In Nyaung U on the 2nd, I got up at 5:30, had some tea and pastries at a tea shop about 6, and then took a taxi to the large, relatively new train station, three or four miles from town. My train for Mandalay left at 7. I had bought an upper class ticket for $10 for the trip. The buses to Mandalay are a little cheaper, I think, and leave later in the morning, but I wanted to take the train. So I took the railroad, rather than the road, to Mandalay.
The train wasn't completely full and the sun had risen just before we left. Dawn did not come up like thunder, but then Kipling never actually traveled the road to Mandalay. The train traveled northeast, along the east bank of the unseen Irrawaddy. We did pass over a few sandy stretches that obviously fill with water in the rainy season and flow to the Irrawaddy. Some are quite wide. I also saw in the distance the new Pokukku Bridge over the Irrawaddy. It is the longest in Burma, over two miles in length. The train passed harvested rice fields and sugar palms by the thousands. I also saw quite a few wooden bullock carts with wooden wheels.
We reached the town of Myingyin, on the Irrawaddy, a little after 9 and stopped in several other small towns. The train stations were all relatively new, compared to the ones I'd seen further south. As usual, the train carriages rocked and rolled. I subsisted on quail eggs, banana chips, and beans cooked in a batter, all bought from vendors.
We reached the outskirts of Mandalay and then the city center, arriving at 2:30. I walked to a hotel and got a good room, with two comfortable beds and hot water, for $15 a night. The only problem was that it was on the top floor, 90 steps up, with no elevator. I took a walk from about 4:30 until it got dark at 6, visiting a temple with a mosque next door and a church across the street. Eventually, I reached the southwest corner of Mandalay's palace walls and moat. The palace quarter enclosed by the walls is immense, with 26 foot high brick walls for more than a mile on each of four sides, forming a perfect square. A 230 foot wide moat rings the walls. The walls are all intact, and there are multi-roofed pavilions at the corners and other parts of the walls. I walked along the moat, lit up by the setting sun, as far as the bridge leading to the west gate, and then turned back.
The next morning I rented a bike, for two dollars a day, and biked to the palace's east gate, the only one foreigners can enter. I biked through the busy streets along the moat and walls to the south and east of the palace and despite the heavy morning traffic I found it fairly easy biking. For the most part people were good at yielding to others. There were other bicyclists, but mostly cars and motorcycles.
I had to park my bike at the eastern gate and walk to the reconstructed wooden palace at the center of the big square palace enclosure. I am fairly sure the palace reconstruction wasn't done by 1994, as I remember we were not allowed to enter the palace enclosure, which is mostly an army base. Mandalay was founded and made the capital of Burma only in 1857, though Burmese capitals had been located in the area just a bit south of Mandalay for almost 500 years before. The original wooden palace burned down in 1945 during the fighting in the city in World War II. The reconstructed palace is quite an effort, with forty wooden buildings reconstructed. It is not maintained very well, with rusting metal roofs and pealing paint, but I found it all interesting. There are some interesting photos taken about 1900 of some of the original wooden palace buildings. A seven tiered roof throne hall is located near the eastern end and you pass a round watchtower and several other interesting halls before you reach the Glass Palace, the huge hall at the center that was the bedchamber of the king. I've read it was called the Glass Palace either because the king slept on a bed made of glass (the frame, not the mattress!) imported from France or because lots of small pieces of glass adorned the outside of the building. Two young and very small pink clad nuns asked to take photos with me and I happily complied. I think if you stacked one on top of the other, they just might have been taller than me. At the back (the western end) is a small museum with the original glass four poster bed and mannequins dressed in Burmese court attire, which were interesting. You can't visit any of the rest of the palace compound beyond the forty reconstructed wooden buildings because of its military use. I did see a military marching band practicing while I was walking to the wooden palace from the eastern gate.
I had planned to climb Mandalay Hill, just northeast of the palace walls, after visiting the wooden palace, but I spent more time at the palace than planned, so headed to a restaurant south of the palace where I had a very good lunch of fish curry, plus a good group of side dishes For once the fish was not overcooked, or at least not too overcooked, and the side dishes were good, too.
After lunch I biked west towards the Irrawaddy, stopping at a couple of pagodas and passing Mandalay's busy street market. I got to the dusty and hot eastern bank of the Irrawaddy in mid afternoon, so didn't stay long to watch all the activity, but biked back east and then headed south trying to find an 1895 teak monastery built by two Chinese jade merchants. Finally, an old man also on a bike had me follow him to the gate, then turned around and headed for wherever he was going before I asked him directions. Workmen and women were repairing the area around the monastery, with the women carrying big rocks on their heads and depositing them in trenches, eventually to be filled with gravel and cement. The multi-roofed monastery had interesting carvings on the exterior and was very dark inside. As I left about 4 three monks began chanting in the dark interior.
I biked to another, smaller teak monastery nearby, where young men were playing chinlon outside. A friendly old monk showed me around. The monks' beds with mosquito nets were inside. I headed back to my hotel and stopped at one last pagoda, with a mini-Golden Rock and a 17 foot high bronze Buddha dating from 1823. I got back to the hotel through the evening commute traffic just as it got dark at 6.
