May 15
Today turned out to be the 150th Anniverary of the founding of Mandalay. We were able to catch a great parade with everyone in traditional costumes. Hundreds of young Burmese girls beautifully silk clad and coiffed in flowers, danced in formation by colors, pink, green , blue, red, white costumes in rows of 8 in traditional dress updated with beautifully embroidered cloth. Their hand movements were the most catching aspect of their dance beyond their beautiful lithe figures. It is hard to imagine that these women in their youth and beauty have sisters who break rock on the roadside by hand and create the roads in this country ( as poor as they are) through their back breaking labor conscripted by the government to create the poor connections between places in Myanmar.
The women danced and then a parade followed with traditional costume dress along with the costumed military in colorful embroidered costumes, hats and helmets, some comical in their theatrics, with headdresses with bunny ears carrying small cannons, or weird red paper maiche hats atop their heads, clad in garish silk costumes. The peak attraction at the parade was of course the young princess carried on her gold palanquin followed by a fake king and queen. There is no king and queen of Myanmar now only the rememberance of them. The heavily costumed, and embroidered elephants (of which we saw no real ones of in Myanmar) were actually peopled by 2 men walking as both front and back feet of the elephant. It was a very festive atmosphere and people were clearly enjoing the parade, happy and smiling. One young girl came up to me and gave me branches of yellow flowers that the women had intertwined into their hair for the occassion. I did the same with some of them and then later passed the rest of them along to two young girls who were quite pleased that a Westerner would gift them the same.
We then left for Pyin U Lwin a British hill country retreat. It truly was at least 10 degrees cooler than the Mandalay valley floor which we had been sweating in for about 3 days visiting various temples and sights. The traditional teak forests that once stood here in the mountainside are now all logged out with new growth coming in but it will never replace the indigenous growth. In some places teak and or rubber trees have been planted to replace the teak that has been taken out. In most places nature has been left to figure it out.
Almost to the hill station town of Pyin U Lwin, we stopped at a hike to a waterfall which was a 45 minute hike down the mountain valley into a cleft in the mountain that had a fabulous waterfall. I would venture to say fabulous because it is the end of the dry season and no rain has fallen as long as we can remember. It was a challenging hike because of the heat, more challenging going down because careful foot placement was required on the rocky path. But coming up the mountain valley after the cooness of the falls was hot, hot, hot and sweaty. 4 local girls follwed us down each with a small cooler carrying 3 sodas to sell us along the way. Each time we stopped at a preordained resing place in the shade they would fan us with their straw hats. We threw them off when we would take their hats from them and returned the fanning favor. They were a bit embarrased but enjoyed it. Afterwards we had a good meal in Pyu U Lwin at a Muslim sector restaurant. This area is kind of a crossroads of cultures with Chinese, Burmese and Muslim all mixed in the same town. A number of varied dishes were presented to us even though we only ordered a few. The chapatis were a great break from the never ending supply of rice each meal.
Outside an old man approached me as we were about to get back in the van and said "Where are you from?" This standard question and my remark " American". He informed me that he was "Indian" and started gesturing and repeating something I could not understand until I stepped back and saw that he was pointing to his mosque. Acknowledged he was happy and showed no animousity only interest in us Americans which they see few of here. Most Westerners are Europeans and in all our travels here we have only met about 2 other Americans.
The hill country stations were a necessary and pleasant respite for the Brits from the intense heat of the dry arid valley. They fashioned their own habits in Asia as best they could and brought their linen suits, wide brimmed hats and helmets, their gin and tonic, tea (part of the reason they were here, the non military part) and inbred airs of racial superiority. The locals accepted them as one of the many passing invader phases of territorial domination and subjugation they have endured. But in their British tenacity and stubborness they stayed on. When finally they were booted out of the country in the 50's they left behind a certainty of the use of English as the language of trade and the knowledge that education was the path to success. Those traditions are even more prevalent today in Myanmar. The successful here have not only had the advantage of education and been good at business and politics but have command of English that allows them to ply a trade to get beyond ever present manual labor occupations.
We went to Mingun one day, an area I was not so excited about going to, given that the bible of The Lonely Planet did not have a write up that was very appealing on Mingun. It turned out to be one of my favorite places in the Mandalay area besides Sagaing Hill Pagoda and monastery. Mingun was reached by a boat trip. That was pleasant but the great pleasure was an unusual wave patterned white pagoda unlike any we had seen in our travels and also the one on the cover of the Lonely Planet's version of Myanmar (Burma) that we had been using. It was a delightful temple and we had a nice visit to the village with the largest temple bell in all of Myanmar. The photos that will follow on the blog will not this temple as one that stood out of the hundreds of temples that we visited.
