Nats and Zawgyis

Zawgyi is clearly an onomatopoeic word, as this mystical being zooms through the air, invisible when it wants to be, mischievous, too. A sorcerer par excellence, necromancer, and alchemist who, having swallowed the philosopher’s stone, is able to turn base metals into gold. This multi-talented spirit who can retain human form for prolonged periods, can live for thousands of years, and even turn fruit on the trees into temporary young women for his libidinous delight. Nats are slightly more sober animist spirits formed from the trees, rivers, rocks, even ancestors.

The worship of Nats and Zawgyis predates Buddhism in Burma, and still exists alongside the orthodox religion. It was the father of the Burmese nation, King Anawrahta, founder of the Bagan Empire in the 11th Century, who brought Buddhism to the region. A serious pragmatist, he allowed Nats to be placed in Buddhist temples. “People will come for the Nats they know, and gradually be won over to Buddhism,” he said.

Bagan, with its thousands of temples and pagodas dating from the 11th Century

While modern day Burmese deny they believe in the 37 Nats and countless Zawgyis, the shrines are still evident in Bagan and nearby Mt. Popa, and the spirits are regularly celebrated in festivals and traditional dances. Offerings are still made to them “just in case.” A Zawgyi, however, can become powerless. “In Burma, we believe that women are lower than men,” says our guide Joe, with a twinkle in his eye. “So we take a woman’s longyi, wrap it around the Zawgyi, and just like that, he loses his power.” Until, of course, he magically escapes.

Bagan’s thousands of temples and pagodas, many clearly influenced by early Hindu architecture, and built predominantly between the 11th and 13th Centuries, cover an area of 26-square miles. The archeological site is thirty-three times the size of Angkor Wat, but is more spread out in the heat of the semi-desert. For the best viewing, Friendship Force members rose before dawn to take hot air balloon rides over the region as the sun came up. “It was magical,” says Danny Cuneo, from Northern California. “We saw the moon sinking, and the sun rise over the monuments. And we could recognize some of the temples and pagodas as were able to fly as low as the tree line. We could even see local people coming out of their homes to start breakfast fires.”

Bagan, seen from hot air balloons

Mt. Popa, home to Nats and Zwagyis. The steep winding staircase shared with monkeys is clearly seen going up

An hour’s steep, twisting drive from Bagan is Mt. Popa, a volcano said to be extinct for 250,000 years. On top of the 5,000 ft high needle peak is perched the Popa Taungkalat monastery and shrine, the center of Nat and spirit worship, looking for all the world as if it is a fairy castle out of a Harry Potter movie. Getting to the top of the mountain once the road runs out is a challenging official 777-stair climb. But according to those who do it regularly, it is an unofficial and more accurate 1,000-stair hike in the required bare feet, dodging monkeys and their poop every step of the way. It was here a juvenile monkey plunged from the ceiling inches from me, and with all four feet firmly planted on the metal bannister zoomed down to the bottom. Clearly, a Zawgyi in disguise, you could almost hear it whoop: “Z-a-w-g-y-i” as it skidded down in delight, and then did it again, like a small boy.

A mischievous Zawgyi in disguise, or just a temple monkey? Only the Zawgyis know.

As Rudyard Kipling once wrote: “This is Burma. It will be quite unlike any land you know about.” How right he was.

Food, Glorious Food

If roasted field mice fed on corn, and drinking only the very strong palm liquor are not your thing, relax, they are only a delicacy in a small part of Myanmar. Even BBQ’d bats on skewers, sold by some street vendors, are rare. Instead, like me, you may become very fond indeed of the fermented green tea leaf salad, served with chopped fried garlic and peanuts, toasted sesame seeds, dried shrimp, and dressed with peanut oil and fish sauce. Lahpet thouk, the national dish, is eaten as a snack, an appetizer, main course, even dessert. The bittersweet salad is believed to have medicinal properties, and to ward off exhaustion, which is why it is a favorite of students before exams. Once an ancient symbolic peace offering, it is still consumed after settling a dispute.

Then there are morning glories, a popular vegetable dish I also enjoyed in Burmese restaurants. In S.E. Asia, they are known as water spinach, and served like spinach. But American cooks beware: there are over 1,000 types of morning glory, and those available in the U.S. are either toxic or banned by the USDA. So don’t go out into your garden and cut down and cook some of those beautiful flowering vines.

