baba and i were in mandalay for two days before dada, sandaji, shanta and eelum joined us. we had come in from bagan and they had gone to lake inle. mandalay, the former capital of myanmar, from where the british sent the former king into exile into india in 1885.
wen, our taxi driver had come to pick us up, and as the airport was 50 miles south of mandalay, he took us to see sights in amarpura before heading to the hotel. sadly wen did not have much english to speak about, thus we were left to our own devices, no guides, no guide books.. a different sort of pleasure, actually.
since there was rationing of petrol, one could see gasoline being sold in all kinds of containers, from soda bottles to jerry cans.
there were lots of people on two wheelers. most men, because of their longyis perhaps, seemed to prefer to ride on scooters designed for females.
we first stopped by to see breakfast time at the mahagandhayon monastic institution. we reached at a time when there were hundreds of monks with their alms bowls heading towards the dining area
…inside there were older monks and fresh initiates…
…rows and rows and rows of ‘marooned’ monks. tourists were allowed to walk in and out (without touching them of course).. and it really felt a bit intrusive to be staring at and taking pictures of people having their spartan meal.. but i guiltily clicked pictures nevertheless…
there were signs saying what to do and what not to do, of course…
…but no sign saying no photography! here are tourists clicking pictures of ‘thanakaed’ girls striking a pose…
from there we went to the man-made lake where there is an old (150 years old) wooden teak walkway—the u bein bridge--across the narrow portion of the lake. that was where i saw beggars for the first time spreading their hands and saying in english, “money… money”
we saw women fishing in the waters…
with two fishing rods!!!
wen then took us to a silk weaving factory where there were mechanical looms…
… as well as hand weaving ones, where girls were deftly slipping coloured silk threads in and out to create beautiful patterns. the girls told us that a longyi (2 metres) with patterns in the front took about a month to weave!
next stop in the souvenir sighting that wen took us to was the tapestry workshop, where we looked for a tapestry with the hansa bird (what else?). and of course we didn’t find it…
wen wanted us to stop at the marble carving place, where they were carving and selling statues mainly of buddha in all sizes, but we said that there was no way we could carry marble back home and admired the statues from the comfort of the car! wen told us that these idols were not only used in the country, but even exported to china, india and japan too.
next we explored the mahamyatmuni temple with its long corridors crammed with all kinds of stuff. we returned there two days later with sandaji and shanta too…
the temple housed a nearly 4 metre high image of buddha with so much tapak (gold leaves) pasted on its body by devotees that it was losing proportion! only the face was spared…
.. and again.. women were not allowed to touch buddha’s image and had to be satisfied, worshipping from afar…
wen then took us to the gold leaf (tapak) workshop, which i found most fascinating. they explained and demonstrated how they beat gold into wispy thin leaves.. the constant pounding of slivers of gold between bamboo paper sheets (which itself was made and beaten to be crackly thin)
gold was pounded from a little piece into half metre strips first….
… cut up…
…pounded thin…
... cut into six pieces….
…pounded again… (for hours)
… the steps repeated.. with the final pounding lasting five hours…
.. after which the leaves are arranged into neat squares and stacked up for sale…
… pounding bamboo paper…
the final pounding for five hours using 3 kg hammers to beat the gold leaf thin… the workers in shifts used a coconut shell with holes at the bottom on a bowl of water as a timer. it took three minutes for the shell to be filled with water!
after lunch we went to see the mandalay palace / fort that was built in 1860. the british took over the palace and turned it into a fort after the royals were exiled in 1885. the wooden palace burnt down during bombing raids in the second world war, and was rebuilt in the 1990s. the palace has a huge moat around its 2 sq.km square compound, and massive walls and artistic watch towers all around the palace
…from the inside of the royal quarters…
…with mirror works on pillars and walls…
… delicate structures…
…from the watchtower (which it seems survived the bombing)…
…the moat with mandalay hill in the background…
the next stop was the schwenandaw monastery.. a beautiful building with exquisite wood carvings, inside and out…
...yup... ahem.. the bird...
... wonderful woodwork.. there were many carving of jataka tales too...
from there we went to see the kuthodaw paya, at the bottom of the mandalay hill. there is a golden stupa there (covered in straw mats for guilding when we went), and is surrounded on all sides by 729 little temples, each house a stone slab with a page from the tripitaka - the most sacred book in theravada buddhism. the complex is thus also known as the world’s biggest ‘book’
a model of the kuthodaw complex..
… temples all in a row…
…and the slabs with the inscription inside…
later we went up the mandalay hill to see a hazy sunset over mandalay.. airawati can be seen in the distance
by the time the sun dipped behind the hills, it was looking purplish in the haze!!
