exploring eating capturing
One thing about travelling is that your body clock gets a bit messed up. On this particular day I was wide awake very early which turned out to be a good thing as the sunrise was so very beautiful. I first noticed it through the …
After climbing the mountain in the morning (before it got too hot) we went onto Kan Ka Thawng Cave which is about seven miles from Hpa-An. It is a stunning area with a big cave full of buddhas overlooking beautiful rice paddy fields that are …
From Yangon we took a night coach to Hpa-An which is about a nine or ten hour drive to the east. That in itself was an interesting experience. Even though it was a night bus which one would assume means that some sleeping is expected it had load music playing for the entire journey! I have the great super power of being able to sleep in any situation so did so but my two companions were ready to kill someone by the time we arrived having had zero sleep.
One of the challenges we set ourselves on this trip was to climb a mountain. Now none of us do this regularly, I am used to steep hills living in Sheffield and walking everywhere but this was in a totally different league!
This is Mount Zew Ka Bin a bumpy tuktuk drive south from Hpa-An. At the very top there is a monastery and it takes about two and a half hours steep climbing to get there. We had a bit of a restricted time scale due to the tuktuk waiting for us and the other things we wanted to fit into the day.
As you turn off the road and start to travel along the path towards the foot of the mountain you become increasingly aware of thousands of buddha statues filling the fields that surround the mountain, they literally go on for miles.
There is clearly an ongoing project to restore and paint these statues which I suspect is a permanent job for someone as once you have finished the last one it would be time to start all over again. I am not a hundred percent sure what I think of all the restoration as everything is painted so brightly as new. It really takes away and patina of age and the story of these statues but seems to be the way most of south east Asia. There is something endearing about the unrestored statues and it gives rise to thoughts about their past and the environmental effects on the materials and I always love an object with a story. See what you think.
As we got nearer to the foot of the mountain the buddhas changed and clearly had not been restored so far anyway. These were beautiful and almost hidden amongst the grasses and trees. The more you stared the more statues you began to see emerging from the landscape. It is a truly beautiful and tranquil sight with these statues showing signs of the environmental effects of living in the landscape and becoming harmonised within their surroundings. It is worth visiting this place for the buddhas even if you didn’t want the challenge of climbing the mountain.
So onwards and upwards. The climb is in the most part steep stairs of a variety of shapes and sizes. This actually makes for a difficult climb as it is hard to get into a rhythm. There are some areas of path in a couple of places but not much. About half an hour into the climb there is a stopping point with taps and water. We weren’t sure about drinking the water and had come prepared but what it was very useful for was tipping over ones head to cool down!
At this resting point there are a few buildings it kind of looks like there is development in progress and maybe one day there will be a shop or cafe there but currently there is nothing except the taps. There is also a mini pagoda or stupa again highly painted so I cannot give a guess as to its age.
About an hour into the climb we came to a clearing in the trees and could start to appreciate how high we were getting by the view. You can see for miles. The area is a very flat plain with the occasional mountain bursting from the ground.
The mountain path is lined with interesting flora and fauna and we encountered many birds, dragonflies, butterflies a centipede and a couple of crabs. Yes I did say crab they are a fresh water variety quite unique to south east Asia and something new to me. When my friend said she had seen a crab half way up the mountain I thought the heat had got to her at first! But we did see more as the day moved on so unless we had all been hit by sunstroke and hallucinations there are indeed freshwater mountain crabs. I collected several small specimens of plants to press in my sketchbook and use later to create some cyanotype prints which I will share with you in a separate post.
Two hours into the climb we reached the top of the mountain. It is still some distance along the ridge theta to reach the monastery and our time was fast running out so we took a group decision to call it a day at that point and return to the bottom, not really knowing at this point how long that would take. We took a number of celebratory photos at the top. Below is my attempt at high altitude yoga!
and the view…definitely worth the effort!
Downtown Yangon is an affordable area to stay with plenty of choice. The area is very interesting for a wander and accidentally discover markets and little industries almost on every road. The buildings are a mix of colonial styles which are looking very worn and …
On to the final post from Shwedagon Pagoda. So far we have looked at people and architecture for this one I will focus on the detail and show you some of the wonderful patterns and colours that cover every available surface. Each space has a …
There has been a pagoda on this site for at least 2500 years. The first one apparently was 8.2 meters tall whereas today it stands very tall and proud at nearer to 110 meters. It is a clear landmark on the Yangon skyline and very clearly a very important symbol to the people. The pagoda is covered with real gold and 4531 diamonds the biggest one being 72 carats and it is so noticeable that it is real gold and diamonds as it glistens like a shiny treasure in the sky. Having seen quite a number of temples, pagodas and stupas in the last few months this is by far the biggest and shiniest of them all. The photos don’t really do it justice either by way of size or sparkle.