A wide variety of fruits and vegetables are available in Myanmar

Burmese cuisine has been influenced over the centuries by its two great and vastly different neighbors: China and India. Just as both countries have also had an impact on Myanmar’s architecture, arts, culture and religion. The predominant Burmese diet is rice served with a little vegetables, or the occasional luxury of meat or fish, often in a mild curry. Plus, no meal is considered complete without soup. The Burmese even begin their day that way with mohinga: rice vermicelli noodles in a fish and lemongrass broth, often topped with an egg.

Beef is rarely eaten in Myanmar, in fact, it was once prohibited, with cattle being raised only as draft animals. But pork, lamb, chicken, duck, fish and seafood are commonly consumed.

Market day for draft cattle

Ox carts are a common form of transportation in rural areas

“Butchers in Myanmar are usually Muslim,” explains our guide Kyaw Thu Win, who prefers to be called Joe. “As Buddhists, we can eat anything, but we cannot ask anyone to kill a living creature for us.” Joe is referring to the Buddhist doctrine, ahimsa, meaning to personally do no harm to any living creature. Which is why Buddhists don’t even kill insects, even cockroaches.

Burmese beer is excellent, often draft. Parts of Myanmar also produce their own wine, and rum, with the vineyards mostly in Shan state. I didn’t try the wine, but others did, and said it was good, and also inexpensive. And toddy, the palm liquor known as htan ya is known for having one helluva kick. Made from the sweet sap of the palm tree, toddy begins to ferment naturally within a couple of hours because of the natural sucrose and yeasts in it.

Climbing the palm tree to tap it for its sap

Distilling the sap into palm wine

Not interested in alcohol, then try the excellent banana, watermelon or avocado juices, more like thick smoothies.

FF members about to tuck into another scrumptious Burmese meal

The only real disappointment in Burmese cuisine was the white sliced Wonderloaf type bread found everywhere. One can only assume it is a leftover from the British colonial era. But fortunately, Indian style chapatis and French style croissants have also made their way there from nearby countries.

Driving on the Right, or the Left, or Both

Considering the price of gasoline in Burma ($4 a gallon, when university lecturers struggle to support their families on $100 a month salaries), the volume of traffic in Myanmar is heavy. Traffic jams, where nothing moves for 30 minutes or more, are common in Yangon and Mandalay. And so, sadly, are traffic accidents. The Burmese drive on the left side of the road, a system inherited from the British, which they can’t afford to change. But most of their vehicles are imported secondhand from nearby countries like China, which drive on the right. Consequently, Burmese drivers cannot clearly see whether it is safe to overtake or not, or even to turn safely. And their buses have doors opening onto the traffic side.

In Burma, bus doors open into rushing traffic

Traffic jams in Yangon

At the end of our first full day in country, we were driving back to our hotel along a major road, when a pickup traveling in the opposite direction plowed into two pedestrians walking home from work. The woman was thrown through the air, and as she landed and rolled, she was hit by a second vehicle. Sprawled in the middle of the road, she lay still, as if dead. The male victim, some yards away, was bleeding heavily.

Dr. P.K. Vedanthan, part of our medical team, was sprinting up the road almost before our bus braked. But he was too late to stop passersby picking up the two victims and tossing them into the back of vehicles. He flinched. “They could have spinal or internal injuries. They shouldn’t have been moved before they were examined,” he said. But in Yangon, on this dimly lighted highway, anyone trying to help in the middle of the road was likely to end up another victim. And in Myanmar, even in Yangon, a city of six million, there are few ambulances. Those that exist are not equipped to offer medical care, merely transportation to the nearest hospital. Once there, Burmese hospitals are in a deplorable state, with little equipment or supplies. A local Yangon newspaper ran a photograph of a major hospital ER department. Underneath the examination tables were scruffy-looking dogs which had made their way in from the street, and were curled up asleep. Nearby, were piles of open garbage on the floor.

For five decades, the military junta has begrudgingly spent some 0.5% of the country’s GDP on health care, one of the lowest rates in the world. And while health care in Burma is meant to be free, in reality, patients must pay for medicines and treatment. Families of the sick or injured are forced to scour local pharmacies for prescription medicines, and even surgical instruments, if the patient needs surgery. The Burmese Minister of Health, Dr. Pe Thet Khin, admitted during a visit to John Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, last year that Burma is unable to provide adequate health care to its population.

