MYANMAR - DAY THREE, ISLAND PAGODA EXCURSION & WHAT IS IT YOU CALL YOURSELVES?

Wednesday - 25 March 2015 - Excursion to the Thanlyin area, Myanmar

A local live-on fishing boat on the Yangon River heading out to sea

Our downtown Yangon pier continued to provide fascinating view of the river. A characteristic Burmese live-on fishing boat was heading down river early in the morning after Silver Wind's second night in port.

US and British newscasts seem to always refer to the country with this words, "Myanmar, also known as Burma". (You don't hear them saying, "Beijing formerly known as Peking.") As we headed back from the emotional stop at the British military cemetery yesterday I took on the task of getting a authoritative DEMONYM* for Myanmar from our guide.

Before getting into today's remarkable excursion, I thought that the change of name from Burma to Myanmar would help me gain some insight of this country that has just begun to join the world community. Yesterday's tour guide claimed he was "Burmese." The cuisine, which I believe he talked about (it might have been the native animals in the wild. His accent was pretty thick) were Burmese, and the history he presented during our stop by the statue of the guy on a horse in the monastery was of the "Burmese people".  But early in the tour, he stated very carefully and in no uncertain terms that the name of the country was now Myanmar. Perhaps there was more to this incongruity.

Third world labor less than 30 minutes out of bustling Yangon

All young men spend some time as monks with their rice bowls and "begging cups"

Myanmar is still emerging. The sights, sounds, and smells are exotic to Westerners to say the least. The real meaning of what diligent guides say can only be vaguely inferred. There was noticeable progress since my visit 20 years ago, but not overwhelmingly so. And the renaming of the country to Myanmar was quite recent.

"How do you refer to yourself as a citizen of your country?", I asked. Our guide's answer was, "I am from Myanmar." I said, "What would you call the kind of food served in the local restaurants?" His answer was, "Burmese". He explained that Burma, actually BAMA or BAMAR in Burmese, is the language spoken in the ethnic region that had been occupied by the British for a century and a half. From that comes the British word, Burma. After some further thought he answered, "But I am Burmese." So for him, his ethnic identity is stronger than his national identity. By the way, Wikipedia gives the demonym for Myanmar as Myanma (no "r"). We never heard that word used at any time during our 60-hour stay in country. Today's tour guide considered herself something else, what was not clear. More on that later.

In general some or most likely many of the Myanma people do not identify ethnically with their country. It's the political entity they may pay taxes to and the country whose name appears on the passport covers for the few who are allowed to leave the country and have given granted passports. It's the ethnic/language distinctions that prevail. Myanmar, as with so many other emerging countries, is tribal. Our young, college educated guide yesterday was Bama (in English, "Burmese"). From his commentary it appeared that he clearly accepted that many of the other ethnic groups in the country was citizens of Myanmar as well. We have seen in the news recently that this is not universal. The Muslim Rohingya minority appears not to be accepted to the same extent. Many members of  the dominant groups in the country seem to not consider them citizens of Myanmar, at least informally. I guess a lot can be surmised from a discussion of a country's demonym. And it's a good word to impress other cruise passengers with, but they just seemed annoyed with my question.

A police escort was provided to expedite our bus' way through the rural roads

For our last day docked in Yangon, we had booked a five hour excursion to explore the Thanlyin area east of Yangon. The touristic focus was to be a visit to the Kyaikhmaw Wun Island Pagoda, a unique sight often seen on calendars and postcards. As with the previous day's tour, a number of other experiences were included. Some of these were remarkable and as usual a bit puzzling.

A traffic jam was centered on a small pickup truck carrying young teenage girls

The girls were apparently going to Yangon for some event. They looked very sleepy

The first stop was unplanned, or may it wasn't. There was suddenly gridlock on the rural road as our tour bus headed out of the Yangon metro area. A number of the drivers had left their vehicles and were directing traffic, unfortunately in conflicting directions. Our police escort pulled over and just looked dour. Eventually a beautifully clad group of young teenage girls riding in the back of a covered pickup truck were ordered by their chaperone to climb out line up for photos. It wasn't clear if that was for us. We obediently took our photos. The lovely girls looked very sleepy. We surmised that they must have been traveling from far away for an early event in Yangon. After photos the girls climbed back in their truck and the traffic cleared. We were once again on our way.

The town market was very busy

Small service businesses provided services to the locals

Clearly surplus and probably very cheap goods could not be for the nonexistent tourists in this out of the way town 

The first scheduled stop was billed as an "historic Thanlyin village". This otherwise somewhat modern looking village had a gigantic covered market. The goods for sale were mostly functional household items: cooking utensils, cloth, laundry detergent, and the like. Included were some items apparently surplus and functional, albeit of dubious taste. At least for English speakers. And there were local service industry establishments. Some businesses such as a ladies' hairdressing establishment appeared to be thriving.

