On the road to Bagan, Burma
On the road to Bagan, Burma. 2 April 1986
The road in Mandalay
Mandalay, Burma. 6 April 1986
The quiet streets of Mandalay, dominated by foot traffic and bicycle rickshaws.
Trip to Bagan
2 April 1986, Burma
A morning tea break at a village on the way to Bagan, Burma.
First day in Rangoon, Burma
Gilded Buddha at the Sule Pagoda – 1 April 1986
Walked from the Garden Guesthouse to the Sule Pagoda.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sule_Pagoda
The golden pagoda is surrounded by an almost carnival array of gaudy, kitsch architecture, statues, wishing wells, places where you throw coins into revolving buckets…
Sule Pagoda
Then walked to the Botataung Pagoda by the waterfront.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botataung_Pagoda
You can walk inside it amongst a glittering maze of tiny mirrored glass. A gold buddha is housed in a separate building. The British returned it in 1950 after 40 years.
Had a delicious yogurt for 4.5k and a slice of watermelon for 1/4k [US$10 exchange rate at the time = 70 kyats]. A rickshaw back into town. Teamed up with a couple headed for the Shwedagon Pagoda. We caught a jam-packed bus for 1/2 k. Prue is a Silverstream school [NZ] alumni, five years before me, now living in Wellington; Joseph, an Aussie.
At the Shwedagon we wandered around in the midday heat, barefoot on the marble.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shwedagon_Pagoda
Shwedagon Pagoda – renovations under the rattan weaving
It’s a fabulous structure with many smaller pagodas clustered around. All an unusual blend of architectural styles that left an impression of gaudiness rather than beauty and harmony. Had lunch there.
Shwedagon pagoda
Shwedagon Pagoda
Met up with three others there on the way back – taxi. One is Rick who I saw at the airport last night – last saw him in Koh Samui. Walked around town. Looked through the British colonial splendiferous hotel ‘The Strand’. Met Lorna and a German & British guy – had a bottle of beer. Lorna had $80 stolen today. Headed for the train station for a 6.15 pm departure up country.
Nightmare journeys # 13 – Rangoon to Pagan
The 7 day visa backpackers shuffled into the carriage of the train from Rangoon to Thazi. We found our tickets entitled us to…floor space. Never mind, only a 12 hour overnight journey… on a crammed – full train… in the middle of the hottest month of the year. It was still the week of the water festival associated with the Burmese new year, Thingyan, and periodically a bucketful of water would be hurled through one of the open windows of the carriage drenching those sitting on the bench seats. After the initial shock it didn’t take long for everyone to break out laughing.
The local Burmese families were kind to us floor dwellers and shared their food. I shared my walkman and judging by the faces it was the first time they had ever experienced music by headphones. Or maybe it was to do with the Eurythmics…
At 6am it was time to disembark at Thazi & make our way to the bus station on the other side of town by local taxi – a horse and cart. The bus turned out to be a Datsun bemo that was already full. There were no less than 27 men, women and children piled in! I climbed onto the roof to escape the packed-in-like-sardines horror below. On top were large trunks, all the backpacks and 6 other backpackers.
Heat and sunburn be damned – it was a commanding view up top as we slowly made our way across flat, baking, featureless plains. Periodically the driver would stop and we’d clamber off as he crawled under the vehicle to tap on the rear axle with a wrench. A technique obviously learnt from bitter experience. But what was he going to do if it was cracked – abandon us in the middle of nowhere? There were few other vehicles on the road.
After 5 hours finally a vista of temples dotting the landscape at Pagan (now Bagan). Got off weary and dizzy from the heat, found the Sitthu guesthouse, drank water from an earthenware jug by mistake – “for the Burmese” and spent the night throwing up from both ends…