In addition to the first accident, during our two weeks in the country, we also witnessed a truck roll off the road, and Mai, 23, our guide in Mandalay was injured when the bus she was returning home in at night smashed into a parked car.

Mai, hours before she was injured in a bus accident

Without street lighting, the vehicle could not be seen. The bus driver and his assistant were both hospitalized. Mai suffered head injuries and cracked and loosened teeth, but preferred to be treated by her family’s doctor.

Is this rum, honey, or gasoline? Make sure you check before tasting

Another possible accident waiting to happen are the recycled, and unlabeled bottles of pale yellow liquid sold from unmanned street stalls. They contain local rum, honey, or fuel for scooters; in Burma, all three items look alike. More than one tourist has thought they were buying rum when the bottle contained gasoline. Definitely not to be mixed with Coca Cola.

The Lady

It’s 28 months since Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest but her National League for Democracy headquarters is still housed in a modest garage on 97B Shwe Gon Daing Road in Yangon. It is made available to them by a brave elderly woman who ignored 25 years of threats from the oppressive regime, and who still lives in the house at the rear. Gone are the regime’s cars parked out front 24/7 from which Military Intelligence officials photographed everyone entering and leaving the opposition party’s HQ. But most taxi drivers and guides are still too frightened to take visitors to the address. Those who do find their way there are greeted by a counter of souvenirs selling T-shirts, caps, books, pens, pins of Aung San Suu Kyi. With most of its leaders incarcerated for years, her party is nearly broke, and selling souvenirs is one way of raising funds.

Fundraising by selling souvenirs at the NLD HQ

The National League for Democracy’s flag decorated with a fighting peacock

Inside is a large map of Burma made entirely of postage stamp size folded bank notes depicting the head of Suu Kyi’s father Aung San, when he was briefly Prime Minister, before his assassination in 1947. The architect of Burma’s independence, Aung San is still considered the country’s national hero. It is not uncommon to see photographs of father and daughter on display in restaurants and stores, although there is a nervousness still about doing so. In one handicraft store exhibiting almost life size pixs of the two together, a large sign read “Please no photographs.”

Alayne Steiglitz and daughter Kelly in front of a poster of Aung San Suu Kyi and her father Aung San

Outside the NLD HQ, I noticed a white-haired, bespectacled man standing quietly off to one side. He had a cultivated air, and also an authoritative one. “Was he part of the NLD?” I asked. He smiled. “I’ve just returned from 23 years of exile. Twenty-three years. I had no contact with my family in all that time.” The softness of his voice belied the pain. “It’s very hard to be separated from family and friends and a country you love for all that time.”

Thaung Htun was 32 when he fled to the Thai border ahead of being arrested. A physician and an anti-regime activist, he’d participated in the 1988 uprising against the military regime, the greatest rebellion in Burma’s modern history. The generals soon moved in to brutally crush the movement. Thaung found himself with hundreds of students, who had also fled the crackdown. They were camped in the jungle, without food, shelter, and few weapons, and were bombed by the Burmese military every night. In the grim conditions, the injury rate and death toll were high. “When I got there, I realized there were no doctors,” said Thaung. “So I stayed long enough to train some medics.” With the Military Intelligence closing in on him, Thaung crossed the Burmese border into Thailand. He went on to become the head of the Burmese government in exile based in New York, and was also the United Nations rep for his country when the U.S. had no diplomatic relations with the Burmese regime.

Dr. Thaung Htun. 56, who spent 23 year in exile, shortly after he returned to Burma

Less than two miles from the NLD office is 54 University Road, the once elegant, now rundown home where Aung San Suu Kyi spent the best part of two decades under house arrest. It was here that she paced the rooms day after day unable to have any contact with her British academic husband who was dying of cancer, where she wondered how her two young sons were coping and growing up without her in England, where she learned she had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 but the regime refused permission for her to travel to Oslo, Norway to receive it.

Suu Kyi’s home where she spent most of 21 years under house arrest

The woman who once called herself a housewife when living in Oxford, England was, like Gandhi and Nelson Mandela before her, now one of the world’s most prominent political prisoners. As Peter Popham, a biographer, wrote, “She was the most famous female politician in the world never to have held office.” That changed of course with her release in 2010, and her winning a seat in parliament.

