Pagodas, Bagan style

We moved on to Bagan today. There definitely was a change in the type of pagodas here. These were from the 11th to 13th Century and were made of red brick.  There were still a multitude of them -- you look from a vantage point and you can see a dozen in all directions.

We climbed up to the top of one.  It was quite steep, although not as tall or steep as Angkor Wot or Chichen Itza.  I wasn't great with climbing it but I made it to the top.  There were some nice panoramic views from the top at least.

After lunch (Burmese curries and Mandalay beer) and some time resting up at the hotel, we took a horse carriage around the back dirt roads of the town, seeing more pagodas.  We finally saw sunset atop a pagoda, fortunately with easier steps to climb.

Wandering about Mandalay...

Very few pictures today. My phone's screen was being pressed in my pocket and reset itself. I reloaded everything in the evening but lost all pictures for the day.

We saw more pagodas, including one that is the world's largest book -- each of 1000+ umbrellas has a slab in it that represents one of Buddha's teachings.

The main part of the day was spent on a boat as we cruised up and down the river visiting ruins of old capitals as well as some active pagodas. I liked seeing a bit of local life. I played a point of badminton with some local kids. We saw an impromptu dance performance by kids on a sidewalk. I clambered inside an old twenty foot bell.  But a lot of what we did was just relax on the boat. The river was mostly quiet. A few fishermen and maybe a few birds but otherwise quiet.

We rode a horse carriage to some pagodas at Inwa. It was very bumpy.  We saw more insistent locals selling their goods but it wasn't quite as bad as some countries.

The last stop was to visit the world's largest teak bridge. It's nearly a mile in length crossing a lake for foot traffic.  There were no railings oven the eight foot wide bridge.  You'd never see that in the U.S.!

We're heading to the airport now for an early flight to Bagan. More pagodas there!

Some more Mandalay pictures

Before we head off on our riverboat cruise, let me upload a few pictures.. That's sunset from the Mandalay Hill pagoda and the ogress who became king.  There's a view from our hotel, too.

Mandalay

Mandalay is probably the best known city in Myanmar by virtue of its name.  But there's no bay (as in the hotel in Vegas) and Kipling never visited here for his book. It's definitely less crowded than Yangon but still a bug city. Mopeds are allowed here (they weren't in Yangon) but things are spread out. There's agriculture interspersed here.

We saw more pagodas -- I'm already pagoda-ed out so I can't say much. The big one on the hill here was built by a king who was a reincarnated ogress who had cut off her breasts and offered them to Buddha. It is one of the for places that had been a capital here.

We visited a gold leaf shop here. They showed how it's made. They put gold between sheets of bamboo paper and hammer it for five hours to flatten it to very thin leaf. We felt the package they were hammering and it was very hot to the touch from the expansion.  I bought my first souvenir -- a gold gilded leaf. The gold is generally used to affix to a Buddha statue in one of the pagodas as a form of worship.

Shwedagon pagoda and Chinatown

A quick post while I have a few minutes. Last night, we went to the Shwedagon pagoda, a very old pagoda up on a hill. It's a place that people go to at sunset to catch the sun on the pagoda's umbrella, as they call it.   The canopy is made up of gilded gold, two tons of it, all donated by people.  The size is impressive for sure.

Afterward, we walked in the night market of Chinatown. Fruit and vegetable of all types and lots of people. We had roasted cashews and beer at a streetside cafe.  Between that and jet lag, we slept at the hotel and ended up skipping dinner.

The money...

I have a few minutes at the airport so let me write a bit about the money.  It's about 1300 kyat to a dollar.  But the largest bill is 10,000 kyat, about eight dollars.  So I ended up with quite a stack of bills when I changed $200. Some guy next to be had a stack two inches thick!

They don't really use credit cards here except in high-end restaurants and hotels.  So you're stuck with cash. There are ATMs and a friend used one, but the fees are high. 

Things are cheap though especially if you go to a local place.  Wet had a big bottle of a stout (Black Shield, a local beer) and it was 2000 kyat, about $1.50. They recommended $50-100 a day in cash, but I don't think I'll come close to that, although they expect $15/day in tips between the driver and guide.

There still is the disparity between tourist wealth and local incomes, though. A local government official only earns $200/month so that beer wouldn't be too cheap for them...

Okay time to board a flight to Mandalay.

Exploring Yangon

The past two days have been busy exploring Yangon (fka Rangoon and once the capital of Myanmar). Yesterday, I asked all over the city with Stephanie, someone I met on the plane from San Francisco. We both had a free day so it worked out well. It also helped keep me awake and battle jet lag.  Today, we had an organized tour in a car.

It's mainly been a slice of life exploration with some pagodas tossed in.  Burmese people are very friendly. You can tell that Western tourism has just started to take off. People did double takes when they saw how tall I was -- I'm about a foot taller than most people.  And when we were at one pagoda, we had about ten pictures taken of us with locals.  It's very safe here, although the condition of the sidewalks isn't great.  You have to be careful bit to twist your ankle.

You don't see a lot of foreign companies -- the only American place I saw was Tony Roma's. No Starbucks or McDonald's.

The markets were interesting. Of course almost every street had fruit, cell phones, and random things like saws for sale right on the sidewalk.  Traffic isn't terrible -- not as bad as Bangkok but it's getting worse.

The pagodas were okay. Nothing exceptional even if they are two thousand years old. We saw a forty year old reclining Buddha that was about fifty meters in length.

We also took a train around town. It was a very old train, reminiscent of an Indian train.  Unfortunately you also saw a lot of garbage strewn around the tracks along the way. You don't see abject poverty but there were some shanty towns.  People seemed happy with their lives.

Tomorrow we leave for Mandalay. Tonight we have a visit to another pagoda.