Seat of Our Pants

Bagan Culture, Still Alive

The word ‘culture’ derives from cultivating, as in cultivating the earth: the act of bringing food out of the soil through hard work. With time, the word came to mean more than that – it came to represent the very qualities that set us apart as a species.

The link between agriculture and culture is pretty obvious here in Bagan. Among the cultural relics, the direct descendants of the people who built the temples are still toiling with the earth, cultivating peanuts, corn, sour plums and tobacco. Even though Kublai Khan sacked the place 800 years ago, they’re still here, and they’re not going anywhere. Bagan is a link between what civilization once emerged from, and what it is today. That’s pretty cool in my books.

So take that, Kublai.

Wanting What You Can’t Have

A common phenomenon when traveling is craving food that you had in the country you just left. We are certainly not an exception. For months, we munched on Chana Masalas, Raitas, Chapatis and Papadams while longingly talking about Thai fish cakes and Vietnamese Pho.

So it was no surprise that we found ourselves in Bagan’s best Indian restaurant for three consecutive meals.

The flipside? When we go home we’ll be able to cook all these things.

My favorite Stupa in Bagan

With over 4,000 to choose from, it’s not terribly difficult to find a favorite stupa in Bagan. Some are huge while some are no taller than me (that’s a whopping 5′ 4”). Most are red brick ruins in varying degrees of decay, but some have been rebuilt and painted a blinding white or gold leafed (the supposed original state of these structures). Their shape can be bulbous knobs, brick cubes, multi-leveled spires or fairytale-style castles. They’re also a stone’s throw away from one another, so you’re literally surrounded in choices.

Like I said, with the sheer number and variety of them, you’re bound to find something here you can fall in love with. My favorite was Dhamma-ya-za-ka Zedi in the southern part of the valley. Unlike many of the big temples around, which are suffering from structural issues, the Dhamma-blah-blah-blah can be climbed. The way up is by the stairways tucked behind the structures that are attached to the outside of the main building.

Scrambling up these stairs offers a stunning view of the valley. Unlike the lame Bagan Viewing Tower, you’ll find this view is good on the soul – it’s free so no money goes into the government’s pockets (that is, except for the $10 you originally paid to visit Bagan). We also shared the view with exactly one other person – so, shhhhh. The Dhamma Blah-Blah-Blah Zedi can be our little secret.

View from Dhamma-ya-za-ka Zedi

Myanmar Ads

Some of the ads around here are really quite funny to our western advertisement-jaded eyes. Take the gem above: it tells you absolutely nothing about the product, and all about the nation’s love for heavy metal.

We’ve also seen a few instances of a certain disregard for the truth. If only this was true: I’d live forever too.

We’ll keep an eye out for more gems. Stay tuned…

Not Exactly Our Style

We recently spoke to a local trishaw driver that confirmed our suspicions: most visitors to Myanmar come on an organized tour.

The other night, we had the misfortune of having our cozy little temple-top sunset viewing session invaded by a bus full of Japanese tourists. They swarmed our magical and secluded spot, and we actually left some time before the sun dipped below the horizon. Each tourist had a loudspeaker hanging from around their necks, directly connected to their tour-guide, so that they could have a constant feed of information. Another nifty device played soft music (oboe and strings) while the sun slowly lowered itself behind Bagan’s ridiculously beautiful temples.

I guess it could have been a tour group from any country, Asian, European or American. The point is that I never see us travel in that style. What’s the charm in having it all served up on a tray?

Seriously, How Old Are You?

I married an older man. I’m OK with that – except when it bores me. Let me explain.

Yesterday’s temple hopping brought us to a stupa where Buddha washing was going on. We’d heard about this phenomenon before. If you know the day of the week you’re born, you find the statue dedicated to that day. You pour one cup of water on that Buddha’s head for each year you’ve lived, followed by an extra one for a long life.

I don’t know what day of the week I’m born on (Mom, feel free to comment on that one), but Martin did, so he started pouring. And he poured. And he poured. And…seriously?

Well, apparently the love of my life can’t count, pour water and talk at the same time. All he could do was nod his head, while deep in concentration and continue pouring water.

We left twenty five minutes and a very clean Buddha later.

Catching the Best Photo of Bagan

Because the Bagan area is so flat, the best views are had up high – and the higher the better. In search of that perfect picture Martin and I scrambled, ducked, climbed and squeezed our way through a number of temples. It wasn’t exactly Indiana Jones-style, but it was close.

Much like Angkor Wat was five years ago, Bagan’s temples seem to have very few regulations about how they can be explored. With the exception of three of the largest ones, which have structural issues, most of these buildings are free to explore.

Climbing up them, over them and on top of them is one of the great parts about being here – that and the expectation of the great photo opportunities that lay in wait at the top of every temple.

Being amateur photographers, I wouldn’t say that we had much success in getting our money shot. In fact, our pictures don’t get anywhere near doing justice to the place – but you can check out some of my favorites in the gallery below.

