withstand the centuries. Some stupas were more intact and fairly intricate, their spires reaching 20-30 feet, but completely ignored in the vicinity of greater temples. We walked into the clearing around the large temple we had aimed for and saw a miniature market set up. Miniature soccer balls woven out of some material somewhere between wood and bamboo caught my eye.
This temple was not for walking inside, but for walking up, with it's higher floors selfings replicating miniature forms creating sizable land. A little kid pressed us to buy his postcards, and then followed us and played tour guide. Jackie took an instant liking to him, and asked him ridiculous questions like "What's your favorite temple here? Where do you think I'm from?" The steps up to the landings were through a dark narrow tower, and the climb through the steep ancient steps invoked my memories of the Great Wall and Machu Picchu. At the top landing, Jackie got a picture with our young tour guide and told him they were BFFs. "BFFs?" the kid asked? "Best friends forever. Don't you ever forget."
While centering the camera, I only now begun to realize the real marvel of Bagan. The flat plain stretched on interminably and as far as I could see was consistently speckled with temples and stupas amidst the trees. I couldn't count the number of spires I felt pointing to the heavens. It was hard to make out any particular temple details, but the whole scene, it's eerie grandeur, was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. The former glory of the Bagan empire was on display before me - a dynastic people who somehow built all these structures in this oppressively hot plain. And if I pretended that this was how it had really looked like, that the restoration process had been done accurately and sensibly, then the ancient pride of the Bamar people was undisturbed by their modern counterparts. No real sizable modern developments have taken hold in the former capital, destroyed by Mongol troops. The small farming villages have been removed or relocated and replaced with tourist towns. Fortunately tourist infrastructure was relatively low - I estimated that there could have been ten times as many tourists there before it would feel uncomfortably crowded. As I looked out on the impressive landscape I wondered if this scene would stay for the rest of my lifetime. What had it looked like in it's prime? What were people's real lives really like? Surely there were many non-temple structures missing in this picture, wooden houses and markets long eroded into the dust.
We found a donkey-drawn carriage driver, and though he had passengers, he called his "cousin" and a young man came riding in 10 minutes later. He spoke English quite well, but in an absurdly robotic way. We asked him touristy questions and he answered in a tour guide way, clearly having memorized pure passages of tour books with little intonation, soon putting Jackie off to sleep. I learned from him that the grand temples were built by kings and powerful people, but even normal families constructed their own stupas. Multiple generations of the Bagan empire witnessed style shifts in the architecture, and inspired the much later pagodas in Yangon. He had scripted answers for his favorite temple (I think it was Ananda) and for where else we should go (he took us to Dhammayangyi, the largest temple by area).
The donkey carriage had a driver's seat and a small cushion seat, which Jackie had taken and used as a bed. I had an awkward seat sitting perpendicular to the driver, on the other side of the donkey. We went through small paths through the dry brush, where I discovered cacti existed in Asia. Passing by another dozen stupas, we made it onto a main paved road. Here as cars and motorcycles flew past us, our plodding pace seemed more obvious and the sun nearing its noon zenith and becoming less and less bearable. We began to see more and more villagers, and I asked our guide/driver if there was a "downtown" - there wasn't really. The villagers seemed oblivious to the UNESCO World Heritage site they lived next to - from my view wedged between a donkey, a robotic driverguide and a makeshift carriage hammock, their lives seemed incredibly ordinary. Part of this scene could have taken place in any small town in America - part of it absolutely could not.
Up next - night time biking and Be Nice to Animals The Moon.
Upon landing in Nyaung U, the whole flight boarded a bus that literally drove 60 yards before stopping 10 yards shy of the single-room airport. Maybe someone will explain to me that there's some regulation that prevents an airplane from deplaning and making its passengers walk 70 yards, and therefor forces them to load and unload from a bus, but until I get that explanation, I'm going to mock the system. We took a taxi straight from the airport to the grandest of the Bagan temples, Ananda Temple. We had decided against dropping off our luggage at the hotel and lose precious morning time, as we needed to see some sights before the oppressive heat. As of yet, the 9am sun was quite bearable. Ananda was large enough to be difficult to visually grasp up close. Its stone was naturally white, but streaked black with time. Taking off our sandals, we noticed four large openings on each side of the square base. The tile floors reminded me of Arabic geometric patterns, though the historicity of that possible link eluded me. Four enormous gold Buddha statues, definitely not of Arabic origin, stood in the terminus of each entrance. I wondered if we should have done some more research, and briefly thought about inquiring for an audio guide, but decided we were budget travelers, and I would revel in the mystery. I had seen a lot of Buddhas touring Asia. There were often 3 Buddhas, one each for the past present and future. What did four symbolize? Was Buddhism in Burma (Theravada?) different from Buddhism in China? I stared into the golden Buddha's face - he seemed to be staring right in front of him, at his nose? at his clasped hands? He didn't seem to care that I was there. I wondered briefly how many visitors he had seen over the years. Was he amazed at all the westerners that were now coming in? Probably not, we were all from this world...I really had to step back from the temple to get some understanding of what this temple looked like. The architecture was very marvelous, with smaller temple forms protruding from the base up and up. At this point I remembered I had my disc with me and took it out for some photo ops. The outcome was the shot you see above, as well as some guy from Ohio asking if we wanted to toss for a bit.