The next morning I slept late and awoke with a renewed sinus infection. I had been battling sinus infections and congestion ever since that first cold and dusty night bus trip across the mountains in mid December from Pyay to Taunggok in Burma. I biked to the foot of Mandalay Hill, arriving about 10. Mandalay seems to be almost pancake flat except for this one hill just northeast of the palace walls. There are several covered stairways to climb up to the top. I used the so-called nat entrance and leisurely made my way up, about a 500 foot climb. Mandalay Hill has an elevation of 760 feet and my guidebook gives Mandalay's elevation as 244 feet. As usual, vendors lined a large part of the stairway and the rough surface was a little hard on my bare feet. Part way up is a temple with a very tall golden standing Buddha pointing towards Mandalay below. Burmese believe Buddha visited Mandalay Hill and prophesied that a capital would be built below it in 2400 years, which came true in 1857. It took me a leisurely 45 minutes to an hour to reach the top, with good views of Mandalay on the way and at the top. Because of the haze I could just barely make out the hills to the east but not to the west. I could barely see the Irrawaddy to the west. A brown plain loomed to the north. The huge palace compound and its walls and moat could be seen below to the southwest and a couple of golf courses just to the west.
I stayed on top for about half an hour. There were lots of Burmese at the monasteries at and near the top, but only a few foreigners. As I was coming down the steps, almost near the end, I came across a ceremony with very colorful dressed children and women. The children were all grouped together in front of an altar, with their splendidly dressed mothers behind them. The fathers were dressed in ordinary clothes. As I watched them as they went to a second altar. Two of the girls were in splendid costumes reminiscent of the clothes worn in a famous photo of the last king and queen of Burma. At the end of the ceremony, as the group was beginning to descend, a ten year old girl in one of those costumes, after being prodded by her mother, came up to me and spoke to me in very good English. I talked with her for a while and then posed for a photo with her and her family and then I took a family portrait of her, her very pretty teenage sister, her mother, and her grandmother.
As they all descended the steps, another group similarly clad came up and I watched the brief ceremonies they had at each of the two altars. The girls and the women, and even some of the little boys, wore quite thick make-up, including very thick eye lashes for some of the girls. I wonder if they had trouble keeping their eyes open.
At the foot of the stairs were stationed several pick-up trucks with plastic chairs in the beds, with many of the chairs occupied by the beautifully attired women and children. A woman tour guide told me that the procession came bearing children who are going to spend some time in a monastery and that on the way to the monastery they make stops at the Mahamuni Pagoda, the most important in Mandalay, and at Mandalay Hill. She said the children would have their heads shaved when they entered the monastery, but most wouldn't stay for long, just a few days or weeks. It is a sort of rite of passage. I watched for about an hour as groups went up the stairs and then came down. There were some beautifully attired young women sitting waiting on the plastic chairs in the beds of pick-ups. One in a bright green dress was shaded under a bright green Pathein style parasol. Finally, the vehicles and their occupants all took off.
By then it was about 1:30 and I was hungry, but instead of finding a place to eat I bicycled to the nearby Shwesandaw Paya. This beautiful teak building, about 200 years old, is the former palace of King Mindon, who died inside in 1878. The building had been moved from the former royal capital at Amarapura to the palace in Mandalay. King Mindon's successor, fearing his ghost, had the building dismantled and moved outside the palace walls to its present location, converting it to a monastery. It is a good thing he did, not only to avoid his ghost but also because all the other wooden palace buildings were burned to the ground during World War II.
The multi-roofed teak building is spectacular, covered on the outside with thousands of carved figures, many now badly worn. It also was once covered with gems and pieces of glass. It sits upon 150 teak pillars and you can walk around underneath among the bottom ends of the pillars, which reach to the rooftops. Inside the dark interior are more wooden carvings, including ten panels of Jataka scenes, very finely carved. I spent about two hours there wandering around, inside and out. Across the street is a huge brick and stucco pagoda, rebuilt by the government in the 1990's after it had been mostly destroyed by fire in 1890.
After 4 I finally biked to the good restaurant where I had eaten lunch the day before and had another excellent meal of fish curry. After lunch I biked back to my hotel, first along the long southern wall of the palace and then taking a detour along the western wall lit up by the late afternoon sun.
The next day I took a $15 motorcycle tour of the three ancient capitals south of Mandalay. I even got a crash helmet. We left about 9 and headed seven miles south to Amarapura, the Burmese capital from 1783 to 1823 and then again from 1841 until Mandalay became capital in 1857. Not much remains of the former capital. Burmese kings apparently liked to dismantle their old capitals when they moved to another. We stopped first at an 185 foot high pagoda, now covered with scaffolding. Then we headed south along the western shore of the big lake in Amarapura, with many little fishing boats on the lake. Eventually, we reached the U Bein Bridge, a teak pedestrian bridge across the lake that is about three-fourths of a mile long. Before spending any time at the photogenic bridge, my driver took me to a monastery just to the west, where something like 1200 to 1500 red-clad monks, and a very few young ones in white, where lining up double file, all with their begging bowls in their arms, ready for their mid day meal. Even odder were the hundreds of western tourists, mostly bus groups I think, surrounding them and taking photos of them. It must all seem very odd to the monks. They marched in and had their meal in a hall, though some took their meals, in their begging bowls, outside with them. I noticed the ones departing had a sweet roll of some kind atop their begging bowls.
