|
Yangon – Mandalay – Maymyo – Mandalay – Bagan – Mount Popa – Bagan – Yangon
October/November 2002
|
Yangon – Mandalay – Maymyo – Mandalay – Bagan – Mount Popa – Bagan – Yangon
October/November 2002
The flight from Bangkok to Yangon on Thai Airways was uneventful but immigration was as time consuming as ever with too few officers on duty and too much paperwork and checking of documents. Fortunately I declared my cameras and my watch on arrival in the country, since these were checked on the way out. At this time it was still necessary for tourists to change $200 into FECs (Foreign Exchange Certificates) but the type of visa I was holding meant that I did not need to. I was met, as usual, by a representative of the travel company that was responsible for my stay in Myanmar. Tun Myat Nai, from Rakhine State in Western Myanmar, greeted me by telling me that his name was 'Tom' but not 'Peeping Tom' and discussed the arrangements for the trip during the 10 or so mile journey into central Yangon. Traders Hotel, at the junction of the Bogyoke Aung San Lan and Sule Pagoda Road, is a Shangri La Hotel and the best located of all the well-known hotels in the city. It might be argued that the Strand Hotel is both better known and has a better position but, frankly, too expensive, over-rated and further away from most things.
A
quick walk down the Bogyoke Aung San Lan took me to the (formerly Scott) Market,
where I was able to purchase a Shan bag. This is a very useful device which is
carried/worn by many people around the city but is generally a little on the
short side for someone of my height. After a few days visiting old haunts in
Yangon I had arranged to catch the 5UP train to Mandalay. Over dinner one
evening Klaus Dieter Mueller, from the travel agency, had told me of the
difficulties in obtaining the Upper Class sleeper tickets for the train. In the
end it had been necessary to apply a certain amount of 'pressure' and had
eventually been allocated a seat from the military allocation. Realising that I
was going to be away from Yangon for some time I had bought a 'soft' bag from
the Bogyoke Aung San (formerly Scott) Market and left my main suitcase at
Traders. This meant travelling light with only the trousers I was standing up
in, but this did not seem unreasonable at the time! Just as Tun Myat Nai arrived
for the very brief transfer to Yangon Railway Station, I happened to spot an old
friend Maung Maung Oo entering the hotel. Sadly due to a series of
misunderstandings we only spoke for a couple of seconds and were not destined to
meet again.
Arriving at the station with plenty of time to spare, Tom realised how unprepared I was for the journey. Naively, I had assumed that I would be travelling in some comfort with on board facilities close at hand.... nothing could be further from the truth and Tom urged me to at least buy some bottled water and fruit, which I duly did. We quickly found the four seat compartment but it was something of a culture shock for someone accustomed to air travel. The three other occupants were, not surprisingly, Burmese and as well as a mother and her daughter-in-law from a military family there was a guy, in his early thirties, from the military. Their lack of English, coupled with my lack of Burmese, made conversation almost impossible and I resigned myself to a long and tedious journey. The train got moving a little after its scheduled 1700 departure town we slowly made our way through the outskirts of Yangon heading towards Bago.
It was at this stage that I began to realise how dirty things were because the darkness under the station canopy had hidden a great deal. There was a ceiling fan which did little to circulate the air, naturally no glass in the windows merely a form of shutter. It quickly grew dark and all manner of insects started to invade my space; an attempt to leave the compartment and visit the facilities was made very difficult by all the locals taking up all the space in the corridor and anywhere else that they could find. The single toilet at the end of the carriage was , well....... pretty disgusting and I hoped that I would not need to make use of it again before Mandalay. As we settled down for the night I realised that the blanket on which I had been sitting was my bedding for the night and it was filthy. Quite a shock for someone who thought that 'Upper Class Sleeper' meant air-conditioning and crisp white bed linen.
It was a very long and uncomfortable night with the train rolling, pitching and jolting throughout. There were times when I really thought that we were going to leave the rails and the constant tensing of muscles was to have an effect for 24 hours after the journey ended. The one metre gauge does not encourage high speed but the 430 miles was due to be covered in 14 hours giving us an arrival time of 0700 in Mandalay. There were countless stops during the night, some scheduled, some not and it was a relief when the sun came up so that the compartment could be converted from sleeping back to sitting; quite honestly this was far more comfortable due of the motion of the train. We finally pulled into the new Station in Mandalay at 1030, some three and a half hours late. There to meet me was my guide Aung Nai Oo, who was totally unsurprised by my late arrival, and with him a driver who was to prove to be very safe and reliable.