Today turned out to be the 150th Anniverary of the founding of Mandalay. We were able to catch a great parade with everyone in traditional costumes. Hundreds of young Burmese girls beautifully silk clad and coiffed in flowers, danced in formation by colors, pink, green , blue, red, white costumes in rows of 8 in traditional dress updated with beautifully embroidered cloth. Their hand movements were the most catching aspect of their dance beyond their beautiful lithe figures. It is hard to imagine that these women in their youth and beauty have sisters who break rock on the roadside by hand and create the roads in this country ( as poor as they are) through their back breaking labor conscripted by the government to create the poor connections between places in Myanmar.
The women danced and then a parade followed with traditional costume dress along with the costumed military in colorful embroidered costumes, hats and helmets, some comical in their theatrics, with headdresses with bunny ears carrying small cannons, or weird red paper maiche hats atop their heads, clad in garish silk costumes. The peak attraction at the parade was of course the young princess carried on her gold palanquin followed by a fake king and queen. There is no king and queen of Myanmar now only the rememberance of them. The heavily costumed, and embroidered elephants (of which we saw no real ones of in Myanmar) were actually peopled by 2 men walking as both front and back feet of the elephant. It was a very festive atmosphere and people were clearly enjoing the parade, happy and smiling. One young girl came up to me and gave me branches of yellow flowers that the women had intertwined into their hair for the occassion. I did the same with some of them and then later passed the rest of them along to two young girls who were quite pleased that a Westerner would gift them the same.
We then left for Pyin U Lwin a British hill country retreat. It truly was at least 10 degrees cooler than the Mandalay valley floor which we had been sweating in for about 3 days visiting various temples and sights. The traditional teak forests that once stood here in the mountainside are now all logged out with new growth coming in but it will never replace the indigenous growth. In some places teak and or rubber trees have been planted to replace the teak that has been taken out. In most places nature has been left to figure it out.
Almost to the hill station town of Pyin U Lwin, we stopped at a hike to a waterfall which was a 45 minute hike down the mountain valley into a cleft in the mountain that had a fabulous waterfall. I would venture to say fabulous because it is the end of the dry season and no rain has fallen as long as we can remember. It was a challenging hike because of the heat, more challenging going down because careful foot placement was required on the rocky path. But coming up the mountain valley after the cooness of the falls was hot, hot, hot and sweaty. 4 local girls follwed us down each with a small cooler carrying 3 sodas to sell us along the way. Each time we stopped at a preordained resing place in the shade they would fan us with their straw hats. We threw them off when we would take their hats from them and returned the fanning favor. They were a bit embarrased but enjoyed it. Afterwards we had a good meal in Pyu U Lwin at a Muslim sector restaurant. This area is kind of a crossroads of cultures with Chinese, Burmese and Muslim all mixed in the same town. A number of varied dishes were presented to us even though we only ordered a few. The chapatis were a great break from the never ending supply of rice each meal.
Outside an old man approached me as we were about to get back in the van and said "Where are you from?" This standard question and my remark " American". He informed me that he was "Indian" and started gesturing and repeating something I could not understand until I stepped back and saw that he was pointing to his mosque. Acknowledged he was happy and showed no animousity only interest in us Americans which they see few of here. Most Westerners are Europeans and in all our travels here we have only met about 2 other Americans.
The hill country stations were a necessary and pleasant respite for the Brits from the intense heat of the dry arid valley. They fashioned their own habits in Asia as best they could and brought their linen suits, wide brimmed hats and helmets, their gin and tonic, tea (part of the reason they were here, the non military part) and inbred airs of racial superiority. The locals accepted them as one of the many passing invader phases of territorial domination and subjugation they have endured. But in their British tenacity and stubborness they stayed on. When finally they were booted out of the country in the 50's they left behind a certainty of the use of English as the language of trade and the knowledge that education was the path to success. Those traditions are even more prevalent today in Myanmar. The successful here have not only had the advantage of education and been good at business and politics but have command of English that allows them to ply a trade to get beyond ever present manual labor occupations.
We went to Mingun one day, an area I was not so excited about going to, given that the bible of The Lonely Planet did not have a write up that was very appealing on Mingun. It turned out to be one of my favorite places in the Mandalay area besides Sagaing Hill Pagoda and monastery. Mingun was reached by a boat trip. That was pleasant but the great pleasure was an unusual wave patterned white pagoda unlike any we had seen in our travels and also the one on the cover of the Lonely Planet's version of Myanmar (Burma) that we had been using. It was a delightful temple and we had a nice visit to the village with the largest temple bell in all of Myanmar. The photos that will follow on the blog will not this temple as one that stood out of the hundreds of temples that we visited.