…next morning we walked to ‘nepali hotel’ (hutel) run by mr. thakur guragain’s daughter dhani and her husband bednidhi gautam…
babu chhori
shreeman shreemati
... we had a sumptuous meal of vegetarian nepali-myanmari food…
... and finally after many days, got to drink nepali chiya.. milk, sugar, calories and all…
we listened to mr. guragain’s quest for the preservation of nepali language and culture (for which he got the 'jagadamba shree' too)
he then took us on a tour of the nepali ‘gorkha’ dharmashala.. its wrought iron gates below…
… and various offices…
... a clinic ...
... and a shop selling knick knacks that seemed straight out of asan or indrawhowk!!!
we met lots of nepali padahikaris…
.. and learnt about the gorkha dharmashala…
… the constant reminder of the nepali identity…
a temple at the top of the dharmashala… from the outside…
... the inside...
... and from below...
… going back to the hotel on a side car riksha… of course i had to pile on a couple of cushions on the seat for myself
girl selling fragrant flowers in the marketplace…
… vegetable vendors…
... as well as banana merchants...
... in the evening when the rest of the family joined in from lake inle.. we went to dinner at the'golden duck' restaurant …
...the local marketplace…
we went back to the mahamyatmuni pagoda… and found a huge bronze hansa bird for sale…
.. also ‘caged-in’ buddha statues ready for shipment…
…and many many more idols of buddha...
sandaji and eelum decided to set off a bird (looked like a swift) for 1000 kyat. surprisingly, when they let go off the ‘bichara’ bird, it fluttered off very casually, and not frantically as one would suspect caged birds to react… they were probably homing birds.. that came back to the owner in the evening!!!
… a mascaraed and groomed buddha poster…
sandaji tries ringing a bell…
… and we watch some ceremonial parade of prettily dressed girls and boys…
we went to a local tea stall.. where they seemed to be running a tea factory… lining up the cups…
... pouring condensed milk into the cups…
... and then some thickened milk…
... while half a dozen kettles of tea were being heated…
…then poured into cups…
.. and then served.. syrupy sweet chiya.. tailored for the guliyo bahun taste buds to 'bhuliyo'
cheeroots for sale… nearby worn and torn bank notes
midway through our tea, and dada through the apple sized bayar, we spotted the ‘top of the world’ poster in the tea shop.. heart warming!
from there we went to another myanmar roadside café…... and had yummy food...
... the bamboo lattice work in myanmar home behind the cafe...
... as well as a stack of condensed milk cans!!
... and the paanwaali in front of the cafe...
…with that we all piled into the minivan and headed south for naypyidaw, the myanmari capital…
wen, our taxi driver had come to pick us up, and as the airport was 50 miles south of mandalay, he took us to see sights in amarpura before heading to the hotel. sadly wen did not have much english to speak about, thus we were left to our own devices, no guides, no guide books.. a different sort of pleasure, actually.
since there was rationing of petrol, one could see gasoline being sold in all kinds of containers, from soda bottles to jerry cans.
there were lots of people on two wheelers. most men, because of their longyis perhaps, seemed to prefer to ride on scooters designed for females.
we first stopped by to see breakfast time at the mahagandhayon monastic institution. we reached at a time when there were hundreds of monks with their alms bowls heading towards the dining area
…inside there were older monks and fresh initiates…
…rows and rows and rows of ‘marooned’ monks. tourists were allowed to walk in and out (without touching them of course).. and it really felt a bit intrusive to be staring at and taking pictures of people having their spartan meal.. but i guiltily clicked pictures nevertheless…
there were signs saying what to do and what not to do, of course…
…but no sign saying no photography! here are tourists clicking pictures of ‘thanakaed’ girls striking a pose…
from there we went to the man-made lake where there is an old (150 years old) wooden teak walkway—the u bein bridge--across the narrow portion of the lake. that was where i saw beggars for the first time spreading their hands and saying in english, “money… money”
we saw women fishing in the waters…
with two fishing rods!!!
wen then took us to a silk weaving factory where there were mechanical looms…
… as well as hand weaving ones, where girls were deftly slipping coloured silk threads in and out to create beautiful patterns. the girls told us that a longyi (2 metres) with patterns in the front took about a month to weave!
next stop in the souvenir sighting that wen took us to was the tapestry workshop, where we looked for a tapestry with the hansa bird (what else?). and of course we didn’t find it…
wen wanted us to stop at the marble carving place, where they were carving and selling statues mainly of buddha in all sizes, but we said that there was no way we could carry marble back home and admired the statues from the comfort of the car! wen told us that these idols were not only used in the country, but even exported to china, india and japan too.
next we explored the mahamyatmuni temple with its long corridors crammed with all kinds of stuff. we returned there two days later with sandaji and shanta too…
the temple housed a nearly 4 metre high image of buddha with so much tapak (gold leaves) pasted on its body by devotees that it was losing proportion! only the face was spared…
.. and again.. women were not allowed to touch buddha’s image and had to be satisfied, worshipping from afar…
wen then took us to the gold leaf (tapak) workshop, which i found most fascinating. they explained and demonstrated how they beat gold into wispy thin leaves.. the constant pounding of slivers of gold between bamboo paper sheets (which itself was made and beaten to be crackly thin)
gold was pounded from a little piece into half metre strips first….
