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

 
Inle Lake, Myanmar continued

The Intha are Buddhist like most of the rest of Myanmar, so our next stop was at the Phaung Daw temple, the holiest religious site in the region. The temple houses five important statues, three Buddhas and two Buddha disciples, four of which are ferried around the lake on an ornate golden swanlike barge during the annual festival. Frankly, this place was weird. the temple itself was newish and hideously designed, and those important religious statues were just bizarre lumps of gold leaf to the naked eye, a bit like melting snowmen. It was a popular place to congregate, however,. Around the holy golden snowmen groups of men and women (usually separately, and many more men than women as naturally the women have to work) sat on the floor chatting, drinking tea or eating lunch. It's one of the things I really like about Burmese temples -- they serve as a combination of worship site, community center, and tea shop, in which families and friends can get together out of the heat and enjoy a quiet meal.

Much of our afternoon was spent going to combination factory/shops of various kinds in the various stilt villages. We saw umbrellas (and paper) being made, sink longyi woven, knives blacksmithed, silver jewelry fashioned, cheroots rolled, and boats being made. I bartered for one of the giant $1500 teak longboats, but the price just didn't drop low enough to convince me to purchase. I enjoy thse "factory" expiditions, actually. It's fun to see how they make these things, and it certainly makes you better appreciate the criminally low prices for everything.

After further meandering around the villages waving at excited children (don't they see tourists every day? How can they possibly maintain this level of enthusiasm?) and smiling adults as well, we went to relax and drink tea at the Nga Phe Kyuang monestary, a wooden structure on stilts with rusty metal crenellated roof built in the 1850's. Nga Phe Kyuang has two claims to fame -- a collection of excellent Buddha images in Shan, Tibetan, Bagan and Inwa styles each housed in ornately carved and gilded cases; and cats who jump through a hoop held by a crimson-robed monk. Naturally the cats are the big draw, hence the monestary's common name in English: Jumping Cat Monestary.

We spent an hour or so there, mostly sitting on the floor with the cats and chatting with the monk and with other tourists. For me, Jumping Cat Monestary was also the site of one of those "small world" experiences that we've all had at one time or another.

While walking out to see the view an older Frenchman spoke to me. He thought I was Spanish -- I'm sure he never would have talked to me otherwise. The French rarely talk to English speakers. But that's beside the point.

Anyway, we got to talking about where we were from, and when I said I was from Seattle he said HE knew someone from seattle, a woman who was married to an
American and then divorced and moved to Seattle.

Ah, I said. A hairdresser? Named Annie?

Yes indeed, he replied. He is good friends with her parents in Lyon. This strange Frenchman at a Burmese monestary knew my longtime neighborhood hairdresser. Now that's a small world.

That was about it for our delightful day on the lake. It was back to the pancakes and italian food of Nyaungshwe after watching the sun set over the mountains.


Copyright 2003 Katy Warren


posted by Katy at 7:02 PM