From Burma to Myanmar Read online

  What a blissful place to spend a few days.

  My room, although exceedingly comfortable, looked like the house that Jack built. A bit Bush Carpenter constructed, it was made entirely of wood—floors, walls and furniture. The floor was a beautiful parquet of several woods. The walls were polished mahogany, gleaming and shining; even the ceiling was wood. And the furniture! A whole antique shop crammed in, jostling each other for space—massive, heavily carved and oppressively overbearing stuff that weighed a ton. There was a glass-topped coffee table as big as a bed and a wardrobe with an aged and foxed-mirrored door with a magnificent glass handle that unfortunately didn’t serve its purpose because the door didn’t open. Neither did the drawers of the elaborate dressing table as half of it was jammed behind the bed. Lumped wherever possible onto any flat surface were clunky carved wooden ornaments, and on the floor, standing sentry duty beside the bathroom door, was a huge wooden rhinoceros. A rhinoceros?

  The rear window was behind the wardrobe. I had to squeeze in to open the curtains. There were more windows around the room and the wide front one had a wonderful outlook over the balcony to the rice paddies.

  The rice was in various stages of growth and the villagers came a few at a time to work in the fields, some planting rice shoots and one ploughing with an ox. They all went home when it began to rain heavily, leaving the ox standing alone in the downpour. I was happy when he was finally collected and taken away, hopefully to a nice dry stable, leaving the paddy to the egrets who stalked regally among the plants.

  Below the balcony a profusion of palms and trees grew luxuriantly and the fields came up to within a metre of them. The noise of the frogs at night was deafening. Added to the delights of this place, I found a resident dog and cat to talk to, as well as the charming man who was the owner, a doctor who ran a clinic in the town.

  In the mornings a sensational breakfast was laid out on a communal table groaning under the weight of platters of tropical fruit and other life-sustaining goodies. Lunch and dinner were ordered in advance and also eaten communally in the ground floor, net-enclosed dining room that doubled as the reception area. I met a couple of German women teachers there who were good company at dinner each night when we shared large bottles of beer.

  Much as I didn’t want to leave this idyllic place, I enquired about onward travel and learned that the train south to Bago left at eleven am. That beat the bus that departed in the middle of the night well six am actually. Yes, I was about to try once more to go to Bago.

  A trishaw to transport me to the train station was conjured up. It was a long ride to the station for the trishaw rider, but this time at least it was not raining. At the entrance a guard took control of me and led me to the station master’s office, where we went through the passport and US dollar ritual again. It took a lot of writing of papers and filling in of forms before a ticket was allowed into my possession, costing ten dollars. I was taken to a seat, far away at the end of the platform, to wait.

  The train arrived almost on time and I found my seat, a single similar to the one I’d had on the Moulmein train. The carriage was grotty but quite comfortable. Before we left the station master came aboard to seek me out and enquire if I was happy with my situation.

  The ride to Bago was rough but nowhere as rough as my previous train trip. The windows were too filthy to see through, so it was a good thing that they had solidified in the half-open position and I could see over the top. There were few passengers in this upper class carriage, but a profusion of vendors passed through intermittently hawking chips, lollies and unidentifiable objects in mysterious bags.

  Although the bus takes two hours to Bago, this train ride took six. We stopped for ages on an elevated bridge in the middle of rice paddies with nothing in sight, probably due to a breakdown. This train thankfully had a lockable toilet, but it was still a major acrobatic feat to use it as I had to cling desperately to a pipe on the wall with one hand.

  We arrived at Bago station only two hours late, which I believe is par for the course. On the platform I was kidnapped by a smooth type, who shunted me into a trishaw and in light rain sent me off to inspect a hotel he recommended, despite my saying that I wanted to go to the Bago Star Hotel. He followed behind on a motorbike, no doubt in order to squeeze a commission out of the hotel for obtaining my body. The place we arrived at looked a frightful tip and I did not even go in for an inspection. Agreeing to look at another that turned out to be miles away, I was pedalled off in the rain feeling terribly guilty about the poor man pushing me along.