Off to the side of the temple, a room full of painted murals told a story from the Buddhist scriptures, just like stained glass windows in a church. This story was very bloody though and involved mermaids and dark demons, people getting cut up or boiled alive. I was mesmerized and scared and utterly confused. I hadn't studied Buddhism enough to have ever seen dark stories such as this.
We weren't quite sure what to do after we were finished with Ananda, but it was still morning and I saw an open plane ahead of us and some large temples in the distance, and the urge to explore by foot overtook me. My gym bag bouncing behind me, we walked and were passed by a handful of tour buses. At first, I thought the tourists inside must be Japanese, because the tour bus had Japanese in it, but at a closer glance they did not appear to be. I realized that the cars themselves were Japanese - in fact, Burma is a huge market for second hand Japanese cars. The Japanese words for exit, which I could read, is still visible. We passed by crumbling orange brick stupas, the base of the structures still flat and solid - perhaps partially restored or perhaps well built to withstand the centuries. Some stupas were more intact and fairly intricate, their spires reaching 20-30 feet, but completely ignored in the vicinity of greater temples. We walked into the clearing around the large temple we had aimed for and saw a miniature market set up. Miniature soccer balls woven out of some material somewhere between wood and bamboo caught my eye. |
| Jackie's BFF |
While centering the camera, I only now begun to realize the real marvel of Bagan. The flat plain stretched on interminably and as far as I could see was consistently speckled with temples and stupas amidst the trees. I couldn't count the number of spires I felt pointing to the heavens. It was hard to make out any particular temple details, but the whole scene, it's eerie grandeur, was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. The former glory of the Bagan empire was on display before me - a dynastic people who somehow built all these structures in this oppressively hot plain. And if I pretended that this was how it had really looked like, that the restoration process had been done accurately and sensibly, then the ancient pride of the Bamar people was undisturbed by their modern counterparts. No real sizable modern developments have taken hold in the former capital, destroyed by Mongol troops. The small farming villages have been removed or relocated and replaced with tourist towns. Fortunately tourist infrastructure was relatively low - I estimated that there could have been ten times as many tourists there before it would feel uncomfortably crowded. As I looked out on the impressive landscape I wondered if this scene would stay for the rest of my lifetime. What had it looked like in it's prime? What were people's real lives really like? Surely there were many non-temple structures missing in this picture, wooden houses and markets long eroded into the dust.
We found a donkey-drawn carriage driver, and though he had passengers, he called his "cousin" and a young man came riding in 10 minutes later. He spoke English quite well, but in an absurdly robotic way. We asked him touristy questions and he answered in a tour guide way, clearly having memorized pure passages of tour books with little intonation, soon putting Jackie off to sleep. I learned from him that the grand temples were built by kings and powerful people, but even normal families constructed their own stupas. Multiple generations of the Bagan empire witnessed style shifts in the architecture, and inspired the much later pagodas in Yangon. He had scripted answers for his favorite temple (I think it was Ananda) and for where else we should go (he took us to Dhammayangyi, the largest temple by area).
The donkey carriage had a driver's seat and a small cushion seat, which Jackie had taken and used as a bed. I had an awkward seat sitting perpendicular to the driver, on the other side of the donkey. We went through small paths through the dry brush, where I discovered cacti existed in Asia. Passing by another dozen stupas, we made it onto a main paved road. Here as cars and motorcycles flew past us, our plodding pace seemed more obvious and the sun nearing its noon zenith and becoming less and less bearable. We began to see more and more villagers, and I asked our guide/driver if there was a "downtown" - there wasn't really. The villagers seemed oblivious to the UNESCO World Heritage site they lived next to - from my view wedged between a donkey, a robotic driverguide and a makeshift carriage hammock, their lives seemed incredibly ordinary. Part of this scene could have taken place in any small town in America - part of it absolutely could not.Up next - night time biking and Be Nice to Animals The Moon.
No comments:
Post a Comment