Mandalay at last!

Mandalay
10/08/09
No! you won't 'eed nothin' else
But them spicy garlic smells,
An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the tinkly temple-bells;
On the road to Mandalay .
R.Kipling

Today we really are off on the Road to Mandalay. Our road is as the crow flies, our vehicle Air Bagan. The 30 minute flight gave us time only for a quick coffee before landing at the Mandalay International airport which is about 45 minutes from the bustling city of Mandalay. A little odd that the bus ride is longer than the flight, but that's modern aviation.

The airport. A grand project, excellently executed, but lacking customers. Picture the Southwest terminal at LAX minus electricity and people (not strictly true, there are more employees there than passengers but there's enough room to hide them all, and you could shoot skeet in the empty rooms) and you've got the feel. A truly amazing sight is the empty airport parking lot.
This airrport was another military government project and it has kickback and international engineering firm written all over it. Someday it may pay off, assuming it can be maintained for that long, but the price was probably extorted from the people now. For now I'd prefer the "old Flotilla" with their "paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay." The flotilla would be a better fit for nature of this country and maybe faster.

What's so difficult to describe about Burma are the contrasts. Modern white elephants like the Mandaly airport and the stunning ancient Pagodas: the military government, and the kind, industrious, happy go lucky people. In some ways Burma is stuck in the old days of the Empire. The romance and exotic feeling are woven through everything and you feel the nature of the country as much as see it. This is one of those places that must be personally experienced because each traveler will have an entirely different take on it. Though all of us have fallen for it -- it's that kind of place.

The monsoon is behind us. The weather is Kipling quality: "An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the tinkly temple-bells;" We bang a temple bell three times for good luck and karma.

After being met by our local driver, we went straight to the ancient city of Amarapura, conveniently located on the road to Mandalay.

On the way, we stopped at the U Bein Bridge, the longest wooden bridge in Myanmar which crosses a lake. On the walk to and from the bridge, we were met by hoards of vendors peddling purses, bracelets, and necklaces made of watermellon seeds. Of course, we all had to buy something when the prices came down so low we couldn't pass them up.

On the bridge, we came upon a woman with cages of birds. It was explained to us that when you purchase a bird and set it free, all your sins will be released with the bird through the ends of your fingers. She had a beautiful barn owl which looked big enough to carry away our sins. A 747 might be a more appropriate vehicle - it just lacks the charm of an owl, and it doesn't have the Buddha's approval. We each donated one thousand kyat (one "dolla" each). We each petted the bird (you must touch it to give it your sins), took pictures, and then Augie released it. So now we are all pure! The Owl Liberation Front is being dilligently hunted by the military authorities.

Our journey continued on to the Mahagandayone Monastery, the home of over 1,000 monks. We watched as a seemingly endless line of monks, carrying their lacquer black bowls, entered the compound to receive their afternoon meal and proceed to the lunch room to eat. We got to wander through the kitchens, you'll have to check the pictures, it's too hard to describe.

Watching all those monks eat stirs up an appetite, so it's off to Mandalay for our lunch at a local restaurant. Chinese was the cuisine of the day.

Mandalay. After studying the Kipling poem and absorbing the urge to return to the mystical East, the city turns out to be somewhat anticlamatic. Kipling even got the geography wrong "By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea;" The Mahamun (K couldn't spell worth a darn) Pagoda is several hundred miles from the sea, but we'll forgive that as poetic license. What we saw was a modernizing, busy city that did grab you in its own way. If you were a nostalgic British soldier, you definitely would want to come back here.

Then it's on to our hotel, the Mandalay Hill Resort, a beautiful setting that looks like a miniature Belagio from the front, the curved building wrapping around a gorgeous swimming pool, spa, and fittness area. Our window view is a sweeping green hillside studded with golden topped Pagodas.

After our afternoon rest, we're off to the Shwe Kyaung, Golden Palace Monastery, which has the most intricate and detailed wood carvings imaginable. Next, we visited the Kuthodaw Pagoda, known as the world's largest book. It's not what you'd expect a book to look like -- it's rows upon rows of white pagodas, each containing a marble slab upon which has been carved Buddhist canon, front and back. There are 729 of them.