Outskirts of Mandalay

Soe picked us up at the Kyi Tin Hotel and we all boarded the tuk tuk. It had bars for sides instead of walls, which kept things comfortable with the wind while driving.

Our first stop was Yadana Labamuni Hsu-taungpye Paya (mouthful) which is more generally known as Hmwe Paya or the “Snake Pagoda”. It was founded in 1974 when a Buddhist monk found two large burmese pythons wrapped around a statue of Buddha in the old pagoda that sat on the site. The monk took the snakes out to the jungle. The next day, the snakes came back, this time with a third python. The temple’s monks would carry the snakes back out to the jungle several times and each day they would return. Eventually the monks came to see the monks as holy, possibly even the reincarnated souls of mons who used to tend to the pagoda, and began taking care of the snakes. The pythons are babied - fed and washed daily.

I love snake temples and it was neat to see the kids with them.  We also explored around the complex and found some dogs, about a dozen millipedes, and a suburban bathroom (better than in Mongolia).

From the snake temple we went to a place that wasn’t listed on any map. The hotel a copy of Lonely Planet Myanmar. In it, I came across one line mixed in a paragraph that said roughly “there is a mini-Bagan like group of temples south of Mandalay”. That was it. No listing, no call out, no map. Just those 8-10 words. Soledad and I absolutely love Bagan so we wanted to check it out. Wow were we not disappointed. Bewildering, this place has no official government entrance or anything. You just drive around a rural neighborhood and it’s just there. And there are something like 100 temple ruins like this crumbling into the jungle. Astounding.

From there, we tuk tuked to the Myitnge River, where boats left for Inwa.  While waiting for the boat we had lunch with Soe  at an open air (hot) Myanmar restaurant and learned quite a bit about him. He had been driving a tuk tuk for many years. As a driver, he realized that if he could speak English he could work with tourists more and better. He began taking English classes with a Buddhist monk. However, this Buddhist monk was later put on a government blacklist for spreading propaganda critical of the government. 

When the government seized the monk and his paperwork at the temple, they assembled a list of all of the monk’s followers. Because of his English classes, Soe’s name was placed on the governmental blacklist along with the monk’s true followers. Soe either tried to or wanted to explain that he was just an English student, but quickly realized that wasn’t going to work and he was in danger. He immediately said goodbye to his wife and baby daughter and hitchhiked to the Thai border. 

On the way, Soe had to dodge government checkposts because of his blacklisted name. Finally, at the Myanmar/Thailand border he was stopped by Thai border officials. Purposefully without identification papers and realizing that if he were identified as a Myanmar trying to enter Thailand illegally that he’d be turned away, Soe was at a crossroads. He summoned his best broken English and yelled at the guard (paraphrased, “I am from the Philippines. I lost my passport in Myanmar and am traveling to the embassy in Bangkok. If you don’t let me pass then I’ll take down your name and get you in trouble with the embassy!” The border guard let Soe pass through. Soe worked in a textile factory in Bangkok for the next 5-7 years, and returned after military rule ended in 2011. 

Incredible. This is one of the values of travel, IMO. To meet people with unique histories and lives that you only read about. In person, the story, the feeling, the impact is greater and it’s impossible to ignore. It also gives me greater perspective when evaluating my own life, the hurdles I encounter, and the things I take (but try not to) for granted.

After lunch, we took the boat to Inwa. Inwa was the imperial capital of the Burmese kingdom on five different occasions from the 1300s to 1800s. Horse carriages were the mode of transport here so we hired one to take us through a few of Inwa’s still remaining buildings.

 

After lunch, we headed to the Werawsana Jade Pagoda in Kyaukse. Erected and donated by two jade mining families, the pagoda was inaugurated in 2015, only four years ago.  It is the world’s first pagoda made entirely of jade, and carries more than 10,000 tons of the semi-precious stone. It was cool. Well, actually not cool because it was the middle of the day in the Myanmar summer without easy shade to find so you had skip around the outside of the stupa barefoot looking for the white tiles which didn’t burn the soles of your feet like the concrete or black tile floor did.

We then headed to Sagaing Hill, just across the Irrawaddy River bridge, where we continued up the hill to Umin Thonze Temple. Its terraces, found by walking up a number of steps, held great views of the area surrounding Mandalay. Inside were 45 Buddhas in a semicircle with a mirror that created a kaleidoscopic effect. 

After taking in the view from Sagaing Hill we continued to our last stop - U Bein Bridge. Made from the teak remains of a royal palace, U Bein Bridge is the oldest teak bridge in the world. It’s three-quarters of a mile long and spans Lake Taungthaman with more than a thousand wooden pillars. It has not a single handrail so you need to be careful when crossing, especially with kids. While we walked across the bridge, a group of youngsters ran ahead and started diving off some of the taller pillars.

We ate dinner in a Myanmar restaurant overlooking the bridge. What a day! And in Myanmar so many days would be like this.

The next day, we took a minivan, hired through the hotel who’d found one cheaper than I could myself, to Bagan. The three hour trip in minivan was a great way to see rural Myanmar as we could top off anywhere we liked, provided that we circumnavigated the bovine traffic jams.

While the kids were sleeping, we stopped at a roadside restaurant and ordered food to go. Without an English menu, I used my best pidgin English to order half a chicken and sweet and sour chicken fried rice from the nicest restaurant staff you could ever meet. The food would take 15 minute to cook. The restaurant didn’t have Coke Zero, but pointed me in the direction of one that might, so I headed out to explore. I never found the Coke Zero but did pick up a soccer ball for $4, 8 mini eclairs for $0.70, and 2 bananas for $0.15. When I got back to the restaurant, they had somehow found cans of Coke Zero. Score! I didn’t even mind that the “half chicken” turned out to be 5 drumsticks. All good.

At the end of our afternoon transcursion, we arrived at Bagan Step, a place we had found on AirBnB and stayed at 3 years prior. We were excited to be back.