The plan was to drive up to Maymyo (Pyin U Lwin) but first we stopped at a cafe just East of the moat for some refreshment, in my case breakfast, and for an opportunity to make use of the facilities, a great relief after those on the train. Most taxis and hire cars in Myanmar are 30 or more years old Toyotas, imported from Japan. As a result they are right hand drive... in a country that drives on the right, making overtaking difficult. Maymyo is 1070m above sea level and as we headed out of Mandalay and the road started to climb, the air-conditioning was switched off. It was, at best, tepid rather than cool or cold and with increasing altitude the temperature would drop anyway. When we came to 'checkpoints' along the way I was assured that we would have no trouble because I, a foreigner, was in the car and this proved to be the case.
It
did not take long to reach Maymyo and I was rapidly installed at the the Royal
Parkview Hotel. What a splendid place this proved to be in spite of being a
little way from the centre of town, it was quiet and charming. It was around
this time that I discovered that the seats/blankets/bedding had dirtied my
trousers to the extent that they were almost unwearable. They needed to be
dry-cleaned and the nearest place where this could be done was Mandalay, where I
would have a couple of days before taking the ferry down the Ayeyarwady to Bagan.
Rather than try to purchase a new pair of trousers (I’m rather taller than the
average Myanmar) my mind turned an alternative solution. It’s obviously more
comfortable to wear a longyi in this climate, so why not give it a try? A year
earlier I had bought a couple of silk longyis in Twante on the other side of the
Yangon River from the capital but had made no attempt to wear them. Aung Nai Oo
promised to teach my how to tie one so the matter was settled.
Though I had hoped to get as far East as Gokteik there really was not time and I had to be content with going to Peik Chin Myaing, a shrine cave about 30Km in the direction of Lashio. En route we stopped at Pwe Kauk Falls which was very pleasant but nothing out of the ordinary. Later we took a horsecart to the Anisakan Falls a little way from town. Pyn U Lwin has an interesting market but the shops in the town appear to be devoted to the manufacture and sale of woollen sweaters. At this altitude it gets cool by local standards and the people like to keep warm. The town is also noted for the growing of flowers, vegetables and soft fruits. The Hotel was quite close to the Maymyo Golf Course and it was interesting to watch the grass being cut on the ‘greens’. Unlike the west, where we are mechanised, this is a very skilful operation done manually with a scythe. Much of the town revolves around the main Mandalay to Lashio Road which has a few restaurants and, somewhat surprisingly, a clock tower know as the Purcell tower.
The return
journey to Mandalay was accomplished under an overcast sky and, as a result, it
was not possible to take advantage of the views while descending from the Shan
Plateau. My hotel, the Mandalay Swan, was like most of the main hotels, at the
eastern end of the moat and thus a couple of miles from the centre of town.
While perfectly adequate I made a note that in future I would stay much nearer
to the Zegyo (Main Market). The following days were dull with some heavy rain,
making sightseeing less pleasant than it otherwise would have been. The Maha
Muni, U Bein’s Bridge, the Mahagandhayon Kyaung Monastery and Amarapura itself
were visited with the constant threat of rain. The areas of the city devoted to
the making of gold leaf, carving, kalagas and the manufacture of puppets were
all very interesting and took one back many many years to a time before
pre-packaged, identical goods.
While wandering around the city I had fallen into conversation with a number of locals who were, as usual, keen to practise their English and this had given me a bit of an insight into life in Mandalay. (At this stage I have just noticed that Microsoft Office auto-correct does not allow practise and automatically ‘corrects’ it to practice, which I then have to retype.) A particularly interesting conversation was with someone who had studied Mathematics at the University of Mandalay. As I was later to discover in Lao(s), the mathematics taught in this part of the world is firmly anchored in the past and, while there is nothing wrong with this, it does not serve students as well as it might. My long walk to the centre of town along the south side of the moat was an ideal opportunity for people to practise their English.
Throughout my stay in Mandalay I was trying to make changes to my arrangements for the return journey to Yangon. The idea was that after visiting Mount Popa I would be driven to Thazi to catch the 6Dn train back to the capital but the prospect of this did not fill me with much enthusiasm. I wished instead to return to Bagan, spend the night there and then fly back from Nyaung U, the airport for Bagan. Communications were difficult and so far I had been unable to obtain confirmation that the changes had been made. Finally there was the opportunity to get my trousers dry-cleaned using the Hotel’s 24 hour service. Of course this required a trip to the shops to find a replacement and, to be on the safe side, I bought a handful of longyis and, at the same time, a similar number of shirts with a Burmese collar. At last a day to day use for collar (back) studs! Although the rooms were large and quite clean, the Hotel was somewhat drab and reflected its past glories. The nearby Sedona appeared to be the most comfortable place to stay in Mandalay though it too was remote from the centre of town. The ferry down the Ayeyarwady to Bagan necessitated an early start and Aung Nai Oo arranged to meet me at 0500 for the trip to the dockside.