Afterwards I walked about half way across the long teak bridge and then came back. The parts of the lake where the water has receded are now vegetable beds. During the height of the rains the bridge is said to just barely clear the water, but now it is quite high over the water. The teak is all very worn and faded. I watched one of the fishermen in his boast laying out a net in a wide circle and then, once he had finished, lying back in his boat and putting his conical hat over his face to take a little siesta. At the western end of the bridge I noticed several wicker cages holding owls, two species, one larger than the other. Their yellow eyes above sharp beaks stared out. It cost 5000 kyat, about $5, to free one. I saw a couple being released. Each fluttered up to a nearby tree.
From Amarapura we headed about four miles southwest to Inwa, another former capital at a westward bend of the generally south flowing Irrawaddy. Inwa, known to the west as Ava, was capital of Burma for about half of the past 650 years, but almost nothing remains. My motorcycle dropped me off at a ferry crossing across a small tributary of the Irrawaddy and I took the ferry across. The ancient city was bounded by the tributary, the Irrawaddy and canals. Horse cart drivers implore you to use their services, but instead I walked past a restored gateway to a stucco covered brick royal monastery dating from 1822. It wasn't very attractive up close, but nearby was a good view to and across the Irrawaddy to the hilly, stupa-covered town of Sagaing. I also walked to a leaning, lopsided watchtower, the only remnant of the old palace, now judged too dangerous to climb. The former royal capital is now a simple village, with lots of annoying vendors.
The next place I wanted to to in Inwa was a long way away, so I hired a motorcycle to take me on some very bad roads, passing outside of the remnants of the city walls and the old canal and then rice fields, to a monastery called Bagaya Kyaung. This multi-roofed 1834 teak monastery, 188 feet by 103 feet, rests on 267 teak pillars, the biggest ones 60 feet high with a circumference of 9 feet. The weathered teak exterior seems to be stained with something. It smelled like creosote. The exterior had wooden carvings, but not nearly as many as Shwesandaw in Mandalay. Peacocks and lotuses were the usual motifs. It was very dark inside, with an altar under the high ceilinged center. On one side was a little school room with about ten children, some in monks robes and some not, tended by a glasses-wearing monk teacher. They all recited loudly, as the many tourists who came through snapped their photos. I spent about 45 minutes looking around and then took the motorcycle to the ferry.
From Inwa we headed to Sagaing, just over the Irrawaddy. Two bridges cross side by side, one built by the British carrying both trains and cars and a new one without train tracks. Sagaing is a hilly place, just inside the bend of the Irrawaddy. Its many hills are topped by lots of pagodas. It, too, was briefly capital, in the 1760's. I was dropped off at the foot of Sagaing Hill, the town's highest, and it took me about 15 minutes to climb up to the pagoda on top, an ascent of about 350 feet. The views from the top were excellent. It was hazy to the west, but I could see the golden stupa to the west supposedly modeled after the breast of a queen. I could see the wide bend of the Irrawaddy to the south. The views were best to the east, with the pagoda covered forested hills below and beyond the blue Irrawaddy, with boats and islands of sand and vegetables. I could see Mandalay and Mandalay Hill to the north, and also Inwa and Amarapura's lake across the river. I also had good views of the two bridges over the river. I enjoyed the late afternoon views and then walked down. It was after 5 when we started back to Mandalay, a trip that took almost an hour. Fortunately, I had brought my windbreaker with me, as it was chilly on a motorcycle just before nightfall.
The next morning I took care of a few errands, going to the bank and the post office, and it wasn't until after 11 that I took off on my bicycle heading south to Mahamuni Paya, reaching it about 11:30. Mahamuni is Mandalay's main temple and one of the most important in Burma. The recently rebuilt temple itself isn't that interesting, but the activity inside is, and I spent about two and a half hours there. At the center is the most important Buddha image in Burma, a 13 foot high seated Buddha believed to be 2000 years old. It was brought to Mandalay by the Burmese from Rakhine after they conquered it in 1784, a point that still irks the people of Rakhine. I sat in front of the statue in the men's section (women to the back, of course) for quite a while and enjoyed the atmosphere. Men (women aren't allowed) were constantly applying gold leaf to the statue up on its pedestal. In fact, except for its shiny face, which is washed every morning at 4, it is so covered with gold leaf that it looks almost furry. Photos of the statue in 1901, 1935, 1984, and 2010 show its progressive furriness. Besides sitting and watching, I walked around the complex and even took the little ladder up to the idol where men were applying gold leaf.
