BAGAN AND BACK
Bagan is on a plain along the great Ayervaddy river dotted with temples. You must buy a $10 government pass to visit the sights. Some years ago the military decreed all the inhabitants had to vacate to a New Bagan nearby. Was it to preserve the archeology or establish a touristic enclave or profit from the creation of a new town?
Mindala Ba! Hello! I said dozens of times a day and always got an answer and a smile. I think I left my heart in Myanmar! Nothing like the charm of the street peddlers' cries, and native songs blaring from some radio before dawn. Unlike the Westernized pap on television.
On a roommate's tip, I had reserved a dorm bed in the Eden guest house with a 25 cent phone call from Yangon. They told me to get a 1500 kyat taxi to the Eden, about a dollar and a half. We arrived around four in the morning to find a small crowd of men, one holding a sign saying "Alexa Ross" as you see in airports. Flattered, I followed the man to a pony cart. Christian and I mounted the back with our luggage, not knowing we should face backwards, and clattered down the predawn streets that teemed with people. It was magical! We dismounted at the Eden, and I presented the little nag with an apple but it wasn't interested. The driver asked if I wanted him to return for a dawn tour of the temples. NO! But many others rise in the dark to see the sun rise.
A lady welcomed us to the Eden. I was amazed that we would not be charged to sleep in that morning. Christian with his cold took a room. My dorm bed was across the street and up three flights, a mattress on the floor. There were several fellows sprawled about. Next to me was the door to a terrace. I saw Christian settling into his room across the street. My bed was $7 a night, $9 with breakfast across the way outside Christian's room. It wasn't as good as the Okinawa, just eggs and white toast, fruit and instant coffee or tea bags but you did meet your fellow travellers.
On the streets were bikes for hire to explore the ten kilometers of temples. One of my roommates, a Chilean, told me there were Indian restaurants a 15 minute walk away. I headed out, photographed a brick temple and found the restaurant Aroma, but it didn't open until six and the prices seemed high, starting at $3. I walked on, reading restaurant menus, and settled on a place with tasty rice and veggies and papaya juice. Across the way was a workshop of waxed paper umbrellas in brilliant colors suitable for rain, sun or snow. I resolved to return one day and buy one. At the end of the street was a free Thanaka, or sandalwood, museum, wood that is used for construction, crafts and cosmetics. Two monkeys looked out from their cage at research gardens.
At the hotel you could have laundry washed and ironed for 25 cents apiece. Every day the power disappeared, so there was a flashlight available for the bathroom off the lobby. There was a television with HBO and many commercials, but the owner's brood preferred to watch sports.
Christian rented a bike his first day, and threatened by village dogs, tripped in his flip flops and fell and cut his hand. A local doctor cleaned his wound. I found a restaurant featuring soup, salad, entree and dessert for $3 and dined in solitary splendor, wondering how the place survived. Then an older European with a native girl arrived for alcoholic drinks, and there was a big hotel next door.
The lady owner of the Eden told me about a trip the next day in a shared van to Mount Popa, for a price. At first I demurred, intending to rent a bike and tour the temples. But I came to my senses and joined Christian and four other Germans the next morning, just after buying a photocopied edition of George Orwell's Burmese Days, for sale everywhere in Myanmar. The other Germans had lots of stories of being ripped off one way or another in their travels, especially changing money on the street. We stopped at a roadside farm where a man was climbing a tree to harvest coconuts and an ox was walking in a circle, grinding palm nuts into oil. There were numerous things for sale, coconut candy, sesame seeds, baskets, booze...I looked at palm liquor being distilled over a fire and bought a bottle nested in a woven leaf carrier. A woman painted pale sandalwood leaves on my cheeks. I joined tourists at a table sampling a mixture of dry tea, coconut, garlic, beans and peanuts that was delicious. At another stop to photograph Mount Popa from a distance, little girls tried to sell us stones with smaller stones inside that rattled.
Finally we were at our destination and began to climb the 777 stairs to the top. It was a varied and interesting, shoeless climb. All along the way were stalls selling food and souvenirs, families of monkeys and also men with rags intoning "Donation for cleaning..." monkey poop off the steps. Many photos, many views of the valley! I lost the rest of the group but we had a rendezvous with the van in an hour. At the top, I noticed many plaques devoted to tourists from different countires who had given five dollars or a hundred dollars.There were glass boxes full of bills everywhere. I rushed back down to the street and my legs were trembling as I sought out strawberries, sugar cane juice, and bags of potato and banana chips.
When I got back to my room I realized my camera was missing. I ran across the street to the main lobby and the company was called. I waited anxiously, ready with a generous tip, and then the camera and Christian's hat, also left on the back seat, had been returned to my lobby. Blessed again!
It was time to brave the hot weather and rent a bike at $2 a day. It had an ingenious lock built into it. I headed out of town and saw a large temple with tour buses that required a visit. A lady shopkeeper directed me where to leave my sandals, and to see her wares. I just didn't want to add a thing to my heavy luggage. But I gave into buying a set of color postcards with a dollar bill. I regretted it later when I passed a meditation center and garden on the river, admission one dollar. There are large bells hanging near the ground at these temples and big clubs to strike them with. I love to oblige and hear the deep sound they make.
