Myanmar for Christmas

We went to Myanmar for Christmas.  Ten days of pure tourism.  The kids cried when we announced our holiday plans.  I debated about going - should we be supporting a military Junta? should we risk getting caught up in post-election violence? should we go just because everyone says it's the most authentic, beautiful and fabulous trip that they ever took in southeast Asia? are the kids old enough to appreciate it? 


The answer to all that is YES! (except supporting the junta - of course). In fact, tourism is a way of opening the country to the outside world.  The information goes both ways. Post-election violence was limited to the Thai border and we were very far from all of that. Sometimes, if you follow the crowd, you find out what all the hoopla is about and you're glad you did. And the kids LOVED the trip. They will remember it always!


We took over 1500 pictures - the kids contributed. I simply must post and comment.  I can't remember the names of all the places. The history and dates escape me as well.  So here are my impressions - grouped by themes.  I hope it inspires you to go there, read up on it, or at least click on the next blog entry.

Let's get started with my absolute favorite photo - Philippe took this in the countryside somewhere between Inle Lake and Pindaya.  The land is all cultivated and it looks almost European - except there are NO tractors - only oxen and plows and there are people in the fields working. These women are harvesting sesame.  I love the colors.

All That Glitters...

Burma is fancy. Gold and precious stones adorn just about everything.  This is the light fixture in our CAR!!!

Seriously, there is a lot of gold in Myanmar and mineral resources are its primary source of revenue.  It's a good thing, too, because they love to plaster things with gold leaf - real gold leaf.

The most famous landmark in Yangon is the Schwedagon Paya (Schwe=gold, Dagon=old name for Yangon, Paya=Pagoda).  But this is not it - this is just a minor pagoda somewhere in Yangon covered in gold inside and out and housing a plethora of gold artifacts encrusted in gems from other pagodas.

 THIS is the Schwedagon Paya - or at least the base of it.  All of our pictures of the entire stupa do not do it justice.  What's great about this place, apart from the fact that it houses some very expensive stuff and is barely locked up at night, is the gathering of people: tourists, buddhist monks and everyday Burmese.  They pray, chat, work (volunteers for the upkeep), take pictures, pour water over the heads of their planetary post statue (according to the day of the week you were born - an elderly man kindly pulled out an almanac to tell us what each of our planetary posts were - all Thursday except for Philippe - Wednesday morning!), and generally hang out.  So we did too.

Another favorite passtime is plastering small sheets of REAL gold leaf onto statues of Buddha. That's what these guys are doing.  And there is a constant stream of people doing this all day, every day. The bottom of the statue is bubbly looking from all the random sheets of gold.  The face is still smooth and shiny because they wash it every morning and brush his teeth! They believe that Buddha is still alive inside.

I have some very uninteresting pictures of the gold leaf making shop - so I won't post them. 

 

Yes, the Burmese LOVE gold.  This house is an ancient palace building in Myanmar.  Made entirely of handcarved Teak wood - it was gorgeous. BUT in its day, it was ENTIRELY covered in gold.

Macro picture from Antoine's collection showing a detail of the carving with tiny flakes of ancient gold.

But we were able to admire our favorite gold every afternoon around 5:30

Part of our daily routine was finding a place to watch the sunset.  We were not alone - this is a typical tourist activity, but we really got into it.

You can see how thrilled Antoine looks!