Category: The Golden Land

If you’ve watched travel shows on TV then you have probably seen a segment somewhere on hot air ballooning at sunrise over the thousands of ancient temples and pagodas that are scattered around Bagan. We were up very early this morning for a 5:15 am pick up to take us to the launching fields where we were met with fresh croissants, Danish pastries and fresh hot coffee. After a short debriefing the balloons were first filled with air with two large high power fans and then a few bursts of high intensity flames. There were ten people in the main compartment which was split in two and a separate compartment for the pilot. The wind was calm and the air was hazy. A few more bursts of flame and we gently started our ascent. Our company was the “Golden Eagle” with three balloons along with two other companies which brought the count to ten balloons that filled the airspace. Our top altitude was about 2,000 feet where we saw the sunrise over the horizon albeit through a fairly thick haze which unfortunately didn’t lend itself to the best light for photography. Joyce was nervous at first but quickly relaxed once we took off. There is no wind (you move with the wind) and the ride was smooth although we would be lying if we said the thought of the balloon blowing up in flames and crashing to earth didn’t cross our minds. We flew a little lower later in the flight and with more sunlight the details of the temples and pagodas became clearer but we didn’t see the colours of the early morning sunshine that you see on any brochure or travel show but the experience was still a “once in a life-time”. Upon touch down we celebrated (our safe landing?) with a chilled glass of champagne. This is a ritual after all balloon flights and the reason why as the story goes is in the 1700’s a French man-made the first manned hot air balloon flight and landed in a farmer’s field. Not being up to date on manned balloon flights the farmers figured he was not from this world. I’m not sure if they tried to stone him death or not but on his subsequent flights he carried a bottle of champagne with him to prove to whoever’s field or house he crashed into that he was in fact from France and not the moon or some other place where hot air balloons wouldn’t work anyway. This flight was definitely on our bucket list so we can now cross this off and move to next one, space travel!

I’m hoping not to jinx ourselves by saying this but things seem to come together quite well when “winging it”. Our plan today was to finalize our plans for the next week or two and then do an afternoon tour of two of four cities in the near vicinity of Mandalay and everything fell into place perfectly. I’ll start with our afternoon visit to U-Min-Thone-Sef Pagoda in Sagaing on Sagaing Hill and U Pein Bridge in Amarapura. I’ll quote the descriptions of each from our little brochure and map.

“U-Min-Thone-Sef Pagoda on Sagaing Hill overlooks the back of this mountain. There are steps leading up to the first part of the temple where you can see many Buddha figures aligned forming a magnified image. Above the temple does not offer much more but there are interesting views where you can see a small temple where an old monk lives on a retreat in solitude”

“The three quarters of a mile long U Pein Bridge crossing the Taung-tha-man-In Lake is the longest teak bridge in the world although a bit rickety in some parts. It has withstood the storms and floods of over two centuries”.

Now back to our successful day of trip planning and the route we will follow over the next 3 nights and 4 full days. I’ll update the rest a little later. It all starts with asking front desk hotel employees questions. Who better to ask than a local and they always come through because they have a friend or brother or someone they know who can get you in touch with their friend, brother, sister or uncle and in this case we were hooked up with a beautiful lady named Aye Aye Nwe who runs a small travel agency and is the Managing Director of KN Travels & Tours Co. and has lots of connections. We told her what we wanted and voila, she made it happen. We wanted a private river boat to take us upstream on the Irrawaddy River to Kyaung Myaung. We then wanted to head downstream with stops at Mingun, Ava, Vandabo and with our final destination being Bagan where we want to go up in a hot air balloon at sunrise to view the 100’s of magnificent temples in the area. We wanted to do this slowly over 4 days so we could stop and smell the roses along the way, we wanted a boat to ourselves and we didn’t want to spend a fortune doing it. Check, check, check and check! We have a 64 foot river boat with 4 people looking after all of our meals and needs, 36 cans of Myanmar Lager, a bottle of wine and, we have our Bluetooth speaker and Spotify via 4G on Ooroodo Telecom on our phone so we can laze and listen to tunes or whatever, whenever we want. River cruising at its best and not too bad in my books. We depart tomorrow and will arrive in Bagan the evening of March 1st and we’ll spend 3 nights in Bagan and then head out to further explore this beautiful country.

We spent three nights at the Hotel Yadanarbon Mandalay. Our room and bed was very comfortable, the staff extremely helpful and friendly and the roof top infinity pool, deck and bar was perfect for a late afternoon cool one or two. The downstairs restaurant also offered evening ethnic music, dance and puppet shows.