Back on the bike down the dusty road a few kilometers was another very big temple, this one with uniformed guards requesting to see your tourist pass. I dawdled before a shop and bought some sandals. In the temple were large Buddhas in four alcoves facing four directions. I enjoyed my lunch by my bike, then turned up another dusty road where a horse and cart were awaiting their tourists. A young man approached on a motorcycle, told me he was a student, then wanted to show me his art work, paintings on cloth that didn't wrinkle or weigh anything, of temples, of monks...but I just didn't feel they were things I couldn't live without. I read Burmese Days.
I wanted to see the world famous Ayerwaddy river up close and turned into a village and asked directions, heading downhill to the shore. A man asked if I wanted to hire his boat to watch the sunset. I ordered a sugar cane juice with lime and eyed the dogs. I walked my bike along the river to an outdoor restaurant with fried bananas, patties, and other things, at the base of a temple up a long flight of stairs. A kind fellow volunteered to carry my bike to the top! More pictures, and studying the map to see where to go next.
I must have visited three or four more temples and palaces before turning around and heading home. I still had a good 40 minutes left of my bike rental so I explored the town a way off the roundabout I'd never been and ended up again at the river at dusk. I returned the bike and stopped for cheap noodle soup at a roadside stand. Back at the Eden my Chilean roommate was replaced by a Japanese one. Two Chinese sisters (one recovering from diarrhea) and their niece had a room nearby and befriended me, as well as a youth from Mandalay traveling with them but sleeping in the dorm. He gave me bags of cookies and sweet toast, I gave him a black and white striped referee shirt for his birthday. I'd hauled it around for eight months and never worn it. We became Facebook friends. I gave my copy of Burmese Days away.
There was a little Internet place up the road but the connection was agonizingly slow, and of course the power was off half the afternoon. I had called all the cheap places in Mandalay listed in Lonely Planet, and all were booked. Christian headed that way on a bus, but could always sleep in a monastery. I bought a ticket from the lady to go back to Yangon for two nights before my flight to Bangkok. The cheapest flight back to Europe from Asia proved to be to Milan, so the same day I flew to Bangkok I would fly all night to Italy. I found a couch for one night there with a Polish girl.
I spent a final melancholy day in Bagan. The man at the restaurant next door, was a drunk, very friendly to me one night, very angry at everyone the next. His mother and sisters put up with it. He was ex-military and tried to explain an injury to me. He gave me a nice back massage right there in the restaurant. I ordered vegetables but they were inedible. Up the street I chose a native salad and it was a job to get through it. I returned to the umbrella shop and picked an orange one, even more beautiful with the light through it than the red or green or gold. I talked to the man about cutting it down to fit in my suitcase. He gave me a brilliant orange carrier bag and a bag full of tamarand slices wrapped in tissue. I lost that umbrella at the train station in Lisbon. I'll have to go back to buy another one on my next trip!
The bus was late but came at last the next morning. I had to change buses after a while. I sat with a tall European who had been to Bangladesh and Africa and said she loved it. There were French people on my second bus and I told them we could take a cheap bus back to Suda Pagoda but when we descended at dusk the taxi drivers swore the buses stopped running at six. I had run out of money and there were no ATMs in Bagan. I agreed to share a taxi with the French, but then we passed buses and I figured we'd been lied to. The taxi driver had his wife and son in the car. The son wouldn't take candy from me. The driver didn't much know the area and asked repeatedly people on the street where the French people's hotel was. Finally we spied it. I hoped the surly receptionist at the Okinawa would lend me my few dollars share of the taxi. We went round the Pagoda twice before I pinpointed the right street. It wasn't a problem, they seemed glad to see me back. And there were the Germans from the van to Mount Popa heading home the next day!
I took my same bed as before and met the fellow I'd sat next to on the plane from Bangkok. I set off for the ATM machine and paid my hotel bill and repaid the loan. I went off for strawberry yogurt and masala dosa and joined the street life of Yangon once again. I had heard of a nice two hour circular train journey around the city, $1 for foreigners and ten cents for locals, who often brought huge sacks of produce to market that way. I found some Aung San Suu Kyi t-shirts and headed for the gems market, but couldn't see paying $10 for a tiny citrine or aquamarine or peridot, so I bought a few dollar bracelets and a card with samples of thirty or so gems found in Myanmar. I thought of buying two cards to make earrings...
It was off by bus to the airport, I could get there at one twentieth the price of a taxi! I had a short ride in a tuk tuk the last kilometer and flew to Bangkok, but my flight to Milan was from another airport. No problem, a free shuttle! This airport was huge, modern, with giant standing demons in a line. I ate, I read, I walked around, I lost my pointed straw Oriental hat. I had so much time between flights I nearly missed my plane. Suddenly the kids from the ticket counter were rushing me to the gate. How did they find me? This would never happen in the West. When I got on the crowded airbus jammed with Italians, the energy was astounding. I shook my head in disbelief and left Asia behind.
ALexa
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