Aung San Suu Kyi, now 67

Suu Kyi may have been the world’s only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner, who also narrowly  escaped assassination twice, but most people still cannot pronounce her name (correctly Ang San Sue Chi), or find the country where she lives on a map. Why is she called The Lady? Some say because of her quiet feminine elegance, but others insist it was too dangerous to mention her name during telephone calls and in emails, both of which Burmese intelligence were monitoring.

The Road from Mandalay to Monywa

Monywa is just some 136 miles west of Mandalay, and it seems that in this devout Buddhist country, there are important temples, pagodas and stupas every inch of the way. So many, in fact, that it’s possible if you don’t pace yourself to develop stupa stupor, not unlike an overdose of ancient cathedrals during tours of Europe. The massive Thanboddhay Pagoda complex, painted in brilliant hues, houses 845 stupas, and 580,000 Buddha images covering every wall and archway. The main pagoda is meant to remind the devout of Mount Meru, a sacred mountain in Buddhist mythology that was considered to be the center of the physical, metaphysical and spiritual universes.

There are Over 580,000 Buddha images at the Thanboddhay complex

Nearby is the giant LayKhunSatKywar Standing Buddha, another of the country’s landmarks, rising as it does to some 30 stories high. On each floor inside, the different levels of hell are portrayed.

A Buddha as tall as a 30-story highrise in the U.S.

But it is the Bawdi Tahtaung, one of the country’s most well known sites, that surprises. Suddenly, in long straight rows, as far as they eye can see, and weaving between a forest of trees, are a thousand life-size sitting Buddhas. For me, it was reminiscent of the army of giant terracotta warriors in China, intended to protect a second century BC emperor in his afterlife. Originally, in Bawdi Tahtaung, each Buddha was meant to sit at the foot of a multi-trunked banyan, the canopies of each can can grow to a thousand feet in diameter. The banyan tree is considered sacred as Buddha achieved enlightenment in India while meditating under one. Today, in Bawdi Tahtaung, there are double the number of banyans, but the groves of trees and Buddhas are astonishing as they disappear into distance.

A forest of life-sized Buddhas under banyan trees

With all this regional religiosity, one expects tranquility, and this is what the small town of Monywa on the banks of the Chindwin River initially projects. It is a shock to learn that it was just across the river from here that one of the more brutal atrocities carried out by the government against civilians took place as recently as November last year. Locals and monks had been peacefully demonstrating outside the Letpaduang copper mine, a joint project by a Burmese military-owned holding company, and a Chinese weapons manufacturer. Farmers were unhappy that their land had been illegally confiscated for the mine, and people were also concerned about health problems being caused by the mine’s pollution.

In the middle of the highest hill can just be seen the copper mine where peaceful demonstrators were attacked with white phosphorous four months ago.

On November 29, 2012, police and commandos fired incendiary grenades containing white phosphorous at the peaceful demonstrators. White phosphorous burns at 5,000 Fahrenheit (water boils at 212 F.), generating two to three times the heat of napalm. Known as WP, it can burn to the bone, kill when inhaled, and be absorbed through the skin resulting in multiple organ failure. Grotesquely, unlike napalm, it can also burst into flames again when the victim is on the operating table, or even several days later. Not surprisingly, its use against civilians was banned by international law in 1980.

A number of the severely wounded monks who survived were flown to Bangkok, Thailand, for treatment after the attack, and are still hospitalized there four months later.

Authorities initially claimed that they used water cannon, tear gas and smoke grenades to disperse the demonstrators. But an independent study forwarded to the government-appointed panel headed by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to investigate the incident showed that white phosphorous was used. A case once again of the head of the snake not knowing what the tail was doing?

Suu Kyi herself came in for criticism by many Burmese when her only public comments was: “We need to properly train the police in crowd control.”

A Floating Paradise

Inle Lake, with its comfortable spring-like temperatures, cool in the early morning and evening, and warm at midday, is a refreshing respite from the searing heat and utterly enervating humidity of Yangon and Mandalay. Damson plum trees in blossom are silhouetted against the blue sky at the lake’s edge. Water buffalo, with only their nostrils visible, cool off in the water.

The 30-mile long lake, with its meandering finger waterways, is plied by narrow wooden boats some 40 ft long, barely wide enough for a human. Used as ferries, they are also the major form of transportation, carrying food, household items, building materials. With their small outboard motors sending up a rooster’s tail arc of spray, they cleave through the lake’s dense water hyacinths. Zipping in and out, they crisscross the lake as busily as Florida’s Inland Waterway in high season. When climbing on board the vessels, it’s advisable to keep your center of gravity low unless you want a dunking. The boats can be quite tippy. But this doesn’t bother the Burmese, who are extremely agile.