  The town was semi-flooded and the trishaw man had to wade, shoving me through foot-high lakes across streets. I offered to walk up the hills we came to but he said, ‘No’, and got off to push the bike with much panting and wheezing on what were by then dirt tracks. We had left the town after crossing a high bridge over the Bago River and turned off onto a rutted strip of bitumen that led onto dirt and rubble paths. Still we continued on, until finally we pulled into the courtyard of a building. By this time I would have said yes to any old dump to end the rider’s, and my, torment, but happily the place he had brought me to was lovely.

  Its name, Shwe See Seim, translates as The Three Seasons. First I was shown a downstairs room and told it was thirteen dollars. Next, a bungalow that looked like—of all unlikely things—a Swiss chalet. This was seventeen dollars. Still further we continued in the tour of the place till the pièce de résistance was produced. Upstairs with a little Juliet balcony, was a large comfortable room that cost twenty dollars. I asked about electricity and was told, ‘Yes. Is electric. Not every, but some’. This I took to mean that it came and went at will. Bless it.

  To prove a point, the lights went out the minute I attempted to enter the room. It was bucketing down rain by then. We were in the middle of a big storm. My escort explained that the electricity’s excuse this time was that a tree had fallen down. He gave me a suspiciously at-hand torch.

  After a quick wash I went in search of food. Downstairs behind the guesthouse was a large dining room with a limited menu written only in Burmese. But I was starving and indicated that I would eat anything on offer. What did come tasted rather good even though I had no idea what it was.

  I was stumbling around getting ready for bed by torchlight when the lights blared on. What a shock. This place in the sticks had the best and the most lights of anywhere I had stayed in so far—eight in all and only one not working. It was as dim as all get out in the bathroom though so it was morning before I got the full impact of it. By daylight it was a shock to the senses. There was a whacking great bathtub big enough to wash an elephant in painted in an overpowering bright royal blue, as were all the other fittings—a shocking symphony in electrifying blue. I used the shower; that bath was far too intimidating.

  After the included and adequate breakfast early the next morning I stood on my little balcony and watched the veggies being delivered. The seller arrived, a woman with a wide, flat basket of goodies on her head. The cook joined her and they both squatted on their haunches to discuss and decide.

  Despite its difficult-to-access position, or because of it, it was lovely here. As soon as you left the main road the surroundings became rural and rustic, shaded paths among a plethora of greenery. I went for a walk around the small dirt lanes. Not far away was a monastery. Now that we were halfway into Buddhist lent I noticed that more frequent chanting came from the monasteries. Soon it would be the full moon of Waso when the big festival of the Buddhist Rains Retreat is held.

  The only drawback to this idyllic place was that it was not near any transport. I wasn’t going to subject a trishaw rider to another of those gruelling journeys out here, so transport had to be called for by the hotel staff. Due to a communication problem, the tuk tuk I requested turned out to be my friend and his motorbike again.

  I wanted to visit the Golden Rock and had tried unsuccessfully to negotiate a ride there through the hotel. Friend took me, an unwilling pillion passenger on his motorbike, t
o the taxi drivers in the town. This was a failed enterprise as they all said that they couldn’t go up there in the current weather.

  The Golden Rock, Mount Kyaiktiyo, one of Burma’s holiest Buddhist sites, is a huge gold-plastered boulder precariously balanced on a mountain top. Legend says that a precisely placed hair of the Buddha in the stupa on top of it maintains its balance and that the boulder was found at the bottom of the sea. This holy shrine attracts countless pilgrims who laboriously climb the arduous path to the top where only men are allowed to cross the bridge over the chasm in front of the rock and place gold leaf on it.

  By now Bago township was flooded. The streets were awash and in some parts, narrow, flat-bottomed canoes were being used to navigate along them. Motorbikes were getting stuck and people were wet to the knees.