In the event the
Hotel provided a packed breakfast which offered some sustenance. The journey
through the largely deserted centre of Mandalay at this time of the morning was
all too rapid and gave little opportunity for observation. The ferry itself was
fairly ancient and the cabin, where my seat was, appeared to be full so it looked
like being a fairly cramped journey of more than 10 hours to Bagan. As the sun
rose the view was spectacular with the temples at Sagaing on the north bank, for
we were heading almost due west at this stage, being particularly stunning.
Although supposedly an express ferry from Mandalay to Bagan we made numerous
stops at small villages along the way and it appeared that some of these places
had only ready access by way of the river. As the ferry came close into shore
attempts were made to sell all sorts of fruit and goods to passengers by people,
some of whom were, or ended up, swimming. I suspect that some of these villages
drew their only supply of water from the river which was worrying…. rather like
drinking from the River Stour at Canford. The river carried a good deal of
commercial traffic, much of which involved timber. There were vessels which were
either carrying or towing large quantities of teak logs, some of them with their
decks almost awash. Finally at around 1600 the Shwezigon Pagoda at Bagan came
into view.
Disembarkation was somewhat chaotic, not helped by the nature of the jetty, but my guide, Mr Oo was there and helped me to get through the admin to enter the Bagan Archaeological Zone pretty quickly. It was only a short journey to my Hotel a small quiet place south of old Bagan at Bagan Myothit. I was too late to have dinner at the hotel, which is by arrangement only, and made my way into the local centre as the sun was setting. Surprisingly foreigners were not all that common in this area and my presence generated some comments and merriment. I cannot remember what food I ordered but it would certainly have been cheap in this area! The rooms at the Thiri Marlar Hotel were not large but perfectly adequate and I enjoyed a good sleep that night. The following day was a trip around the archaeological zone with Mr Oo and the names of the various temples we visited is a bit of a blur. There were just so many of them and I did not have the opportunity to take notes as we went around. The Shwezigon was very impressive and at the entrance there was a guy in his 80s who managed to cram a colour darkroom into a tiny box at the side of the pathway. He offered tourists colour prints from negative film in a few minutes. Carrying a digital camera I pointed out to him that the end of colour negative film was in sight but I suspect that it will keep him in business for a year or two. For lunch I was taken to the Thiripitsaya Sakura in Old Bagan and had an excellent meal there, for much of the time the only person in the dining room which looked out across lawns to the Ayeyarwady. This is probably the best hotel in Bagan and almost certainly the most expensive; some might say that with its manicured lawns and everything clean and polished it was somewhat bland but I would disagree. It’s a wonderful oasis in a fairly hot and dusty part of the country. In the evening dinner was on the terrace of the Thiri Marlar Hotel and was excellent if at times a little strange to the western palate.
There was still
the problem of my return to Yangon to be sorted out and this proved quite
difficult even from the relatively tourist orientated area of Bagan. For two
thirty minute periods I stood over the hotel telephone operator as she tried to
get a line to Myanmar Travel Ltd. in Yangon, but without success. It appeared as
though the call was routed by radio and all available channels were occupied so,
in the end, it was suggested that I go into the centre of the village and try to
use a government line to effect the call. I found the correct place without too
much difficulty and joined the short queue to use the phone. When my turn came I
was able to indicate the number I wished to call and the connection was made
fairly quickly. The phone was answered by Tun Myat Nai, who recognized the voice
and quickly passed me over to Herr Mueller. To my relief all the arrangements
were in place and I would spend an extra night in Bagan before flying with Air
Mandalay from NYU to RGN.
After a hot day touring Bagan, the following day promised to be a little more relaxing with a journey down to Mount Popa. I noticed on the way down that there was very little human habitation between Bagan and Popa and this was to play its part on my return journey. The sight of Mount Popa rising out of the Bagan plain was quite wonderful and when the volcanic plug that is Popa Taung Kalat came into view that was amazing. While Mr Oo and the driver were staying somewhere at the foot of Popa, I was staying at the Popa Mountain Resort which had only been opened a few years earlier. Sadly the state of the resort was a great disappointment and it appeared to have had no maintenance from the day it was built. What you could not take away from it was the infinity pool with its stunning view of Popa Taung Kalat. Dinner in the hotel restaurant was far from inspiring and the (wooden) room was rather warm because the air-conditioning did not seem to be functioning. It proved to be a fairly restless night but there was at least the visit to Popa Village and the climb to the monastery to look forward to on the following day.