The long narrow boats awaiting the day’s first customers

That agility is particularly evident when the lake opens out, and smaller fishing boats, resembling wooden dugouts, become visible. Balanced at one end, standing fishermen wind one leg around an oar as if it is an extension of their limb. In small circular movements, they smoothly row their way around the lake from favorite fishing spot to spot, periodically beating the water with a heavy pole, hoping to scare tilapia and carp into their nets. Myanmar is the only country in the world where this form of one-legged rowing is used.

One legged rowers, unique to Myanmar

Boats with large nets for the catch

Life on the lake is lived on stilts a few feet above the lake’s surface. Villages, homes, schools, stores, even post offices, perch above the water on unstable looking, and seemingly fragile support poles. In the heavy monsoons from June to November, when the lake increases 50 percent in depth, the pelting rain would destroy the woven bamboo homes without their extensive guttering. Creatively incorporating plastic detergent containers and soda bottles and anything else that floats by, Inle’s gutters would delight zany Swiss sculptor Jean Tingley.

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Houses on stilts so they stay dry when the lake rises 50% in the monsoons

Farmers as well as fishermen, the lake dwellers are similarly ingenious in creating floating islands for vegetable gardens.

Floating islands for growing vegetables

Taking layer after layer of lake weeds until they can support a man’s weight, they impale the weeds with long poles to stop them from floating away. Then they plant them with the tomatoes, beans, and cucumbers that flourish here.

Lake dwellers doing the weekly wash

Cats also flourish here, particularly at the Jumping Cat Monastery, where young monks patiently taught the felines to jump through hoops to the delight of tourists. But the cats, or perhaps their monastic teachers, are currently on hiatus, so their cats, half the size of American ones, snooze the day away.

Cats are ubiquitous at the monastery

Equally unusual are the long-necked “giraffe” women of Padaung, who have settled at the lake in recent years. At puberty, 15 heavy brass rings are placed around their necks, and 10 more will be added a few years later. The women perform all their daytime activities with these rings, which weigh some 28 lbs, and even sleep in them, using a rice straw to scratch the skin underneath if they develop an itch. And while their necks look exceedingly elongated, X-rays show the rings actually push down their shoulder blades, certainly diminishing lung capacity. Fortunately, the worrisome tradition, akin to foot binding and female genital mutilation, is dying out.

This giraffe-necked “fashion” fortunately is dying out

On the return trip, the long boats are accompanied by dense flocks of seagulls which fly just a few feet about the passengers, waiting for the soy chips they know will be tossed in the air to feed them. The birds swoop so accurately to catch the snack, few chips hit the water. But it’s best to wear a hat at this time, as the birds’ thank you gifts are extremely accurate.

Emerald, Gold and Pearls

The Sisters’ Orphanage in Taunggyi, the capital of Shan State, was clearly once a gracious, sprawling home. It’s where Daw Mya Shwe, her two sisters, and many generations before them were born. But then, when she was only three, Mya, and her siblings were orphaned. Their relatives took them in and raised them, something for which the sisters were always extremely grateful. When Mya was 33, a basket was left on their front doorstep, containing a tiny infant. They named the little boy, Wingate, after the British general Orde Wingate, who fought and died in then Burma, trying to protect the country from the Japanese in WWII. Wingate was the first of many orphans or abandoned children the three sisters took in.  “It was our karma, our destiny,” says Mya, who  is now “mother” to 108 children.

“My names translate in English to Emerald and Gold. These children are my pearls,” says Mya, a reed slim, elegant woman, in the fluent English she learned in then British annexed Burma.  Now 81, she heads up the orphanage after the death of her two older sisters. She waves a hand around the drawing room and its many photographs of her “children.” A Baptist, the kids are raised on Sunday school songs and hymns. On top of the piano are the many gold colored awards won by the children at school.

Octogenarian Mya Shwe receiving medical supplies for the orphanage from Dr. P.K. and Friendship Force

Where does her large surrogate family come from? “Some are left at the door in baskets. We hear a baby cry, and go out and find them,” she says. “Others comes from villages where soldiers have stormed in, shooting their parents, often in front of them, raping the women, burning the houses. Sometimes, in the brutal chaos, children flee in terror in one direction, their parents in another. So they don’t know where their parents are.“  Friendship Force’s Alayne Stieglitz cradles the youngest infant, only five-months-old, as he sleeps peacefully.  As usually happens, an older child chooses to protect a younger one in the orphanage, and an eight-year-old boy has become the older “brother” of this tiny one.

