A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
Yangon, Myanmar

As is perhaps fitting in a country as religious as Myanmar, my first day was spent visiting buddhist temples.

Shwedagon Pagoda was a truly amazing place, clearly the sight to see in Yangon and indeed in the whole of Myanmar. Built on a hill in the middle of the city, it has four massive staircases (and two elevators for the feeble and the military) leading up to a platform covering over 12 acres with temples, stupas (solid semi- conical pointy monuments to the dead or to house Buddha relics), grand walkways and shrines surrounding the massive golden stupa. This stupa, rebuilt in 1769 and created to house eight hairs of the Buddha, is regilded every year and positively glows. In 1995 it was estimated to have accumulated 53 metric tons of gold leaf, not including the 13,000 solid gold plates covering the banana bud shaped top just under the Burmese umbrella-like thing that crowns all pagodas. The gilded umbrella itself is studded with over 5000 diamonds and 1400 other stones, including a 76 carat diamond. All that is for the benefit of the Buddha alone, since at 100 yards tall, it's impossible to make out the details on top with the naked eye.

Although its artistic and architectural features are most impressive, the best thing about Shwedagon is that it hosts thousands of worshippers every day. Families come to pray, listen to monks, and have lunch. The place is a constantly moving and bowing anthill of saronged Burmese making offerings to any one of the hundreds of altars and temples available. Many come after work to relax and unwind and see the sunset glint off the gilded monuments. Monks hold impromtu services for a handful or a crowd, and tourists mill about and soak up the atmosphere. It's a fabulous place, and perfectly captures Burmese life -- very religious, very family oriented, very simple.

My second temple of the day was decidedly weirder, but equally full of families. The Botataung Pagoda, alongside the Irawaddy River in downtown Yangon, also boasts a giant golden stupa and a number of Buddha hair relics. There the similarity ends. During World War II the RAF bombed the historical stupa at Botataung into rubble. When they rebuilt, they decided to go for a "happy blend of the ancient and of the ultramodern," according to the handy English brochure I got for my $2.

The weird part of this stupa wasn't the outside, which looked like a standard gilded bell-shaped monument with the usual stylized umbrella on top. The difference here was that they made the new and improved Botataung hollow, so you can walk right into it through a glittery antechamber. Being Buddhist and Asian they didn't stint on the shiny stuff inside, either. It was set up a bit like a hall of mirrors, with many angled walls and display cases holding Buddhas and statues of stupas and coin trees. The walls were made of thousands of small mirrors angled in various directions; the whole thing was gloriously tacky.

There aren't many tourists in Myanmar, and American tourists are even more rare and interesting to the Burmese. I had my own entourage throught my visit -- several children dogged my footsteps, repeating my every word in English. A monk was also intrigued by my presence -- he gave my whole arm a good squeezy feel. I'm thinking I'm going to need to do some upper body toning if this happens too often.

Copyright 2003 Katy Warren

posted by Katy at 3:53 AM