Archive: When a man is tired of temples

The next day I just don’t have the energy for being beaten down by the sun all day, so I hire a man with a horse and cart and sit in bumpy padded luxury. We head to farther-flung sights, but I’m already getting temple fatigue. Some of the temples have beautiful 13th-century drawings on the inside, but you’d need to be familiar with Buddhist lore to get much out of them.

Once again, I’m finding that the places I get most out of are those where I’m allowed to sit and rest, and to chat to people who don’t suddenly change tack and start laying out lacquerware or paintings, leaving me with the guilty dilemma – did they really take me around for free? Or do I have to buy something in return? Because it does happen, I don’t want to be too quick to shoo away anyone who starts up a conversation, but just as I think I’ve got the hang of it, I get talked into buying some lacquerware at what must be a damn good price for the seller, given that I quickly get swarmed by every single seller within a one mile radius.

The Bagan Viewing Tower – helping you see temples you might otherwise have missed

The sunset of the neverending sand paintings shows silhouetted temples as far as the eye can see, though these are only a handful of over 2,000 temples, many still used by worshippers today. Out here, though, the skyline is dominated, stamped all over really, by an ugly red-brick structure some 60 metres tall. This is the Bagan Viewing Tower, built by “independent entrepreneur” (and close friend of General Than Shwe) Tay Za. 

According to this website, the tower “has now emerged to accord a unique panoramic view of the ancient kingdoms and their environs. It’s a vision of rare exotic beauty, a vision of a legendary past, a vision of a great king. It’s unlike anything you have ever seen.” Which is not true, because I’ve seen egregious eyesores before. Still, as the old joke goes, “Why’s the Bagan Viewing Tower the best place to see Bagan?” “Because if you’re there, you can’t see the Bagan Viewing Tower”.

The horse, and driver, are about to expire, so I let them take me home for curry. After being invited for tea at an earnest young man’s house “any time you are in Mrauk U”, which may well be never, I head home.

The next day, having tried and failed to drum up interest in a shared taxi to Mount Popa (and got up 2 hours after the sole pick-up leaves), is pretty free. I hire a bike and wander in the general direction of Old Bagan, cycling around in circles until I can feasibly go for lunch.

I end up somewhere lovely, opposite the Lonely Planet-stamped place. They’re warm and friendly, and I could have filled up just fine on the “presents” that keep coming. It’s a family enterprise, and with 7 daughters and 1 son it’s quite a family. The youngest daughter potters around firing a toy gun and putting her skirt over her head, while the walls are heavy with the elder daughters’ graduation photos.

The food is beautiful – charcoal slow-roasted aubergine mashed with garlic, peanuts and salt. I also try a little of their “guacamole” – locally grown avocado that’s rich and silky and absolutely divine. Food in Myanmar is strongly influenced by each of its neighbours, and draws also from the diverse ethnic background of the country. Access to beautifully fresh ingredients doesn’t harm either.

These ladies are planting pagodas

From here on June 10th 2011.

Archive: Backyard temples, and an especially auspicious field

The bus journey to Bagan ranks among the worst I’ve ever taken, although at 8 hours it is mercifully short. Yes, this is what they mean by “poor infrastructure”, and the locals cope with this by hawking, spitting and vomiting. Usually into plastic bags, but sometimes nature creeps up on them. We stop every ten yards or so to ingest or disgorge rice, people, boxes, etc. I distract myself by eating random things – spicy noodles, doughballs stuffed with coconut, wobbly things in broth – until we arrive at Nyaung U, the low-budget traveller’s gateway to the temples of Bagan.

The front door of Shwezigon Pagoda

Having checked in to my budget accommodation of choice, I wave myself under a trickle of cold water in an attempt to freshen up, then meander down the main road and round the back of Schwezigon Pagoda. I feel a bit like I’m prying, as I wander among the laundry and skirt an energetic game of chinlon (rattan ball keepy-uppy) right in the back yard of the gold-domed stupa. The stupa appeals for its quietness, and its freedom from tourists – and touts, which I will soon discover is not true in much of Bagan. I’m left to wander, contentedly, and tempted as I am to snap the kids’ game from an artistic angle it feels far too intrusive. The camera stays away.

This real-life going on among the temples is all the nicer to see, as residents of what is now “Old Bagan” were all relocated – a cynic would say forcibly – in 1990. Better to preserve temples for tourists than have citizens live among them and worship in them, clearly. 

The government is fond of moving people. In 2005 the junta announced that the capital was moving from Yangon (Rangoon), home to some 5 million people, to an as yet unnamed site that had previously been nothing but fields. The process of moving ministries to the new site began on 6 November at the “auspicious” time of 6:37am; family members were initially prohibited from joining officials until some infrastructure could be built. In March 2006, on Burmese Armed Forces Day, the name of the new capital was officially announced: Naypyidaw, the abode of kings.

Reports suggest that the infrastructure is still being built, and visitors say that this is happening more by muscle than machinery. Once again, allegations of forced and underage labour have, as if by magic, attached themselves to the regime. Rare photographs such as those here show an uncanny clash of candy-coloured modern prefabs – supposedly colour-coded by ministry – with the ragged low roofs of slums. The generals themselves are zoned 11km away from other employees in a heavily restricted zone which, according to this Time report, appears on the map as a blank space. 

It’s this kind of distance from ordinary people which is necessary to maintain the kind of visionary thinking that boldly forges ahead in moving nearly a million people to a half-imagined city in the scrub, forcing them to leave their families behind, at immense cost to an impoverished and starving nation, but still has the courage to prioritise the completion of a selection of golf courses, a game the generals are allegedly rather partial to. Seriously, even China criticised the generals on this one. Given their complicity in supporting the junta, drawing their censure is quite an achievement.

Shwezigon Pagoda: the sweet pre-sunset no-tourist spot

From here on June 8th 2011.