Sometime after noon a procession arrived, with the women in the lead carrying huge stacks of flowers on trays atop their heads. Following were beautifully dressed children and women, similar to what I had seen before on Mandalay Hill. The procession proceeded around the courtyard surrounding the inner building of the pagoda and then they all posed for a group photo. Another procession appeared later, with little kids brightly adorned and carried around inside the temple in the corridors surrounding the inner sanctum. The little kids (maybe around five years old) looked quite bewildered.
A couple of buildings on the outside of the courtyard are interesting. One had 1950's paintings of the history of the Mahamuni idol, including its transport over the mountains and over water (the Irrawaddy, presumably) from Rakhine. One painting showed the building of the present main building, after the original burned down in the late 19th century. Among the figures is a blond man, in a western suit, standing over a table with the building plans on them, pointing out something to the Burmese onlookers. He is barefoot, with his shoes and socks just off the platform he is standing on.
Another building has seven more than life size bronze figures, including two men, a three headed elephant (this one less than life size, though I guess we don't really know the size of three headed elephants), and a lion. People were almost constantly rubbing them, rubbing the parts that corresponded to what ailed them. One of the bronze male figures had a huge hole where his genitalia would be, so I suppose for those ailments you are on your own. I was still suffering from sinus problems, so I rubbed one of the elephant trunks. Perhaps I should have rubbed all three. These bronzes were captured by the Burmese from Mrauk U and are said originally to be from Angkor.
From Mahamuni I biked north to the gold pounders district and stopped in a shop, spending about an hour there. These shops are where workers make the gold leaf applied to Buddha images. The procedure is very interesting and was very well explained. Using seven pound hammers, men were constantly pounding the gold into thinner and thinner leaves. The first two poundings are half an hour each, the third five hours. Two hundred gold leaves are pounded at a time, packed between bamboo paper and bound in a leather casing, the whole packet maybe two inches thick. One of the hammerers let me feel how hot the packet was after half an hour of pounding. The gold leaves become thinner and thinner and eventually are so thin you can make them curl up just by blowing on them, which was demonstrated. A 32 gram piece of gold is eventually reduced to 4600 thin sheets of gold, sold at 7000 kyat ($7) each. I watched women applying the thin gold leaves to little squares of a specially made bamboo paper. They expertly cut the thin gold leaf to fit the bamboo paper squares. I was told gold leaf is also used for medicine and for facial make-up.
From there I biked north towards the restaurant that I liked for a late lunch/early dinner. I had very much enjoyed biking around Mandalay and was impressed at how well everybody slowed at intersections, the overwhelming majority of which have no stop lights or signs, and let people get through on a more or less a first come, first go basis. As I slowed at a not very busy intersection just a few blocks short of the restaurant and then began to pedal across the intersection, a motorcycle came up behind me to my left and crossed in front of me, turning right. He clipped my front tire with his back tire and sent me sprawling onto the road. Fortunately, I was not going fast, though he was. I landed on my right side and arm and at first thought my right arm might be badly cut, but it was only mildly scraped. I had a few cuts on my hands, but no broken bones, so counted myself lucky. My right side hurt, though, and I was afraid I had bruised my ribs and they would hurt much more later on, which they did. I picked myself up, refrained from beating up the guy on the motorcycle who stopped and muttered "sorry" before speeding off, and made my way to the restaurant where I could wash out my cuts. I had my usual fish curry at around 4 and then biked back to my hotel about 5. My ribs did hurt quite a bit by nightfall, but I slept well (on my left side).
Of course, my ribs still hurt the next morning, and I had a little pain in my right shoulder and knee. I walked to the Irrawaddy and just after 9 took the tourist boat that heads upriver about five miles to Mingun. The hour long ride on the river was chilly in the morning. Mingun has the ruins, easily seen from the river on approach, of what would have been the world's highest pagoda. Construction continued from 1790 to 1819, but then terminated once the king who had started it died. It is now a colossal pile of bricks, 240 feet square and I don't know how high, but more than a 100 feet. An 1838 earthquake left huge cracks in the structure. There are four small entrances to little chambers at each cardinal direction, but only the eastern one has an altar. The one on the west had drawings and graffiti on the back wall: a huge peace symbol, a giant hammer on what appeared to be a tripod, but with only two legs, and "The Beatles," and "Doors." The ruins of what would have been two giant chinthes (lion-snake combinations that typically guard Burmese pagodas) stand in front. I walked around the structure. A modern stairway leads up an earthquake provided cleft on the northeast corner, but is now blocked off for safety reasons.
A little further north is the world's largest intact bell. Moscow has a larger bell, but it is cracked, with a big chunk fallen out. Mingun's bell is 13 feet high and sixteen feet in diameter at the lip. It is hung from a beam and you can crawl under the lip to the inside and stand there while it is rung with a wooden ringer. The inside is covered with Burmese graffiti, except at the very top where there is a big English name, probably dating from more than a century ago.