The next morning
dawned somewhat misty and the breakfast was nothing to shout about though, once
again the views were fantastic. Given the high cost of the hotel, especially in
relation to local prices, I felt that there was good reason to expect rather
better. Mr Oo turned up bright and early and we drove the short distance down to
Popa Village. The first place we visited was the Nat Temple and it should be
added tha Nat worship is something that appears to be tagged onto, and
compatible with, Buddhism. While reflecting on how strange the Nat temple
appeared to be, I realized that a local Buddhist/Nat worshipper would probably
have the same reaction to some of the great ancient Cathedrals of Europe, so
perhaps it wasn’t so strange after all. The climb to the monastery at Popa Taung
Kalat is not without its hazards both natural and manmade. It has been suggested
that the Burmese decreed that when in the grounds of a Temple people should go
barefoot, in order to inconvenience their colonial masters. It certainly makes
life difficult for this Englishman who on one occasion had to be rescued at the
Boatataung Pagoda in Yangon because the (black) marble was exposed to the sun
and burning up the, rather soft, soles of my feet. Here at Popa there are 777
steps to the top and, since the entire plug is considered a Buddhist shrine,
these have to be ascended barefoot. This contrasts with Thailand and Lao PDR,
where shoes must be removed before going inside a temple building; socks may be
worn and being indoors the ground is seldom exposed to heating from the sun!
The
route to the top winds its way around the elliptical plug with its almost vertical
sides. It’s interesting to consider how the monastery was built on such a
difficult, though extraordinarily beautiful, site in the first place. On the
lower reaches of the climb there were the usual hawkers that you come to expect
with the confines of a temple, though the goods on offer were mostly refreshments
which were increasingly welcome as we got higher up. During our climb I
spotted an elderly lady who, evidently, had wished to visit the top but being in
her 80s was unable to make it under her own steam. She was carried in a sling
suspended from a bamboo pole carried by a couple of Burmese. The steepness of
the path made this a rather precarious journey and would have frightened the
life out of me. A natural hazard encountered part way up was the gang of monkeys
who seemed to delight in attacking pilgrims, especially those with a lighter
than usual skin. Remembering that everyone was barefoot the mess they left on
the path was yet another inconvenience to be overcome; certainly my feet needed
a thorough wash when we returned to the base. Towards the top the path became
even steeper and we started to feel the effects of the wind swirling around the
rock. This wind was fairly turbulent and added to the difficulties of keeping a
secure footing but eventually we reached the top, not without a little
stabilization from Mr Oo, and the views were well worth the trouble. By now the
day was pretty clear and it was possible to see great distances, at least to the
west since Mount Popa itself obstructed views to the east. As is often the case
the descent was more taxing than the ascent but we eventually made it back to
Popa village and found a small café where we could obtain refreshment and, in my
case, a quick wash. There are not many places which one has seen pretty
thoroughly and where you would go out of your way to make another visit….. but
this is one of them.
Having avoided the rail journey from Thazi back to Yangon it was now time to return to Bagan however, some 20 miles from Popa, we stopped for a car which was broken down at the side of the road. It’s normal in these parts, for locals at least, to stop and offer assistance to anyone stranded. The car in question had only been carrying two spare tyres and had suffered three punctures which, given the state of the road, was not particularly surprising. The advantage of having so many similar cars in the country (very old Toyotas imported from Japan) became apparent when we were able to use a tyre from the Toyota Hi Ace in which I was travelling to help out someone in a Toyota Corolla. While the wheels were being changed I fell into conversation with the passenger in the other car who worked for the marine transportation department of the government. He was clearly very prosperous having come to Bagan on the ‘Road to Mandalay’ a very luxurious vessel which was beyond my price range. Unusually for a Burmese, and largely on account of his job, he had travelled the world and even studied at the University in Southampton. Given that this has a well known Naval Architecture Department this was not as surprising as it might seem at first sight.