The youngest orphan with his surrogate big brother

Friendship Force has brought donated clothes, medicines and toys for the orphanage, and Mya is clearly grateful. “Our biggest problem is money,” she says. “We need it for school fees, for books, and for training the older children.” The orphanage houses children from infants to age 18. Then Mya sends them for training in computer skills, midwifery, and as nurses’ aides. Once qualified, it is hoped that they will eventually be able to support themselves.  “But at first, they cannot earn enough to be independent,” says Mya, “so like children everywhere, they come home to their mother to be fed, to be nurtured. And always, they want to take food back with them.”

Friendship Force members Alayne Stieglitz mothering a tiny orphan, and Ann Pettigrew

As the house is bursting at the seams, Mya has had an addition constructed, but the roof is now leaking, and the stairs are rickety.  Dr. PK and his wife quietly hand her a wad of large banknotes.  It is the humanitarian work of Friendship Force that led it to become the first foreign non governmental organization in Myanmar to win Trusted Partners status in Myanmar two weeks earlier.

With Mya now 81, what will happen to this orphanage after she is gone?  “It is not a problem,” says Mya, “Wingate, our first baby, who is now 45, and his wife Bella, will take over my work. That, too, is their destiny.”

Chubby Children

This may be the poorest country in S.E. Asia but one of the joys in Myanmar for those of us from the land of plenty, if not too much, is the lack of malnourished kids, or children with the distended stomachs caused by parasites. One doesn’t see kids here covered in flies as is so often the case in developing countries. In villages and cities alike, Burmese children are well fed and clean. The lushness of the country, even in the dry season accounts for that. Mango, banana, and papaya trees, pineapples and the Pepto-Bismol colored dragon fruit, and vegetables of every kind dot the countryside, even though the monsoon won’t arrive until June.

In Burma, kids are healthy and covered in Thanakha, not flies.

There may be poverty here, but there are also no street beggars. Only monks and nuns are out in the mornings with their begging bowls, part of an ancient tradition. Families donate the first the food they cook each morning to the monks, who take it back to their monasteries to share with colleagues. To be a monk or nun here is meritorious, even if only for a week or a month. Juvenile novices with shaven heads are everywhere, the boys in maroon robes, the girls in pink with sienna-colored scarves, the same shade as the rich Burmese soil.

Begging for breakfast. Monkettes, or juvenile nuns out with their alms bowls for the first meal of the day

Monks in Burma have considerable influence. They may be religious devotees, but they also have tremendous political power, and they are often the main educators in a region. When they demonstrate or revolt, the country takes notice. Which is why they have often been the brunt of regime violence.  But for most of the time, their activities are spiritual: prayers, meditation, chanting, the lighting of a zillion little palm oil lamps at sunset, which help illuminate, for example, the glorious Shwe Dagon complex of pagodas in central Yangon.

Monks are also often the first to organize aid efforts during disasters in this land of frequent earthquakes. In the brutal Cyclone Nargis in 2008 that killed 150,000 people in Myanmar, and devastated the delta area, destroying homes and vital crops, the monks and nuns, and ordinary Burmese were out in force collecting food, clothing and blankets to donate. The generals, nervous as always of outside influences or a possible invasion, rejected foreign humanitarian aid fearing it could lead to an invasion.

This is the land of pagodas and stupas, so many, it is impossible to count, all gleaming in the brilliant sun with gold-leaf. To build a pagoda is particularly meritorious, and a leg up on the road to Nirvana; so is the construction of Buddhas. In the Pindaya Caves, which go deep into the earth, centuries of Burmese have toiled up hundreds of steps to reach the caves at the top of a mountain near Heho in the center of the country. Perched on steep cave cliffs, some 10,000 Buddhas large and small cling to the cave face.