  I had a real coffee finally, found for me by my friend whom by now I could not get rid of. But he was interesting to talk to and he did speak English well. I think he was of Indian extraction. I gave him some money and he took me back to my guesthouse, returning in the evening with a young couple who had a tuk tuk so that I could arrange a jaunt for the next day with them. I had baulked at more motorbike riding.

  8 Snake in a monastery

  The young couple and their tuk tuk turned up at nine in the morning and we set off. Heading through the town streets that were rivers of swirling, muddy water, we were soon on the road out to the pagodas and shrines. Really only tracks, the roads were appalling all mud and rubble.

  There were horses, buffalo, pigs and goats in the villages and the fields around them. All the animals looked well fed which was not surprising with the lush green feed that abounded, and the rubbish that they had to fossick in. But the dogs worried me. There were far too many dogs wandering everywhere—the streets, shops, temples and pagodas.

  In the proceeding time I did four hours hard labour, for which privilege I paid my escort twenty dollars. I told them that they should have paid me—I did all the work while they sat and waited in comfort.

  But the sites were stupendous. The former capital of several past kingdoms, Bago has more fabulous temples than anywhere else in Burma, as well as the enormous Kha Khat Wain Kyaung Monastery, the third biggest in the country. Previously called Pegu, Bago was a thriving port on the Pegu River before the river changed its course and cut the town off from the sea.

  Our first call was the Shwethalyaung Buddha, a reclining statue 180 feet long and 53 feet high. Its original date is uncertain but it was already considered old in 1769 when records tell of it being restored after an earthquake. I stood before it, dwarfed by the mind-boggling size of it. Just its little finger measured ten feet. That’s some digit.

  Gold-and mirror-decorated pillars marched the length of the hall that housed the Buddha. Walls, also patterned with mirrors and gold, surrounded it. The statue was currently being washed. Men diminished by its size to ants crawled on it wielding long handled brooms.

  My escort and I moved on, jolting and crashing in and out of potholes, to another reclining Buddha. This one was outdoors. Sprawling is a more apt description than reclining; the Naung Daw Gyi Mya Tha Lyaung is 250 feet long.

  Several more sites followed including, towering over all, the glittering 376 foot high Shwemawdaw Stupa—46 feet higher than the Shwe Dagon in Yangon.

  My escort team was a lovely young couple, newly married and trying to make enough money for a house. They took it upon themselves to become my minders, which was endearing, although they did rather treat me as though I was in my dotage. Every now and then the sweet young girl would lean over into the back of the tuk tuk, where I sat in the tiny open cabin, and gently fan me. And if I was too long in a temple she would come looking for me, thinking perhaps that I had succumbed to the strain.

  Then we found the snake! Enthroned in splendour in its own pagoda, the Snake Monastery, lives a gigantic Burmese python. It is believed to be the reincarnation of an especially holy monk and is 127 years old. About seventeen feet long—who would be game to stretch it out to measure it—one foot wide and very thick, it looked exceeding solid and heavy as it lay with its beautifully patterned brown, beige and black body coiled in graceful, sinuous loops along a carpeted dais.

  This venerated and worshipped reptile—sorry, monk—scoffs down eleven pounds of chicken every ten days and is possibly the world’s biggest living snake. I did see a longer anaconda in Brazil but it was stuffed (in every sense of the word) and much thinner. This boy looked heavy. It was fascinatingly beautiful, but it still seemed sinister to me.

  Donations of money from adoring fans lay all along its sleek body and its own personal servant sat cross-legged beside it, attending its every need. Nearby was a tiled pool for its bath and woollen rugs to keep it warm at night. What a life—although it could have got a bit boring. Deciding that it would be a good idea to placate this awesome creature, I lay a few kyat notes beside it and stroked it cautiously. It remained immobile and didn’t seem to mind. I guess at 127 years of age you wouldn’t have the energy to get up and chase a tourist.

  At dinner in the Three Seasons someone else finally appeared in the dining room that up until now I’d had sole use of. It was a convention of men who after a while produced a microphone and some absolutely appalling and very loud singing. I bolted through my dinner and left.