[View with PicLens]

The Infamous Bagan Eyesore

Poor countries often take a different approach to making money off their world-famous sites, at least compared to their richer counterparts. In Cambodia, for example, the entrance fee for the Angkor Wat complex goes to a petrol company.

Here on the plain of Bagan, this colossus stands out as an example of mismanaging a tourism resource. It blends into its surroundings like only a massive steel skyscraper can blend into a temple-strewn plain. You can climb the thing for a mere five dollars, but there’s no way we’re going to sponsor this ugliness.

The Temples of Bagan

This is Bagan: more than four thousand four hundred temples, stupas and monasteries that crowd a relatively small patch of land along the Irrawaddy river. Most of it dates back to an era 1,000 to 800 years ago, when kings ruled the land during a golden age of architectural achievement.

Eventually, the Mongol-Chinese Emperor Kublai Khan came along and sacked the place in 1287 AD. The conquering army looted and pillaged the valuables, but left most of the structures standing. Today, Bagan is Myanmar’s premier tourism draw, and a worthy one for sure.

We are now exploring the area: 42 square kilometers of ruins and sights, and as long as we can negotiate the notoriously slow and unreliable internet connection, we will post about it in detail.

Exploring Bagan, Indie Style

If you’re independent travelers, like ourselves, you will have three choices for exploring Bagan. The first is on foot – which is just dumb. The valley is huge – 42 square kilometers to be exact, making the other two options, horse-cart or bicycle, much better options.

We chose the horse cart tour for our first day. Horse, cart and guide set us back roughly $15 for an eight hour tour. Our guide spoke relatively good English (though I’m pretty sure that one of his stories included a long-haired monk throwing a toilet paper roll into something and it became a rainbow – what?) and gave us the history of most of the places where we stopped. The route he took caught all the best off-the-beaten-track temples which included a great little monastery to catch the sunset. We shared this with just two other people – unlike the droves of air-con bus groups that pack together on the larger monuments.

Our second and third day was spent on bicycle, which can be easily rented from a guesthouse for roughly $1.50 for the day. Having gained a good idea of what buildings we liked and didn’t like (because the sheer volume ensures that you will not be able to see them all in one trip), we rode around at our own pace. Having the freedom to stop when you want allowed us to explore many of the stupas that are overlooked by others. It’s a magical (if slightly sweaty) way to spend a day – that is, if you can keep on the bike in the thick sand.

All in all we spent three days exploring Bagan. Any less would have left us feeling shortchanged and any more would have been overkill. As sad as it might sound, getting templed-out is a pretty easy thing to do.

Lunch: 3 dollars, 18 courses

This is how lunch is served in Myanmar: fast, tasty and extremely bountiful. There’s no need for a menu, because you’ll be served all the dishes the house can muster. First, there’s rice – as much rice as you can eat. Then there are at least three curries: pork, mutton, and chicken, all milder than their Indian cousins but still tasty.  These are accompanied by a veritable barrage of side dishes: potatoes in chili and fish sauce, stir fried vegetables, soy bean paste, chili chutney, a mango and garlic relish and a plate of fresh vegetables and herbs. Throw in some deep-fried fish and chicken wings, a cup of soup and a dessert consisting of bananas with sweets, and you’ve got yourself a nice little Burmese lunch.

We counted eighteen dishes, but we may have missed one or five. At three bucks per person, it has got to be counted as pretty fair value for money.

Myanmar Phones

We’ve commented on our first impressions of Myanmar already, but I have another observation to add: you don’t see many cell phones around. What you do see are these: street side phone stands.

They’re more common in big cities, but you do see them in the countryside as well. They’re little tables with a phone and an attendant. The phone line hangs onto the nearest tree, connected to god-only-knows where. How the whole thing works is beyond me, but it’s a good example of what makes traveling here so fun. It’s funky and backwards and we’re digging it.

Toke Up, Granny

Oh yeah. That’s happening – but it’s not what you might think.

That fatty is filled with a mix of tobacco chip, tamarind, palm tree wood chips and some other dubious ingredients to form a cigar. This gentle 78 year old lady smokes two of them – every day for the last 60 years.

Toke on granny, toke on.

Myanmar Lacquer Ware

Following our tradition of buying dumb things on this trip, I have a new souvenir I’m obsessing about. Martin is doing his best to restrain me. Yesterday’s tour of Bagan lead us to a family-operated lacquer ware factory where we were given a tour by the fourth generation owner. I’ve admittedly never given much thought to lacquer ware – actually I’ve thought it was a bit cheesy – but I’ve changed my tune.

The item (vase, bowl, cup, etc) starts as interlocking bamboo shards. These are pieced together and covered by a lacquer made up of resin and cotton then left to dry for two weeks. Fourteen layers later, the piece is ready to be decorated.

Using infinite patience and an Exacto knife, patterns are carved into the hardened lacquer. Paint is then rubbed into the carved pattern – resulting in some seriously beautiful, sometimes mind-blowingly intricate items.

I want one – bad. The problems with this are two-fold. We don’t have the money (the piece I want is US $350) and we don’t have the space to carry it. Being a dirt-poor backpacker does nothing for my future home decor. Nothing, I say!