Over centuries and deep in the Pindaya caves, 10,000 Buddhas have been added

Can’t afford to build a pagoda or donate a Buddha, then help replenish the gold-leaf used to gild them, which is replaced every four or so years. A tiny of block of gold weighing some 12 grams is rhythmically hand-beaten for hours until it becomes an inch-wide ribbon of gold a meter and a half long. This is cut into 200 pieces and beaten again. Those 200 segments are further cut into 1,200 pieces. The beating continues, until finally the gold leaf is just 0.003 micromillimeters thick. Too thin to pick up by hand, as it will cling to the skin, so a buffalo horn knitting needle type instrument is used to transfer it to a Buddha or pagoda.

The tons of gold leaf used every year on pagodas is patiently hand-beaten

Ask how much gold-leaf is used in Myanmar every year, and be met with a grin. “That’s like asking how many monks and nuns there are in this country,” smiles Moe. “Very, very, very many.”

 

Asian Schizophrenia

By now you will have realized that there have only been two postings of the blog before this one, and we are already a week into the trip.  But this is not for lack of trying. The spirit is very willing but the system here is definitely weak! Getting online is one helluva challenge, and exceedingly time consuming, to say nothing of drive-you-demented-frustrating.  For hours, even days at a time, the internet is down. Get on, if you are lucky enough, and often you can’t, and just as quickly, you are bounced off. Repeat, ad infinitum, or until you realize you are missing out on everything you came here to see. And then there are all the blocked sites. Welcome to Myanmar, where the official view of the internet is highly schizophrenic. Witness this sign in Yangon in local English:

** Allow using the email accounts that are legally permitted by Bagan Cybertech only, i.e., not hotmail or yahoo, etc.  [For reasons unknown, gmail is the only approved email address here. So does Google have a “special “relationship with Myanmar, as they did for some time with China? Only Google and the generals know.

[Equally bizarre, the country’s main server is based in Bagan, best known for its thousands of ancient pagodas, not technological sophistication.]

** Not permitted to browse political websites.  [What qualifies as political isn’t specified. ]

** Websites that contain the content which is not acceptable to Myanmar customs and traditions is strictly prohibited. [See above.]

** Not permitted to play any online/offline gambling games.

** If terms and conditions are not followed, we have to cease the Internet access immediately.

Friendship Force members light 1,000 oil lamps at Shwe Dagon for world peace

In a similar vein, the Burmese people are friendly, warm and hospitable, but the government bans foreigners from staying in their homes. And community monitors insure no one breaks that rule. So when our bus broke down outside an orphanage we had just visited, and the driver wasn’t sure he could fix it, we had visions of sleeping on the vehicle, knowing that no one would be allowed to take us in.

Financial transactions here, both large and small are equally challenging. U.S. dollars are the only acceptable foreign currency, but notes must be pristine and not older than 2006. No tears, folds, marks of any kind. Receive change in local Kyat, pronounced chat, and Burmese notes are invariably torn and tatty. ATMs are only just arriving, and only eight in the country are available. Credit cards are so novel there are large signs at Yangon airport welcoming the arrival of MasterCard, although few outlets will accept them, and the one Yangon hotel we stayed in had a five percent mark up if you try. Try transferring cash from the U.S. to pay for a special activity, and the money has to go to Singapore, and a courier fly there to pick it, as Burmese banks can/won’t accept wire transfers.

Woman making betel nut with lime, used as a digestive, and typical of the small businesses in Burma

A thanakha seller. From the wood apple tree, the bark is ground down with a little water to make the protective yellow paste

The Burmese are hard working, clearly entrepreneurial, and eager to compete in the business world. But the road blocks are many, just as they are with getting and staying online.

A kaleidoscope of Burmese Images

A Kaleidoscope Of Burmese Images
To arrive in Burma, Yangon to be precise, is to be overwhelmed by images, glimpses of life past and present. From former colonial British mansions, state offices and cathedrals to the magnificent Shwe Dagon Pagoda, the symbol of Burma, with its magnificent gold-leaf glistening in the searing Yangon sun. According to legend, it was built 2,600 years ago, during Buddha’s life time. The pagoda’s complex, with its many secondary temples, can be seen from most parts of this city of some six million. At night, it is illuminated and stunningly beautiful against the dark sky. In another part of the city, there is also a 200ft long reclining Buddha, complete with a sign listing his formal attributes, including the length of his eyelashes, even the circumference of his nostrils.

Yangon’s 200 ft long reclining Buddha

The first image of people here is the yellow streaked Thanakha powder daubed on the faces of many adults and children. Unique to Myanmar, it is intended to protect their skin from the constant heat and humidity, improve complexions, prevent wrinkles (note to self: make sure to buy some before leaving), and even improve health. A fragrant paste made from grinding thanakha tree bark with a little water, it is said to remove acne and freckles. In the past, it was also believed to cure smallpox, epilepsy, even poisoning.

