My flight from Bangkok to Mandalay, where my travels in Burma had ended last year, left at about 11 and took an hour and a half, landing about noon, Burmese time. En route I had great views of the hills and river valleys of northeastern Thailand and spotted the Salween River just after we crossed into Burmese airspace. A bit later I spotted Inle Lake and we flew over the town of Taunggyi, northeast of the lake. The plane made a big swoop over Mandalay and I got good views of the Irrawaddy (now often spelled Ayeyarwady) River, U Bein's Bridge, and the hilly, pagoda strewn city of Sagaing on the opposite bank of the river.
The airport is almost 30 miles from the center of Mandalay, but fortunately Air Asia had a bus that brought us there by about 2. I spent the rest of the afternoon checking out travel information and then around sunset walked along the mile long southern wall and 230 foot wide moat of the Mandalay Fort. Mandalay's streets are dusty and drab compared to Bangkok's, but the people were as friendly as ever. It was dark before 6.
I did a few errands the next morning (there are now many ATMs, and you no longer need to bring lots of unblemished American dollars) and spent some time at the colorful street market. A woman struck up a conversation and it turned out she lives in Cupertino, California and was back for her yearly month long visit to Burma. She told me she was 62 and had lived in America since 1990. I asked her why she emigrated and she said, "I won the lottery!" She told me that 1988 (the year Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD won the elections, but were prevented from governing by the military) was the best year of her life, with lots of hope, but that now she thinks they all are corrupt and is disappointed with Aung San Suu Kyi.
I left on a 12:30 bus headed north to Shwebo. The bus first headed south through town along the Irrawaddy, with good views of all the boats and other riverside activity and of the crops planted on land now exposed by the river's lower level after the end of the monsoon. It took us about an hour to reach the bridge over the Irrawaddy at Sagaing. From there we headed northwest to Shwebo, with lots of trees and huge rice paddies, still green, along the way. The bus arrived in Shwebo, a city of about 40,000, about 4 and I looked around a bit. Shwebo was briefly capital of an 18th century kingdom and the king's palace has been partially reconstructed. I wandered through what was left of the day's market and the people, as always in Burma, were very friendly. Not too many foreign tourists make it here. I didn't see any. I did see several newspapers with pictures of President Obama during his two day trip to Burma November 13 and 14 for an ASEAN meeting, particularly photos of him hugging and kissing Aung San Suu Kyi.
Just before dark I visited a mostly run down temple, Shwe Daza Paya, said to be 500 years old. The central hall, however, was very gaudily decorated and lit up. The people were all very friendly. Lots of thanakha, the wood that Burmese grind and then apply to their faces as a combination skin conditioner and decoration, was on sale on one side of the temple. Shwebo is said to have the best thanakha in Burma. In one corner of the temple compound was a tableau of statues of sleeping half naked women with a man with a sword standing over them. I wonder what that was all about.
The next morning I spent about two hours wandering through Shwebo's extensive morning market, filled with very friendly people and all sorts of stuff. I spotted an orange vegetable, looking like some sort of root but not a carrot, that I had never seen before. I also visited the tomb of Shwebo's great king, who died in 1760 in a retreat, caused by the rains, from invading Thailand. (His son in 1767 conquered the Siamese capital of Ayuthaya, resulting in the Siamese eventually moving their capital farther away from Burma, to Bangkok.) The tomb seems a modern one, with some modern maps of the king's conquests and an inscription in English, quoting a "Capatain" Alves in "Dalrymple's oriental Reperton (sic), vol. I 361-2."
I had a late breakfast of noodles, vegetables, and chicken and then wandered around, finding the remains of the former moat of the city. About 10:30 I boarded a vehicle, a sort of three wheeled motorcycle with a trailer with wooden benches open to the air, and headed to Kyaukmyaung on the banks of the Irrawaddy, 18 miles to the east. There wasn't much traffic on the narrow strip of asphalt leading to the river. I did see several bullock carts as we passed through the green, flat countryside.
I spent about four hours in Kyaukmyaung, a village specializing in making large amphorae, maybe five feet high, seen all over Burma and all sorts of other pots. The potters seemed happy to have me wander into their dark sheds to watch them work. It was fascinating to see how a potter grabbed a big chunk of clay, rolled it with his hands on a wooden board until it was maybe two feet long and several inches thick, and then slung it over his shoulder as he kneaded it with his hands onto the lower part of the amphora he had already formed, all the time using his feet, or an assistant's hands, to turn the potting wheel, which was set in the ground. Some of the already formed amphorae had little pots of charcoal inside them to fire them. Women brought baskets full of clay on their heads from the river, while elsewhere there were pits where clay had obviously been dug up. Amphorae and other pots that already been fired and painted were to be seen all along the river for eventual transport on the river. I watched several young women loading smaller pots onto a boat, each women with several stacked on her head.
There is a new bridge, only two years old, across the Irrawaddy at Kyaukmyaung and I walked across to the other side and back, watching the fishermen and boats from the bridge. The river is quite wide here, maybe a half mile or more. As I was walking along the bridge, one guy on a motorcycle stopped to say hello. His motorcycle helmet resembled a World War II German helmet, and in fact had an eagle on one side that resembled the Wehrmacht eagle and on the other side a Nazi flag with swastika, with "Nazi" helpfully written below the flag. Near the bridge men and women were asphalting a small portion of a road, the women carrying baskets of gravel on their heads and the men applying the asphalt from something like a watering can.