A little further north is another pagoda, which I climbed and had good views over the dry countryside and the hills just to the west and the Irrawaddy to the east. I ate lunch nearby and then took the tourist boat back to Mandalay when it left after 1. I walked back to my hotel and my ribs were hurting quite a bit. I wouldn't dare cough. I spent the rest of the afternoon at the post office and an internet cafe and again slept well despite the pain in my side.
The train wasn't completely full and the sun had risen just before we left. Dawn did not come up like thunder, but then Kipling never actually traveled the road to Mandalay. The train traveled northeast, along the east bank of the unseen Irrawaddy. We did pass over a few sandy stretches that obviously fill with water in the rainy season and flow to the Irrawaddy. Some are quite wide. I also saw in the distance the new Pokukku Bridge over the Irrawaddy. It is the longest in Burma, over two miles in length. The train passed harvested rice fields and sugar palms by the thousands. I also saw quite a few wooden bullock carts with wooden wheels.
We reached the town of Myingyin, on the Irrawaddy, a little after 9 and stopped in several other small towns. The train stations were all relatively new, compared to the ones I'd seen further south. As usual, the train carriages rocked and rolled. I subsisted on quail eggs, banana chips, and beans cooked in a batter, all bought from vendors.
We reached the outskirts of Mandalay and then the city center, arriving at 2:30. I walked to a hotel and got a good room, with two comfortable beds and hot water, for $15 a night. The only problem was that it was on the top floor, 90 steps up, with no elevator. I took a walk from about 4:30 until it got dark at 6, visiting a temple with a mosque next door and a church across the street. Eventually, I reached the southwest corner of Mandalay's palace walls and moat. The palace quarter enclosed by the walls is immense, with 26 foot high brick walls for more than a mile on each of four sides, forming a perfect square. A 230 foot wide moat rings the walls. The walls are all intact, and there are multi-roofed pavilions at the corners and other parts of the walls. I walked along the moat, lit up by the setting sun, as far as the bridge leading to the west gate, and then turned back.
The next morning I rented a bike, for two dollars a day, and biked to the palace's east gate, the only one foreigners can enter. I biked through the busy streets along the moat and walls to the south and east of the palace and despite the heavy morning traffic I found it fairly easy biking. For the most part people were good at yielding to others. There were other bicyclists, but mostly cars and motorcycles.
I had to park my bike at the eastern gate and walk to the reconstructed wooden palace at the center of the big square palace enclosure. I am fairly sure the palace reconstruction wasn't done by 1994, as I remember we were not allowed to enter the palace enclosure, which is mostly an army base. Mandalay was founded and made the capital of Burma only in 1857, though Burmese capitals had been located in the area just a bit south of Mandalay for almost 500 years before. The original wooden palace burned down in 1945 during the fighting in the city in World War II. The reconstructed palace is quite an effort, with forty wooden buildings reconstructed. It is not maintained very well, with rusting metal roofs and pealing paint, but I found it all interesting. There are some interesting photos taken about 1900 of some of the original wooden palace buildings. A seven tiered roof throne hall is located near the eastern end and you pass a round watchtower and several other interesting halls before you reach the Glass Palace, the huge hall at the center that was the bedchamber of the king. I've read it was called the Glass Palace either because the king slept on a bed made of glass (the frame, not the mattress!) imported from France or because lots of small pieces of glass adorned the outside of the building. Two young and very small pink clad nuns asked to take photos with me and I happily complied. I think if you stacked one on top of the other, they just might have been taller than me. At the back (the western end) is a small museum with the original glass four poster bed and mannequins dressed in Burmese court attire, which were interesting. You can't visit any of the rest of the palace compound beyond the forty reconstructed wooden buildings because of its military use. I did see a military marching band practicing while I was walking to the wooden palace from the eastern gate.
I had planned to climb Mandalay Hill, just northeast of the palace walls, after visiting the wooden palace, but I spent more time at the palace than planned, so headed to a restaurant south of the palace where I had a very good lunch of fish curry, plus a good group of side dishes For once the fish was not overcooked, or at least not too overcooked, and the side dishes were good, too.
After lunch I biked west towards the Irrawaddy, stopping at a couple of pagodas and passing Mandalay's busy street market. I got to the dusty and hot eastern bank of the Irrawaddy in mid afternoon, so didn't stay long to watch all the activity, but biked back east and then headed south trying to find an 1895 teak monastery built by two Chinese jade merchants. Finally, an old man also on a bike had me follow him to the gate, then turned around and headed for wherever he was going before I asked him directions. Workmen and women were repairing the area around the monastery, with the women carrying big rocks on their heads and depositing them in trenches, eventually to be filled with gravel and cement. The multi-roofed monastery had interesting carvings on the exterior and was very dark inside. As I left about 4 three monks began chanting in the dark interior.
I biked to another, smaller teak monastery nearby, where young men were playing chinlon outside. A friendly old monk showed me around. The monks' beds with mosquito nets were inside. I headed back to my hotel and stopped at one last pagoda, with a mini-Golden Rock and a 17 foot high bronze Buddha dating from 1823. I got back to the hotel through the evening commute traffic just as it got dark at 6.