  Early the following morning I was ready to move back to Yangon. I had found that the cost of a long distance taxi was reasonable and it beat the difficult bus times. The hotel manager rang the number I had been given to ask the driver to collect me, but Friend and his motorbike turned up instead. He said the taxi driver wanted another five thousand kyat. He could not look me in the eye when he said this so I knew it was a con. He also entered my room, shut the door and lay on my bed to deliver the message, which is not done in polite circles, Burma or anywhere. I paid him the five thousand to get rid of him.

  It was a good, if fast, ride to Yangon for the twenty-six dollars it cost me. I found the behaviour of the people along the narrow road amazing. They gave no heed whatever to traffic and finally I realised why. Their attitude was that it is not for them to look out for vehicles, but it is the vehicles responsibility to avoid them. They wander, stand or even sit on the road, as do the dogs, who have obviously taken their cue from them. I saw up to six dogs together at a time just standing in the middle of the road. Like the rubbish thrown everywhere, they didn’t seem to be seen as a problem.

  In Yangon once, only once, I saw a rubbish collector. He wore heavy gloves and a mask as he wielded a witch’s broom to sweep litter up and shovel it into a wooden push cart. Then he probably dumped it somewhere, possibly in the river.

  I received a great welcome at Motherland, like a long lost relative returning. This time my room was a floor higher and I had a treetop outside the window and a view of the bush-enshrouded train line below.

  Next day I set off to see the gem museum. Wow! There is some amazing loot in there. It is housed in an enormous squeaky clean place, a marked contrast to the grot of the streets outside. Loads of attendants stood about and two guards at a desk outside made me cough up five dollars and my passport, the details of which were copied.

  On the ground and first floors were countless stalls and shops selling gems, jade and jewellery. I bought some jade, I hoped. But I hoped in vain. By the time my sister the gemologist tested it, it had metamorphosed into dyed quartz. It was super cheap if that’s a consolation.

  The top floor contained the museum collection that was understandably not for sale. There were stupendously valuable and beautiful articles encased here, giving a glimpse of the fabulous riches this country has had in the past. There was the world’s largest sapphire found north of Mandalay, a mere trinket of 63,000 carats, also the largest jade boulder, rough ruby and star sapphire. But what I would have taken home if it had not been under the eagle eye of a guard, was a foot-high apple-green jade elephant caparisoned with gold and jewel-bedecked howdah and trimmings.

  I headed across tow
n in a taxi then to have lunch at the Strand hotel. I couldn’t leave Burma without revisiting this icon of old Rangoon. But I was fearful that my pleasant memories were in for disillusionment. The riverfront Strand Road is still lined with many of the wonderful colonial buildings remaining from British days. Some are in good condition, but some, like many others in the town, are spacious buildings in extensive grounds and look forlorn and seem to have been left to rot.

  Happily I saw that the Strand exterior was unchanged, albeit much cleaner and smarter than when last I had approached it. Although the hotel façade remained the same, inside I did not recognise it. It had been mightily restored and was very grand indeed. It now cost hundreds of dollars a night as opposed to the ten that it had cost for a double room when I stayed there on my first visit to Burma years ago. And where was the well-remembered long wooden bar where we had sat and conned our way into the use of kyats instead of dollars? The Strand Hotel and its wonderful old bar were one of my lasting memories of my first visit to Burma. Where the bar had been was now an arcade of super expensive shops. But then on one side of the foyer, I entered a room and there, running its length, was a long wooden bar. I like to believe that it is the original.

  I saved revisiting the Shwedagon Pagoda for my final day. As the Strand is the symbol of British Burma, the Shwedagon is the symbol of its Buddhist magnificence. It was just as incredible as I remembered. Surely one of the wonders of the world, I could see its great glittering golden dome reaching heavenwards from far away. Slowly I climbed the hundreds of steps and stairways that bring you up to the extensive complex around the base from where the stupa rises—an awesome great lump of gold, 322 feet to the point of the psi on its top that contains an enormous diamond.