As I walked back from the bridge to the village center I passed a big truck being loaded with those big amphorae. It took several men to heft one onto the truck, filled with amphorae and straw to shield them. Back in Shwebo I went again to the temple I had visited the evening before.
The airport is almost 30 miles from the center of Mandalay, but fortunately Air Asia had a bus that brought us there by about 2. I spent the rest of the afternoon checking out travel information and then around sunset walked along the mile long southern wall and 230 foot wide moat of the Mandalay Fort. Mandalay's streets are dusty and drab compared to Bangkok's, but the people were as friendly as ever. It was dark before 6.
I did a few errands the next morning (there are now many ATMs, and you no longer need to bring lots of unblemished American dollars) and spent some time at the colorful street market. A woman struck up a conversation and it turned out she lives in Cupertino, California and was back for her yearly month long visit to Burma. She told me she was 62 and had lived in America since 1990. I asked her why she emigrated and she said, "I won the lottery!" She told me that 1988 (the year Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD won the elections, but were prevented from governing by the military) was the best year of her life, with lots of hope, but that now she thinks they all are corrupt and is disappointed with Aung San Suu Kyi.
I left on a 12:30 bus headed north to Shwebo. The bus first headed south through town along the Irrawaddy, with good views of all the boats and other riverside activity and of the crops planted on land now exposed by the river's lower level after the end of the monsoon. It took us about an hour to reach the bridge over the Irrawaddy at Sagaing. From there we headed northwest to Shwebo, with lots of trees and huge rice paddies, still green, along the way. The bus arrived in Shwebo, a city of about 40,000, about 4 and I looked around a bit. Shwebo was briefly capital of an 18th century kingdom and the king's palace has been partially reconstructed. I wandered through what was left of the day's market and the people, as always in Burma, were very friendly. Not too many foreign tourists make it here. I didn't see any. I did see several newspapers with pictures of President Obama during his two day trip to Burma November 13 and 14 for an ASEAN meeting, particularly photos of him hugging and kissing Aung San Suu Kyi.
Just before dark I visited a mostly run down temple, Shwe Daza Paya, said to be 500 years old. The central hall, however, was very gaudily decorated and lit up. The people were all very friendly. Lots of thanakha, the wood that Burmese grind and then apply to their faces as a combination skin conditioner and decoration, was on sale on one side of the temple. Shwebo is said to have the best thanakha in Burma. In one corner of the temple compound was a tableau of statues of sleeping half naked women with a man with a sword standing over them. I wonder what that was all about.
The next morning I spent about two hours wandering through Shwebo's extensive morning market, filled with very friendly people and all sorts of stuff. I spotted an orange vegetable, looking like some sort of root but not a carrot, that I had never seen before. I also visited the tomb of Shwebo's great king, who died in 1760 in a retreat, caused by the rains, from invading Thailand. (His son in 1767 conquered the Siamese capital of Ayuthaya, resulting in the Siamese eventually moving their capital farther away from Burma, to Bangkok.) The tomb seems a modern one, with some modern maps of the king's conquests and an inscription in English, quoting a "Capatain" Alves in "Dalrymple's oriental Reperton (sic), vol. I 361-2."
I had a late breakfast of noodles, vegetables, and chicken and then wandered around, finding the remains of the former moat of the city. About 10:30 I boarded a vehicle, a sort of three wheeled motorcycle with a trailer with wooden benches open to the air, and headed to Kyaukmyaung on the banks of the Irrawaddy, 18 miles to the east. There wasn't much traffic on the narrow strip of asphalt leading to the river. I did see several bullock carts as we passed through the green, flat countryside.
I spent about four hours in Kyaukmyaung, a village specializing in making large amphorae, maybe five feet high, seen all over Burma and all sorts of other pots. The potters seemed happy to have me wander into their dark sheds to watch them work. It was fascinating to see how a potter grabbed a big chunk of clay, rolled it with his hands on a wooden board until it was maybe two feet long and several inches thick, and then slung it over his shoulder as he kneaded it with his hands onto the lower part of the amphora he had already formed, all the time using his feet, or an assistant's hands, to turn the potting wheel, which was set in the ground. Some of the already formed amphorae had little pots of charcoal inside them to fire them. Women brought baskets full of clay on their heads from the river, while elsewhere there were pits where clay had obviously been dug up. Amphorae and other pots that already been fired and painted were to be seen all along the river for eventual transport on the river. I watched several young women loading smaller pots onto a boat, each women with several stacked on her head.
There is a new bridge, only two years old, across the Irrawaddy at Kyaukmyaung and I walked across to the other side and back, watching the fishermen and boats from the bridge. The river is quite wide here, maybe a half mile or more. As I was walking along the bridge, one guy on a motorcycle stopped to say hello. His motorcycle helmet resembled a World War II German helmet, and in fact had an eagle on one side that resembled the Wehrmacht eagle and on the other side a Nazi flag with swastika, with "Nazi" helpfully written below the flag. Near the bridge men and women were asphalting a small portion of a road, the women carrying baskets of gravel on their heads and the men applying the asphalt from something like a watering can.
As I walked back from the bridge to the village center I passed a big truck being loaded with those big amphorae. It took several men to heft one onto the truck, filled with amphorae and straw to shield them. Back in Shwebo I went again to the temple I had visited the evening before.
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