The next morning I slept late and awoke with a renewed sinus infection. I had been battling sinus infections and congestion ever since that first cold and dusty night bus trip across the mountains in mid December from Pyay to Taunggok in Burma. I biked to the foot of Mandalay Hill, arriving about 10. Mandalay seems to be almost pancake flat except for this one hill just northeast of the palace walls. There are several covered stairways to climb up to the top. I used the so-called nat entrance and leisurely made my way up, about a 500 foot climb. Mandalay Hill has an elevation of 760 feet and my guidebook gives Mandalay's elevation as 244 feet. As usual, vendors lined a large part of the stairway and the rough surface was a little hard on my bare feet. Part way up is a temple with a very tall golden standing Buddha pointing towards Mandalay below. Burmese believe Buddha visited Mandalay Hill and prophesied that a capital would be built below it in 2400 years, which came true in 1857. It took me a leisurely 45 minutes to an hour to reach the top, with good views of Mandalay on the way and at the top. Because of the haze I could just barely make out the hills to the east but not to the west. I could barely see the Irrawaddy to the west. A brown plain loomed to the north. The huge palace compound and its walls and moat could be seen below to the southwest and a couple of golf courses just to the west.
I stayed on top for about half an hour. There were lots of Burmese at the monasteries at and near the top, but only a few foreigners. As I was coming down the steps, almost near the end, I came across a ceremony with very colorful dressed children and women. The children were all grouped together in front of an altar, with their splendidly dressed mothers behind them. The fathers were dressed in ordinary clothes. As I watched them as they went to a second altar. Two of the girls were in splendid costumes reminiscent of the clothes worn in a famous photo of the last king and queen of Burma. At the end of the ceremony, as the group was beginning to descend, a ten year old girl in one of those costumes, after being prodded by her mother, came up to me and spoke to me in very good English. I talked with her for a while and then posed for a photo with her and her family and then I took a family portrait of her, her very pretty teenage sister, her mother, and her grandmother.
As they all descended the steps, another group similarly clad came up and I watched the brief ceremonies they had at each of the two altars. The girls and the women, and even some of the little boys, wore quite thick make-up, including very thick eye lashes for some of the girls. I wonder if they had trouble keeping their eyes open.
At the foot of the stairs were stationed several pick-up trucks with plastic chairs in the beds, with many of the chairs occupied by the beautifully attired women and children. A woman tour guide told me that the procession came bearing children who are going to spend some time in a monastery and that on the way to the monastery they make stops at the Mahamuni Pagoda, the most important in Mandalay, and at Mandalay Hill. She said the children would have their heads shaved when they entered the monastery, but most wouldn't stay for long, just a few days or weeks. It is a sort of rite of passage. I watched for about an hour as groups went up the stairs and then came down. There were some beautifully attired young women sitting waiting on the plastic chairs in the beds of pick-ups. One in a bright green dress was shaded under a bright green Pathein style parasol. Finally, the vehicles and their occupants all took off.
By then it was about 1:30 and I was hungry, but instead of finding a place to eat I bicycled to the nearby Shwesandaw Paya. This beautiful teak building, about 200 years old, is the former palace of King Mindon, who died inside in 1878. The building had been moved from the former royal capital at Amarapura to the palace in Mandalay. King Mindon's successor, fearing his ghost, had the building dismantled and moved outside the palace walls to its present location, converting it to a monastery. It is a good thing he did, not only to avoid his ghost but also because all the other wooden palace buildings were burned to the ground during World War II.
The multi-roofed teak building is spectacular, covered on the outside with thousands of carved figures, many now badly worn. It also was once covered with gems and pieces of glass. It sits upon 150 teak pillars and you can walk around underneath among the bottom ends of the pillars, which reach to the rooftops. Inside the dark interior are more wooden carvings, including ten panels of Jataka scenes, very finely carved. I spent about two hours there wandering around, inside and out. Across the street is a huge brick and stucco pagoda, rebuilt by the government in the 1990's after it had been mostly destroyed by fire in 1890.
After 4 I finally biked to the good restaurant where I had eaten lunch the day before and had another excellent meal of fish curry. After lunch I biked back to my hotel, first along the long southern wall of the palace and then taking a detour along the western wall lit up by the late afternoon sun.
The next day I took a $15 motorcycle tour of the three ancient capitals south of Mandalay. I even got a crash helmet. We left about 9 and headed seven miles south to Amarapura, the Burmese capital from 1783 to 1823 and then again from 1841 until Mandalay became capital in 1857. Not much remains of the former capital. Burmese kings apparently liked to dismantle their old capitals when they moved to another. We stopped first at an 185 foot high pagoda, now covered with scaffolding. Then we headed south along the western shore of the big lake in Amarapura, with many little fishing boats on the lake. Eventually, we reached the U Bein Bridge, a teak pedestrian bridge across the lake that is about three-fourths of a mile long. Before spending any time at the photogenic bridge, my driver took me to a monastery just to the west, where something like 1200 to 1500 red-clad monks, and a very few young ones in white, where lining up double file, all with their begging bowls in their arms, ready for their mid day meal. Even odder were the hundreds of western tourists, mostly bus groups I think, surrounding them and taking photos of them. It must all seem very odd to the monks. They marched in and had their meal in a hall, though some took their meals, in their begging bowls, outside with them. I noticed the ones departing had a sweet roll of some kind atop their begging bowls.
