MYANMAR - DAY TWO, BOGO DISTRICT

Wednesday - 25 March 2015 - Excursion to Bogo, Myanmar

The Mon language speaking kingdoms ruled large sections of what is now Myanmar at various times since the 9th Century, the last time briefly in the mid-1700s. The Mon are one of the various ethnic groups in Myanmar. Our tour guide pointed out that the "Burmese" are only one group. More about that later. Our 9 1/2-hour excursion was to visit various sights of interest in the Mon territories of Myanmar.

Myanmar is not like its Southeast Asia neighbors of Singapore and Malaysia. Ox carts are used just outside of the capital.

In general, full day excursions are offered by the ship to get to a particular tourist sight far from the ship's berth. Rather than schedule continuous long drives to and from the focus of the tour, the local operators sometimes break up the trip by including experiences that are not well known or even considered touristic. We've learned that some of these stops can be pretty strange but perhaps the most memorable.

The touristic focus of this excursion was the most impressive Shwemawdaw Pagoda, a huge Buddhist temple complex built around a gigantic stupa.

Our guide on this all day tour was enthusiastic if not particularly informative, but no matter

Our assigned local tour guide was a bit hard to understand, not particularly used to escorting Westerners, and short on knowledge of the usual briefing details of where we were going and why. Not to matter, the tour was a gem. Even with the best narration, assimilating the sights and sounds of a developing country with a vastly different culture than our own is at best difficult. Rather than getting frustrated, I remembered the guy in downtown Yangon selling cages and human hair dusting brushes. What amount of details could possibly explain him adequately? I have learned to observe, enjoy the sounds and smells, and take lots of pictures. It is best to consider the inexplicable sights to be "performance art" as I hinted to in an earlier entry. The guide got us to the various destinations and did the best he could. Fortunately, he was informed well enough of the needs of our age group to make a point of advising us of an upcoming "adequate toilet stop", with emphasis on the "adequate".

The market town gave us a good view of rural life in Myanmar

Our first scheduled stop was a street in a busy market town. The view of the town's activity was fantastic, most of which was inexplicable. After our tour resumed the guide advised us with great sadness that the order of the itinerary would have to be changed. Solemnity he shared his hope that we would not be upset by what he was to disclose. We already had the toilet stop, but he  hadn't previously explained the original order of the sights we were to visit. So our fellow tour participants ignored him. Our guide was anything if not sincere. The guide soldiered on by saying that we would now proceed directly to the Kyakhatwine Monastery. This is the largest school for monks in Myanmar. He explained was that the monks were to be having an early lunch due to this being an examination day. The few of us listening to the guide assumed that this meant we were rescheduled so as not to interrupt their meal time.

But the purpose of the stop was specifically to watch the monks eat.

The architecture at the Kyakhatwine Monastery was as beautiful as it was puzzling

We waited for the big moment as the guide explained something about the history of the country

Our tour bus parked adjacent to the the massive Kyakhatwine complex. The architecture was impressive. Our guide led us up majestic stairways, through covered walkways, and eventually through large rooms, but then he stopped abruptly halfway down a gold columned breezeway. For no apparent reason he started in a an interminable exposition on the life of what he said was Myanmar's most important historic figure, represented by a statue of a guy on a horse in the garden. Then after 20 minutes he looked relieved and said we could proceed. The monks were now eating, he proclaimed with a big smile. We were ushered into their dining room. It was precisely 10:30 am.

The novice monks were having an early lunch before their examinations

After lunch, the monks walked out with their rice bowls

From the statuary in the monastery, he deduced that the procession after lunch was worthy of commemoration

We were ushered into a large room where a bunch of monks were eating lunch. Yup, they are having a nice meal of some sort of meat and rice. There wasn't a sound from the monks. Talking among themselves was apparently not allowed. Our guide seemed very proud as we stood around watching these kids eating. A few of us just stood around; some wondered off and explored the food prep area. The area looked like a school cafeteria, which of course it was. After a while the monks were done with their meal. They silently arose and marched out. Some of us who had taken pictures of them eating took more of them marching out.

We were obliged to be barefoot in our walk throughout the huge monastery, the common procedure in Buddhist sites in Myanmar. The polished marble floors were filthy. Wet wipes were provided by the bus driver as we retrieved our shoes and socks outside the monastery. With our feet sticking to our socks we boarded the bus and pulled out of the lot.

Gigantic stupa at the center of the Shwemawdaw Pagoda

A side chapel 

An resident astrologer in the temple, apparently hedging the religious bets. The sign says that the astrologist on duty uses the "Combination Scientific Method" among others

Lunch for us at a local restaurant catering to Westerners (our group understandably was the only diners). After lunch we proceeded to Shwemawdaw Pagoda. This is one of the most impressive Buddhist temples easily accessible from Yangon and our primary touristic destination for this excursion. The pagoda surrounds a huge stupa, actually larger than the stupa of the Shwedagon pagoda site we had visited in Yangon the day before. This temple was too large for us to completely circumambulate during our photo stop, but we did find some interesting and inexplicable sights, including the temple's astrologist who appeared to be bailing. We weren't told what relic was encased in the structure.

A traditional Mon house in the interior of Myanmar

Probably a more powerful resident of the village who had done some remodeling

Next on the unpublished itinerary was a visit to an historical Mon community. A number of such traditional villages are scattered around the Mon-speaking districts we were told. The houses in the settlement are built on stilts above storage, apparently to provide some ventilation and as a guard against floods from the nearby creek. Most interesting was that the houses varied from very basic to extensively improved. There were even a few satellite dishes. This village reminded me of an oddly similar traditional community in Papua New Guinea I visited some years ago. As with that one, I suspect that the residents of this village had chosen to keep the traditional way of life, or at least chose to live in traditional houses. There were electric lines to each house, but the guard said the power was not connected.

Second largest reclining Buddha in SE Asia

Four sided Buddha on the outskirts of a local village

Our potpori visit to the interior of Myanmar brought us to the Shwethalyaung Buddha, one of the largest reclining Buddha images in Southeast Asia said our guide. That's all he said. The statue was a block long. It was housed in an immense temple. We walked around the statue, admiring the bejeweled feet. Many of us could only say, "What a big reclining Buddha."

There were a lot of Buddha images throughout the countryside of Myanmar. We stopped briefly at a unique four sided image. Each side had a slightly different expression and somewhat differing dress. The statue was on the outskirts of a nondescript contemporary town.

British WWII cemetery in Myanmar 

Acres of graves of soldiers who died defending Burma against the invading Japanese 

The final stop on this remarkable if bewildering excursion was a World War II cemetery maintained by the British government. An informative sign provided an explanation. The graves in military style were those of Gurkhas, regular British soldiers, and some Burmese who lost their lives defending the country from the invading Japanese during WWII. It was a solemn site and oddly a fitting end to our long day. Tomorrow we were to visit a morning market and the intriguing sounding "island pagoda" on a short morning tour.