… cut up…
…pounded thin…
... cut into six pieces….
…pounded again… (for hours)
… the steps repeated.. with the final pounding lasting five hours…
.. after which the leaves are arranged into neat squares and stacked up for sale…
… pounding bamboo paper…
the final pounding for five hours using 3 kg hammers to beat the gold leaf thin… the workers in shifts used a coconut shell with holes at the bottom on a bowl of water as a timer. it took three minutes for the shell to be filled with water!
after lunch we went to see the mandalay palace / fort that was built in 1860. the british took over the palace and turned it into a fort after the royals were exiled in 1885. the wooden palace burnt down during bombing raids in the second world war, and was rebuilt in the 1990s. the palace has a huge moat around its 2 sq.km square compound, and massive walls and artistic watch towers all around the palace
…from the inside of the royal quarters…
…with mirror works on pillars and walls…
… delicate structures…
…from the watchtower (which it seems survived the bombing)…
…the moat with mandalay hill in the background…
the next stop was the schwenandaw monastery.. a beautiful building with exquisite wood carvings, inside and out…
...yup... ahem.. the bird...
... wonderful woodwork.. there were many carving of jataka tales too...
from there we went to see the kuthodaw paya, at the bottom of the mandalay hill. there is a golden stupa there (covered in straw mats for guilding when we went), and is surrounded on all sides by 729 little temples, each house a stone slab with a page from the tripitaka - the most sacred book in theravada buddhism. the complex is thus also known as the world’s biggest ‘book’
a model of the kuthodaw complex..
… temples all in a row…
…and the slabs with the inscription inside…
later we went up the mandalay hill to see a hazy sunset over mandalay.. airawati can be seen in the distance
by the time the sun dipped behind the hills, it was looking purplish in the haze!!
…next morning we walked to ‘nepali hotel’ (hutel) run by mr. thakur guragain’s daughter dhani and her husband bednidhi gautam…
babu chhori
shreeman shreemati
... we had a sumptuous meal of vegetarian nepali-myanmari food…
... and finally after many days, got to drink nepali chiya.. milk, sugar, calories and all…
we listened to mr. guragain’s quest for the preservation of nepali language and culture (for which he got the 'jagadamba shree' too)
he then took us on a tour of the nepali ‘gorkha’ dharmashala.. its wrought iron gates below…
… and various offices…
... a clinic ...
... and a shop selling knick knacks that seemed straight out of asan or indrawhowk!!!
we met lots of nepali padahikaris…
.. and learnt about the gorkha dharmashala…
… the constant reminder of the nepali identity…
a temple at the top of the dharmashala… from the outside…
... the inside...
... and from below...
… going back to the hotel on a side car riksha… of course i had to pile on a couple of cushions on the seat for myself
girl selling fragrant flowers in the marketplace…
… vegetable vendors…
... as well as banana merchants...
... in the evening when the rest of the family joined in from lake inle.. we went to dinner at the'golden duck' restaurant …
...the local marketplace…
we went back to the mahamyatmuni pagoda… and found a huge bronze hansa bird for sale…
.. also ‘caged-in’ buddha statues ready for shipment…
…and many many more idols of buddha...
sandaji and eelum decided to set off a bird (looked like a swift) for 1000 kyat. surprisingly, when they let go off the ‘bichara’ bird, it fluttered off very casually, and not frantically as one would suspect caged birds to react… they were probably homing birds.. that came back to the owner in the evening!!!
… a mascaraed and groomed buddha poster…
sandaji tries ringing a bell…
… and we watch some ceremonial parade of prettily dressed girls and boys…
we went to a local tea stall.. where they seemed to be running a tea factory… lining up the cups…
... pouring condensed milk into the cups…
... and then some thickened milk…
... while half a dozen kettles of tea were being heated…
…then poured into cups…
.. and then served.. syrupy sweet chiya.. tailored for the guliyo bahun taste buds to 'bhuliyo'
cheeroots for sale… nearby worn and torn bank notes
midway through our tea, and dada through the apple sized bayar, we spotted the ‘top of the world’ poster in the tea shop.. heart warming!
from there we went to another myanmar roadside café…... and had yummy food...
... the bamboo lattice work in myanmar home behind the cafe...
... as well as a stack of condensed milk cans!!
... and the paanwaali in front of the cafe...
…with that we all piled into the minivan and headed south for naypyidaw, the myanmari capital…
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