Afterwards I walked about half way across the long teak bridge and then came back. The parts of the lake where the water has receded are now vegetable beds. During the height of the rains the bridge is said to just barely clear the water, but now it is quite high over the water. The teak is all very worn and faded. I watched one of the fishermen in his boast laying out a net in a wide circle and then, once he had finished, lying back in his boat and putting his conical hat over his face to take a little siesta. At the western end of the bridge I noticed several wicker cages holding owls, two species, one larger than the other. Their yellow eyes above sharp beaks stared out. It cost 5000 kyat, about $5, to free one. I saw a couple being released. Each fluttered up to a nearby tree.
From Amarapura we headed about four miles southwest to Inwa, another former capital at a westward bend of the generally south flowing Irrawaddy. Inwa, known to the west as Ava, was capital of Burma for about half of the past 650 years, but almost nothing remains. My motorcycle dropped me off at a ferry crossing across a small tributary of the Irrawaddy and I took the ferry across. The ancient city was bounded by the tributary, the Irrawaddy and canals. Horse cart drivers implore you to use their services, but instead I walked past a restored gateway to a stucco covered brick royal monastery dating from 1822. It wasn't very attractive up close, but nearby was a good view to and across the Irrawaddy to the hilly, stupa-covered town of Sagaing. I also walked to a leaning, lopsided watchtower, the only remnant of the old palace, now judged too dangerous to climb. The former royal capital is now a simple village, with lots of annoying vendors.
The next place I wanted to to in Inwa was a long way away, so I hired a motorcycle to take me on some very bad roads, passing outside of the remnants of the city walls and the old canal and then rice fields, to a monastery called Bagaya Kyaung. This multi-roofed 1834 teak monastery, 188 feet by 103 feet, rests on 267 teak pillars, the biggest ones 60 feet high with a circumference of 9 feet. The weathered teak exterior seems to be stained with something. It smelled like creosote. The exterior had wooden carvings, but not nearly as many as Shwesandaw in Mandalay. Peacocks and lotuses were the usual motifs. It was very dark inside, with an altar under the high ceilinged center. On one side was a little school room with about ten children, some in monks robes and some not, tended by a glasses-wearing monk teacher. They all recited loudly, as the many tourists who came through snapped their photos. I spent about 45 minutes looking around and then took the motorcycle to the ferry.
From Inwa we headed to Sagaing, just over the Irrawaddy. Two bridges cross side by side, one built by the British carrying both trains and cars and a new one without train tracks. Sagaing is a hilly place, just inside the bend of the Irrawaddy. Its many hills are topped by lots of pagodas. It, too, was briefly capital, in the 1760's. I was dropped off at the foot of Sagaing Hill, the town's highest, and it took me about 15 minutes to climb up to the pagoda on top, an ascent of about 350 feet. The views from the top were excellent. It was hazy to the west, but I could see the golden stupa to the west supposedly modeled after the breast of a queen. I could see the wide bend of the Irrawaddy to the south. The views were best to the east, with the pagoda covered forested hills below and beyond the blue Irrawaddy, with boats and islands of sand and vegetables. I could see Mandalay and Mandalay Hill to the north, and also Inwa and Amarapura's lake across the river. I also had good views of the two bridges over the river. I enjoyed the late afternoon views and then walked down. It was after 5 when we started back to Mandalay, a trip that took almost an hour. Fortunately, I had brought my windbreaker with me, as it was chilly on a motorcycle just before nightfall.
The next morning I took care of a few errands, going to the bank and the post office, and it wasn't until after 11 that I took off on my bicycle heading south to Mahamuni Paya, reaching it about 11:30. Mahamuni is Mandalay's main temple and one of the most important in Burma. The recently rebuilt temple itself isn't that interesting, but the activity inside is, and I spent about two and a half hours there. At the center is the most important Buddha image in Burma, a 13 foot high seated Buddha believed to be 2000 years old. It was brought to Mandalay by the Burmese from Rakhine after they conquered it in 1784, a point that still irks the people of Rakhine. I sat in front of the statue in the men's section (women to the back, of course) for quite a while and enjoyed the atmosphere. Men (women aren't allowed) were constantly applying gold leaf to the statue up on its pedestal. In fact, except for its shiny face, which is washed every morning at 4, it is so covered with gold leaf that it looks almost furry. Photos of the statue in 1901, 1935, 1984, and 2010 show its progressive furriness. Besides sitting and watching, I walked around the complex and even took the little ladder up to the idol where men were applying gold leaf.
Sometime after noon a procession arrived, with the women in the lead carrying huge stacks of flowers on trays atop their heads. Following were beautifully dressed children and women, similar to what I had seen before on Mandalay Hill. The procession proceeded around the courtyard surrounding the inner building of the pagoda and then they all posed for a group photo. Another procession appeared later, with little kids brightly adorned and carried around inside the temple in the corridors surrounding the inner sanctum. The little kids (maybe around five years old) looked quite bewildered.