Having said our farewells, for they were going to Popa, we continued on our journey but only a mile or so down the road the Toyota lost power quite suddenly and we rolled to a stop. Having a Hi Ace to myself was quite a luxury but I was now to pay the price since we were in the middle of nowhere and there was very little traffic on the road. Four years later mobile phones are not that common, even in Yangon, and I very much doubt that, even now, there is coverage in the middle of the Bagan plain. The driver quickly had the cover off the engine and I chatted with him through my guide. Usually the causes of loss of power are ignition or fuel problems but this seemed altogether more serious. It soon became clear that the timing belt had broken and the vehicle was going nowhere fast. It seems that when the Toyotas come in from Japan they have no idea when the belts were last changed so, rather than change them as a precaution as I suggested might be a good idea, they run them until they break. The driver thought that repair would be quite simple a quick once they returned to Bagan but I disagreed and, sadly as it turned out, was correct. The valves had encountered the pistons and caused considerable damage.
There was virtually no shade at the roadside and, in the middle of the day, it was becoming rather warm so I was anxious to find some means of returning to Bagan. One or two cars passed but they, so I was told, did not have Bagan plates and failed to stop. Eventually a car pulled over, another Toyota, with a Swiss couple, their guide and driver. Very quickly they agreed to get me back to my hotel in Bagan, since they were heading that way, the guide was bundled in the back with his clients and I was offered the front seat next to the driver. It appeared pretty cramped in the back but I certainly had no cause for complaint. Being Swiss they spoke pretty good English and we conversed for much of the time which made the journey appear shorter than it was. They dropped me at my hotel and, when I had thanked them, continued on their way.
Mr Oo returned to
the Thiri Marlar shortly after I did, having got some sort of lift from where
the car was stranded, and having quickly located a replacement car, we were able
to continue sightseeing. It was great to see huge piles of bamboo, perhaps 8 to
10 metres in length, which would be very difficult to obtain back home. The
local brick making that we witnessed seemed too much like hard work but
certainly made use of local materials. Having witnessed sunset across the
Ayeyarwady it was time to have dinner but, as before, I had been unable to
arrange for a meal in the hotel and so had to find somewhere to eat. On the
first evening a restaurant had been suggested but for some reason or another I
had failed to locate it, perhaps because it was so out of the way. This evening
I made a more determined effort to find the Sunset Garden Restaurant and, having
made my way across several fields, I eventually located it on the banks of the
river. It seemed a very large place for such a remote location and there were
few customers when I arrived. Having been shown to a table, where a mosquito
coil was lit and placed beneath the table, I ordered a meal and a Sprite. The
waiter, who proved to be a university student working during his vacation, was
anxious to practise his English so we had a brief conversation while one of his
fellow waiters took a photograph of the event. After a leisurely meal I decided
to take a walk along the river in the pitch black. There is virtually no light
pollution in this part of the world because there is very little light. Hearing
someone following me I was a little concerned given the remoteness of the
location and the more so when he, having got quite close to me, grabbed my
elbow. In reasonable English he asked if I had not seen where I was about to
tread and looking down I could just about make out a snake slithering away. I
thanked him for the concern he had shown, especially since very unusually for me
I was virtually barefoot in a very thin pair of sandals, and asked him was it
dangerous. He told me that it was a Russell’s Viper and not a good thing to be
bitten by. We walked on together for a little way and then he branched off in a
different direction. It was only many months later that I discovered what a
nasty beast this thing was…. And that it was quite prevalent on the banks of the
Ayeyarwady. Had I know I would have been less inclined to walk there late at
night, or any other time for that matter.
My Air Mandalay
flight the following morning necessitated an early start but the hotel staff
were able to offer me breakfast, indoors, at an unscheduled hour. One of my
abiding memories of the Thiri Marlar was the breakfast taken on the roof terrace
of the hotel. Shown to a table, with a parasol quickly erected to shade one
from the sun which, at this hour at least, was not high in the sky. Then to eat
a very pleasant breakfast, with amazing views towards the temples on the Bagan
plain, was a great treat. The Thirapitsaya Sakura Hotel may have been more
luxurious but the view from my small hotel was incomparably better. Bagan Nyaing
U is not a large airport though there were three flights leaving that morning,
two of them for Yangon. When I made it into the departure lounge I bumped into
the official whose driver had experienced the punctures the previous day. He had
heard of our misfortune only a few minutes after leaving him and his wife and we
chatted about this, life in England and life in Myanmar before boarding the Air
Mandalay flight to Yangon. As well as being a not too large airport, NYU has a
runway that is very narrow indeed, even when it’s only an ATR-72 using it.
Nevertheless, we managed to become airborne without straying off the runway and
before it came to an end. There followed a sharp turn to port and a wonderful
view not only of the river but of the Bagan area.
The flight and the journey from Mingaladon to the hotel in Yangon were uneventful and after a couple of days looking around the city I flew back to Bangkok. All in all a very interesting visit to a country which does not see many tourists and one which I hope to repeat some day.