The large pagoda is in the centre of the complex with stations for each day of the week so you can make an offering for the day you were born. I was born on a Sunday (the child that is born on the sabbath day is bonny and bright good and gay, just in case anyone had forgotten!) but neither of my friends were sure what day they were born on so we didn’t bother with that.
There are numerous buildings in another circle around the edge with a large space in-between for walking around. Lots of the outside buildings are designed for sitting in with large Buddha statues at one end and seem to alternate between places of worship and general social gathering areas. Or simply places to take shelter from the weather. During our trip the weather alternated from extremely hot sun to total monsoon like down pours so these areas were a godsend. And as I said earlier it was a joy to sit around and watch people going about their usual lives and entering into conversations with all sorts of people.
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The first full day in Myanmar was spent in Yangon and most of it at the Shwedagon Pagoda. It is one of those things that you really cannot spend time in this country and not visit it. It literally blew me away with its beauty, size, …
I thought while I’m on the topic of people and Myanmar I should introduce my friends that I was travelling with. The very lovely Theresa and Sally-Anne organised the whole thing as they knew I’d had a difficult year one way and another so offered …
The final place I explored in South East Asia was Myanmar. I spent three weeks there travelling around and saw some very beautiful places.
One thing that struck me right from the beginning was how warm, welcoming and genuine the people were. From my first evening when I arrived late and had to get a taxi from the airport to the downtown area of Yangon where the entire journey was full of conversation about why I had come, what I should see while I was there with a full visual show to go with it from the drivers phone. To my very last taxi journey to an obscure guest house near the airport, where the driver had to ask at least four different people where it was and then gave me his number and insisted if I needed anything at all before I left that I would give him a ring.
Everywhere I travelled I met beautiful people. So I thought that my first post should be a snap shot of some of these people who made the experience so good. My first full day in Yangon was spent in the Shwedagon Pagoda and met these little monks who were so intrigued at our pale skin as they hadn’t seen anyone that pale before! We ended up with a skin comparison exercise to see the range of skin we had between us a delightful experience.
At one point it rained heavily and we took refuge sitting under a roofed area and were approached by a lovely couple of monks who wanted to practice their english. We chatted for ages finding out about each others lives until the rain subsided.
On to Kalaw and we met up with Kam who was our most excellent guide for a two day hike down to Inle Lake. He was great company and full of knowledge about all sorts of stuff. It was especially interesting to learn about the flora and fauna as we walked and discover flowers, food, butterflies and bugs. We were sorry to say goodbye when the time came.
On the same hike we met this man who was selling fresh honey in the middle of nowhere. We would have bought it if we had some kind of tub to put it in!
On the same hike we stopped for a drink and met these two who were very shy. The little girl in red disappeared for a while and came back with this flower garland for me that she had just made from flower heads threaded on to a piece of long grass. Such a beautiful gesture. So many children in every area we travelled would run after us shouting ‘hello hello hello’ and then ‘goodbye goodbye goodbye’ as we passed by and pretty much everyone everywhere waved as we went past.
On to Mandalay and met Ashin on the way up Mandalay hill to see the sunset from the temple at the top. Ashin too wanted to practice his English and became our impromptu tour guide for the evening giving us a unique insight about the temple.
This lovely lady was delighted that I wanted to take her photograph after she had given me a personal tour up to the roof of one of the many many temples in Bagan. There stairs were extremely steep and in the pitch black so she went first holding a torch behind her so I could see where I was going!
And finally also in Bagan the most wonderful family who ran the guest house we stayed in for three days. They couldn’t do enough to help us. We ate like kings for breakfast on the roof and I was particularly grateful for the care taken with my coeliac needs. The bottom picture is of the lady we called mum during our stay and I particularly liked sharing recipes and learning about food from her.
So that gives you a little taste of some of the people we met along our way.
This is slightly out of sync as by now in real life I had been to Myanmar. But I thought I’d put all the Thailand adventures together and then concentrate on Myanmar. So this was my very last evening in Asia after such a brilliant …