Mingalaba, Auspiciousness to you, or Hello. How are you? is the universal greeting, with hands pressed together and a quick bow of the head, known as a kataw, similar to the Chinese kowtow. Anything handed to another person is both given and received with both hands and another quick head bob. The Burmese are unfailingly polite and very concerned with matters auspicious. Astrologers are professionals here, and little of import is done without a consultation. Even the Generals, who ran this country with iron fists for half a century until three years ago, consulted them to make sure their actions would be considered auspicious, to them at least.

Schoolchildren kataw to visitors

Removing shoes is a sign of respect, and a requirement, along with socks, before entering every pagoda or temple

At the Kumara Rama monastic orphanage/school, partially supported by American Rotary International, entire classes of Thanakha-daubed children kataw to a visiting Friendship Force group. With 80 juvenile monastery novices with shaven heads, 60 orphans shyly checking out visitors, and 350 day scholars, the place is bursting at the seams and constantly having to build more classrooms and dormitories. In Burma, “orphans” may also be children whose parents have sent them from conflict areas in the country to orphanages in safe areas where they can also board. Perhaps not surprisingly then, the government does not permit orphans in Burma to be adopted by foreigners or Christians. “Burma is changing so rapidly,” says Rotary’s rep here, J.T.Warring, “too often the head of the snake doesn’t know what the tail is doing, so at local level, there are still terrible abuses of power. And ethnic problems are still acute.” Warring, who has spent $300,000 of his own money here on bringing safe drinking water projects to many villages, also adds that the changes in Burma since it opened two years ago, is nothing short of “miraculous.” But modernization takes time.

Wherever one goes in the city, the former capital until the government moved it some hours north to a barren, unpopulated city, Nay Pyi Taw, a couple of years ago, one is struck by the kindness and gentleness of the average Burmese, despite the frustrations of daily life. The frequent power cut means many small stores have generators outside. Electricity until recently was limited to an hour a day, and now for many homes is six hours. But power may come on at midnight, so if you are sleeping, you must get up to make sure your water pump is turned on if you want water the next day. Flashlights are recommended for tourists, although the large hotels don’t seem to be affected by such outages. Power shortages in a country rich in petroleum and natural gas are caused because the government prefers to sell these resources to neighboring Thailand.

Stroll the busy city streets and soon notice that outside every apartment building ropes hang down from windows to street level. Since most highrises do not have elevators, a strong tug can establish whether friends or family are home without the sweaty hike up eight, nine or more flights of stairs. Shopping bags full of today’s fresh marketing are also tied to the ropes and pulled up.

While blue jeans and T-shirts are commonly seen here, many Burmese prefer the elegant longyi, a tube skirt wrapped around the body, and knotted in the front. On crowded buses, holding on with one hand, and holding a package with another can cause problems, say Moe. “As the bus lurched, I could feel mine coming loose, and had to ask a sitting male passenger to hold it up for me until the next stop, when I could retie it. Otherwise, it would have fallen off, “he says, with an embarrassed laugh.

Moe and Dot both wearing longyis

For Patrician Snowden, a Friendship Force member from San Carlos, California, this trip is her first to Myanmar in 60 years. Born in Yangon, she spent her first 20 years here. “We were evacuated during WWII as the Japanese invaded. We could only leave with just our clothes on our backs, and some jewelry my mother was able to hide in her clothing. We went first to India, and many people died on that trip over the mountains, and then to England.”

Patricia Snowden chatting in Burmese to Abbot Shwe Taung Taik Thit, head of the Ko Htet Kyi Monastery, who has agreed to facilitate a Friendship Force organization in Yangon

During the war, her family’s home was occupied by Japanese officers. “When we were able to return, the house was in excellent shape, but all the contents, the carved teak furniture, the valuable lacquered items, every single thing, was gone,” recalls Patricia. “Probably taken back to Japan as souvenirs. Today, I don’t recognize Yangon, the density of today’s population, the traffic, it was nothing like this when I was growing up here.” Still feeling her way in her once fluent Burmese, locals are surprised and delighted when she chats to them in their own language. “For me, this is the trip of a lifetime. It’s where I was born and raised,” she says.