A bumpy carriage ride through the otherwise unremarkable town

After a longer than necessarily time in the market/hardware store we were loaded onto a number of horse drawn two-passenger carriages. We were told we would now get a tour of the historic town. Actually it was essentially a pretty conventional nondescript village. After bouncing around behind a tired looking horse for 30 minutes or so, we then rejoined the bus and headed out of town.

A view of the Burmese floodplain from the hilltop temple was stunning

A side chapel in the sprawling Kyeik Khauk Pagoda

Many Buddha images in a small side chapel 

I could not find an explanation for the strange image in the lower left of this picture. The stupa in the largest in Myanmar

The hilltop Kyeik Khauk Pagoda was as huge a complex as the one we visited yesterday, and the central stupa was even a few feet larger. We were told that this stupa was the highest in Myanmar. Besides the stunning location this temple appeared to be much less touristy than the others. In a country still not on the major tourist routes most sights in Myanmar can not be considered major tourist destinations. The Kyeik Khauk Pagoda seemed to us to be more functional and less glitzy. Perhaps this temple is more for the local people and less a pilgrimage site. No explanation was given by today's tour guide. The stupa was surrounded as usual with interesting images, perhaps requiring a lifetime to identify if not ever truly understand. We found this temple to be more relaxing, but as with yesterday's pagoda, circumambulation with photo stops appeared impossible in less than two hours. Maybe affected by the heat, I estimated that the total distance around the pagoda was the better part of two miles. I now suspect it was not quite that big.

The Kyaikhmaw Wun Island Pagoda completely occupies a small island in a tributary of the Yangon River

Characteristic Asian longboats ferry tourists across the brown aromatic water

We arrived at last at the Kyaikhmaw Wun Island Pagoda, the major destination for the five hour morning excursion. Long boats with loud gasoline engines balanced on long drive shafts ferried our fellow tourists across a wide river in the Yangon estuary. I had seen larger versions of these boats in Bangkok many years ago. With the temperature hitting 100F, we choose to stay on shore and take pictures rather than tour yet another temple, also to avoid wading into the boat through the brown water. The color for the water was not the issue: let's say the texture was. We enjoyed seeing the temple from afar nevertheless. The view as well as the aroma was stunning.

Tourists pay twice the citizen price to use the facilities.  Barbara reported that most of the toilets
 were Asian consisting of  a hole in the floor 

Tour Guide Mimi attempted to introduce us to a local Indian family

The neighbors peering over their laundry were curious

After a "comfort stop" in a native facility--note the markup for tourists--our guide for the morning, "Mimi" led us to a small settlement of local people. Not ethnic Thanlyin, they were Indian, perhaps immigrant laborers. Mimi seemed to know them, but they seemed a bit reluctant to be put on display. We stared at them; they stared at us. Mimi insisted that the family come out and look at us. There was essentially no interaction. Most members of our group were a bit embarrassed by this experience as the small family was. The curious neighbor kids, also Indian, were having a lot more fun watching the curious scene unfolding.

A large temple wasn't quite big enough for the Buddha image

Our last stop was a local temple housing an oversized Buddha image. Mimi, who lives in Belgium half the year, was fond of referring to herself in the third person and mixing butchered French with over the top histrionics. As we stepped down from the bus Mimi's entire explanation for the stop was as follows:

"The Buddha is trop gros. When I first saw this Buddha, Mimi could not see tout la tete."

After five hours I began to find Mimi had become une grande douleur dans le cou. Look it up. Mimi was indeed a character, a big contrast from the more reserved escort yesterday, but no more informative. (We found out later that Mimi had been assigned as there were a couple of French passengers on our bus.)  Silversea states that they obtain, "The best guides available." Of this I have no doubts. Looking at the tours at least partially as "performance art" does make the experiences a lot more fun and perhaps more enlightening overall. Mimi was clearly part of the show. Sadly, she knew it. But I was not désappointé.

A now abandoned inexplicable amusement park was in full swing at the mouth of the Yangon River when I visit Burma in the 1990s 

A short ride back across the Bogo River brought us again to Yangon. After a wait for high tide so as to clear sand bars in the Yangon River estuary, Silver Wind sailed down river at 3 pm past the incongruous ferris wheel I had first noted in 1997. We started our three-day crossing of the Bay of Bengal. After only one sea day in a week since we left Singapore we were looking relaxing en route Colombo, Sri Lanka.




*Demonym is defined as "a name given to natives or residents of a specific place." As such it is a noun, but it is often used as an adjective when referring to local foods, customs, etc., as in  fine English cuisine. (Maybe a poor example). While most demonyms are obvious such as French, English, American, they are not always obvious. I used "Kuala Lumpurian" earlier in the blog. "Sydneysider" is correct for a resident of the Australian city. A citizen of Monaco who is not born in the small Mediterranean country surrounded on three sides by France is a "Monacan", but a natural born person from Monaco would be most offended if you don't refer to him or her as a "Monegasque".