 

 

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So I Didn’t finish yesterdays post yet because I wanted to get today’s post done although yesterdays post was done today and talks about what we did yesterday. Damn! I wish I could figure out how to set the calendar on this blog site to more accurately reflect the real-time stuff I want to talk about. Oh well and any way, we had a great day today. As was mentioned yesterday (today) Mandalay is a very nice city and we strolled the streets and back lanes, markets and shops and had a wonderful time. It is such a cool place. We stopped into a store and I bought a new pair of shorts, high-end Joyce tells me for $21.00. Made in, guess where? Yes, China so maybe they are knock offs. I also bought the local attire, a longy, a men’s skirt but I really need to learn how to tie it properly otherwise I’ll be wearing shorts underneath which kind of defeats the purpose. I’ve worn one twice so far and they just don’t stay tied up for some reason. No one else has this problem but, no one else has a beer belly so maybe this is the reason? Probably and I can’t wear a belt. More pics of this outfit to follow soon I’m sure. We had a great day wandering the streets, meeting the locals and stopping for lunch at a little food stand where we had a delicious bowl of vegetable noodle soup with the locals, a couple of which were getting drunk on this beautiful Saturday afternoon.

We left today open so we could wander the streets and arrange boat transport for a trip up and down the Irrawaddy River. Time was ticking and we really needed to get something organized. Yesterday our hotel did a little research on our behalf and came up with two options. A 2 night/3 day cruise and a 3 night/4 day cruise to Bagan but our dates didn’t fit the schedule so we opted for a private boat. We’ll meet the boat people 🙂 tomorrow to finalize our itinerary and we look forward to a great river journey on the Irrawaddy River. 3 nights, 4 days with only the two of us deciding where to go and when to stop. Perfect, just how we like it!

What a beautiful city! Peaceful, clean, quiet and happy. It reminds us of our first visit to Vietnam in 1997. Tourism is growing rapidly but the town still retains its innocence. The people are extremely friendly and welcoming. Children yell “hello”, and adults smile and nod without any inkling of prejudice and are eager to practice their English and take selfies with us. They are happy to see us here and we are so happy to be here. There isn’t any stress evident in the eyes of the people that seemed to underline the faces of the people in India. The air is clean, the traffic rules are generally followed and there is next to no honking and aggressive driving. The roads are well paved and marked and you don’t feel like you are putting your life at risk every time you cross the road. “Laid back and content” seems to be the order of the day. We weren’t sure what to expect when we arrived but any notion of noise, chaos, congestion and pollution were immediately dispelled upon our arrival and reinforced on our day trip around the city that we did yesterday and our walking around and exploring that we did today.

Yesterday we hired a car and driver ($30.00 US for both of us for the day) and set out to see the many rich and fascinating historical sites the city has to offer. Our first stop was a gold leaf paper workshop. Gold leaf is used extensively as an offering to Buddha and is rubbed on to Buddha statues and icons along with gifts of incense and flower garlands. The gold leaf is made by placing small amounts of gold concentrate between bamboo paper and wrapped in many folds of leather and then pounded by a sledge-hammer for six hours. The resultant leafs of gold are then sent to a room for peeling and preparing. The gold sheets are much thinner than paper-thin and requires a certain dexterity to lift off of the bamboo and placed onto a usable medium

Our next stop was the Maha Myat Muni Pagoda which contains the most revered Buddha Image/statue in Mandalay and is the most ancient image of Buddha in Myanmar. People from around Myanmar visit and pray in front of this Buddha and paste gold leaf onto the figure. There were photos of the statue dating to 1923 and there was no gold on its edifice. Through time the statue slowly became covered in gold and now it is almost impossible to discern the fingers on Buddha’s hands as so much gold leaf has been put onto it. It almost looks like there is a possibility that in 100 years, it could look like a big golden blob. The museum within the pagoda traces the journey through art the transport of the Buddha from the ancient city of Amarapura to its present site in Mandalay. Very interesting!

Maha Myat Muni Pagoda

Next stop was a local carving and handicrafts shop. The work they do there is amazing and we ended up purchasing two carvings that we’ll hang on our wall when we get home.

Our new wall carvings

 Further along we made a short stop at Shweinbin Monastery. Built in 1895 the beloved monastery is built in the Burmese tradition of teak architecture.

Shweinbin Monastery

The Royal Mandalay Palace was next. The palace is actually a walled city located within the city of Mandalay. The palace was built in 1861 and many sections of the palace were destroyed during WW II but rebuilt after the end of the war. The palace is one the city’s top attractions, boasting a number of exquisite pavilions and a museum where you can see models of several of the original palace buildings.

Royal Mandalay Palace 

We had a full schedule and were starting to poop out but continued on to the Shwe Nandaw Kyaung Monastery. The palace was built in 1880 using material obtained from King Mindon Min’s apartment in the Royal Palace. Mindon founded Mandalay in 1857 in a fulfillment of a Buddhist prophecy that a religious centre would be built at the foot of Mandalay Hill. The monastery is a splendid structure ornamented with fine teak carvings, mirrored glass mosaic and gilding.

Shwe Nandaw Kyaung Monastery

Atu Mashi Monastery

Our final stop was Kuthodaw Pagoda. which is known as “the world’s biggest book”. This pagoda is a Buddhist stupa with 729 marble slabs. Built in 1857 the entire 15 books of the Tripitaka are inscribed on the slabs, each of which is housed in its own small stupa. It has been estimated that it would take one person, reading for 8 hours a day, 450 days to read the complete “book”.

Kuthodaw Pagoda