A couple of buildings on the outside of the courtyard are interesting. One had 1950's paintings of the history of the Mahamuni idol, including its transport over the mountains and over water (the Irrawaddy, presumably) from Rakhine. One painting showed the building of the present main building, after the original burned down in the late 19th century. Among the figures is a blond man, in a western suit, standing over a table with the building plans on them, pointing out something to the Burmese onlookers. He is barefoot, with his shoes and socks just off the platform he is standing on.
Another building has seven more than life size bronze figures, including two men, a three headed elephant (this one less than life size, though I guess we don't really know the size of three headed elephants), and a lion. People were almost constantly rubbing them, rubbing the parts that corresponded to what ailed them. One of the bronze male figures had a huge hole where his genitalia would be, so I suppose for those ailments you are on your own. I was still suffering from sinus problems, so I rubbed one of the elephant trunks. Perhaps I should have rubbed all three. These bronzes were captured by the Burmese from Mrauk U and are said originally to be from Angkor.
From Mahamuni I biked north to the gold pounders district and stopped in a shop, spending about an hour there. These shops are where workers make the gold leaf applied to Buddha images. The procedure is very interesting and was very well explained. Using seven pound hammers, men were constantly pounding the gold into thinner and thinner leaves. The first two poundings are half an hour each, the third five hours. Two hundred gold leaves are pounded at a time, packed between bamboo paper and bound in a leather casing, the whole packet maybe two inches thick. One of the hammerers let me feel how hot the packet was after half an hour of pounding. The gold leaves become thinner and thinner and eventually are so thin you can make them curl up just by blowing on them, which was demonstrated. A 32 gram piece of gold is eventually reduced to 4600 thin sheets of gold, sold at 7000 kyat ($7) each. I watched women applying the thin gold leaves to little squares of a specially made bamboo paper. They expertly cut the thin gold leaf to fit the bamboo paper squares. I was told gold leaf is also used for medicine and for facial make-up.
From there I biked north towards the restaurant that I liked for a late lunch/early dinner. I had very much enjoyed biking around Mandalay and was impressed at how well everybody slowed at intersections, the overwhelming majority of which have no stop lights or signs, and let people get through on a more or less a first come, first go basis. As I slowed at a not very busy intersection just a few blocks short of the restaurant and then began to pedal across the intersection, a motorcycle came up behind me to my left and crossed in front of me, turning right. He clipped my front tire with his back tire and sent me sprawling onto the road. Fortunately, I was not going fast, though he was. I landed on my right side and arm and at first thought my right arm might be badly cut, but it was only mildly scraped. I had a few cuts on my hands, but no broken bones, so counted myself lucky. My right side hurt, though, and I was afraid I had bruised my ribs and they would hurt much more later on, which they did. I picked myself up, refrained from beating up the guy on the motorcycle who stopped and muttered "sorry" before speeding off, and made my way to the restaurant where I could wash out my cuts. I had my usual fish curry at around 4 and then biked back to my hotel about 5. My ribs did hurt quite a bit by nightfall, but I slept well (on my left side).
Of course, my ribs still hurt the next morning, and I had a little pain in my right shoulder and knee. I walked to the Irrawaddy and just after 9 took the tourist boat that heads upriver about five miles to Mingun. The hour long ride on the river was chilly in the morning. Mingun has the ruins, easily seen from the river on approach, of what would have been the world's highest pagoda. Construction continued from 1790 to 1819, but then terminated once the king who had started it died. It is now a colossal pile of bricks, 240 feet square and I don't know how high, but more than a 100 feet. An 1838 earthquake left huge cracks in the structure. There are four small entrances to little chambers at each cardinal direction, but only the eastern one has an altar. The one on the west had drawings and graffiti on the back wall: a huge peace symbol, a giant hammer on what appeared to be a tripod, but with only two legs, and "The Beatles," and "Doors." The ruins of what would have been two giant chinthes (lion-snake combinations that typically guard Burmese pagodas) stand in front. I walked around the structure. A modern stairway leads up an earthquake provided cleft on the northeast corner, but is now blocked off for safety reasons.
A little further north is the world's largest intact bell. Moscow has a larger bell, but it is cracked, with a big chunk fallen out. Mingun's bell is 13 feet high and sixteen feet in diameter at the lip. It is hung from a beam and you can crawl under the lip to the inside and stand there while it is rung with a wooden ringer. The inside is covered with Burmese graffiti, except at the very top where there is a big English name, probably dating from more than a century ago.
A little further north is another pagoda, which I climbed and had good views over the dry countryside and the hills just to the west and the Irrawaddy to the east. I ate lunch nearby and then took the tourist boat back to Mandalay when it left after 1. I walked back to my hotel and my ribs were hurting quite a bit. I wouldn't dare cough. I spent the rest of the afternoon at the post office and an internet cafe and again slept well despite the pain in my side.
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