Living the Good Life: Mandalay

Hey guys!

We arrived in Mandalay, Myanmar and were greeted with an intense heat. I have always wanted to go to Burma/Myanmar and it was such a great feeling to finally board the plane for a place I had heard so many amazing things about. Foreigners have only really been able to easily visit the country for about three years, and the place is experiencing a bit of an awakening to the outside world. When we were there, democratic elections had not been held yet, but they have since we left. Things over there still aren't perfectly reformed, and naturally the military junta is reluctant to relinquish all power to the hands of the people, but progress is happening- slowly, slowly.

Our hotel had a great view of the Mandalay Palace and was really nice. We had, after all, spent $30 per night. It was really cute because every time we walked in or out of the place the front staff (about 3-4 people) would all stand and greet you- "Mingalarbar!"(hello). I think we just about wore out that word as we traipsed through Myanmar. Everyone was so friendly and wanted to say hi.

Our first stop was to Shwe In Bin Kyaung, a teak monastery built in 1895 with funds donated by two wealthy jade merchants. The whole thing stood on tree trunk poles and had some beautiful carved cornices.

Next up was Mahamuni Paya, the third most sacred place to Buddhism in the country. It is the home of a giant seated Buddha, of solid gold, standing 13 ft tall and believed to be over 2000 years old. Over the centuries, devotees have applied more gold leaf to the statue, leaving it with a knobbly appearance. The added gold is now apparently over 6 inches thick! No gold is applied to the face, that is ceremonially polished every day at 4 am.

The temple that houses the seated Buddha

This picture was taken from the women's section......there's even a TV to show a close-up of the Buddha's face because you are so far away.

Jared took this pic from the men's section, can you see how the bust is knobbly from all the gold leaf?

Pictures to show how the statue has grown over the years

From here we scootered on to U Bein's bridge, the longest teak bridge in the world at 1300 yd. We arrived at the perfect time, just before sunset to see the monks walking along, plus fishermen cruising on the water in the fading light. It was a pretty pastoral scene. I predict this to be one of the places that tourism will ruin as the country opens up :S

These deep-fried crabs were everywhere around the bridge. It's that weird SE Asian thing all over again. Everybody sells the exact same thing. If you're not in the mood for that one item, too bad.

The next day we took a scooter out to Mingun. It was SO hot by the time we got out there, and it was only 9 am! We first walked around Mingun Paya. The added degree of complication when it comes to temple-touring is that you have to take your shoes off. Well, when it's literally 40 C outside, the stones get a little hot, so you learn to run quickly from one shaded spot to another. Sometimes the shaded spots are severely lacking and you just end up burning the crap out of your feet.

The Mingun Paya was intended to stand an imposing 492 ft tall, but as you can see from the picture, was never finished. However, it was still interesting to see for the mammoth cracks down the middle caused by earthquakes.

We then walked right next door to Hsinbyume Paya, a white temple with wavy terraces. We climbed up in relative bare-footed comfort.

I miss the incense everywhere

Looking back at the Mingun Paya

The 2 students that showed us around for the morning

Here is the Mingun bell. It holds the record for largest uncracked bell in the world. We each rang it three times- once each for your mother, father, and yourself.

As we were cruising around in the scooter we saw this, and how could you simply drive past?

We walked inside a long corridor and found some seats to sit and veg. It was 42 C outside at this point, and as you can see in the picture, 36 inside. So sitting and doing nothing seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I remember at the time thinking it was 'unsafely hot.' Like how at home in Canada, sometimes its just so ridiculously cold that you really shouldn't be outside. Well, now I've experienced the opposite.

This wasn't in the guidebook, not sure where we were when we took this picture, but the kids that came to sit with us were super fun and wanted to talk. Of course, the only Burmese I knew was written in the back of the Lonely Planet, so we read some of that together. We also practiced counting to ten in Burmese: di'-hni'-thohng-lay-nga-chau-kung.ni'-shi'-goh-duh.se