Thursday: There is something melancholy about Moulmain, dreamy and timeless but with a tinge of sadness.... it creeps up on you slowly... perhaps that is why the place has stood still in time ?
An older man in the street stops me, asks me where I'm from,
tells me his life story, 3 girls, married,
am I married ?
No.
Good. - he grins at me.
"I'm an old man, 60" he tells me and we go our separate ways again.
Friday 10Jul09 ---- 8 hours on a river boat ferry chugg chugging up to Hpa-an, described in the guidebook as quintessential 'small town' at its best.
The lady next to me shares some of her newspaper with me, to put on the floor to sit on deck for 8 hours, (sleep, talk, walk....)
By the end of the trip, the little 5 years old is running up to me pointing to her cheek. So I bend down and she kisses my cheek for giving her one of those squishy RMIT giveawaystressballs.
Her mum and granny of course got her up to it but she enjoys the game. The Danish couple also get kisses. They have a clever routine, the wife chats up the women and kids and the husband takes pictures with an SLR and a lens that looks like like a bazooka cannon. He can zoom in so he's a fair distance away, not too intimidating.
People are really poor here, but I feel safe, the street vendor very politely hands back the change, I'd forgotten it. I leave my bag on the deck of the ferry as I go to the loo - I would not do that in any other country. (Note: don't mention anything more about the Loo.)
The atmosphere, the things people think about, the realities of life seem nothing like back in Oz.
Myanmar here feels like a time warp into another world, a few hundred year ago, - or like a totally different planet. The concerns of Melbourne, email, internet, bureaucracy etc.... seem like a dream viewed from here, - a dream (or nightmare?) that will soon engulf me once more - all too soon, such is life, I'm lucky to be able to come here at all.
Mind you they have bureaucracy here too, Burmese style, read George Orwell's best seller "Burmese Days" 1940's for a "drive you crazy" heart rending account of expats, Burmese and tragic love.
it's raining right now, the hotel manager sent a guy out with an umbrella so I could get back the 300m to the hotel, -
"Hotel" ???
I mean the backpacker's place, US8/night, double bed, aircon, shared toilet. Perfect !
Actually - I'm treating myself, it's $4 for the fan room, it's my concession to getting older.
In the old days I'd have taken the $4 option.
that's a 100% increase in my accommodation spending due to age alone... !
And increased spending power.
Yangon has some nice wooden traditional family homes, done up as hotels, $15 / night... just the thing if you want pretend you are back in the days of the British Raj....
Saturday 11Jul09 - I decide to forgo my usual mode of operation, and do it the easy way: Rent a motorcycle taxi for the whole day, and do the sights one after the other. (another sign of wisdom or just age and more money ?)
Cave temples, lush vegetation, no tourists because it is the rainy season, and it buckets down at random intervals...
The scenery has me floored, lakes, statues of monks with food bowls snake 300m to the next temple.
Another temple we go to the path is flooded.
The Taxi driver Thaung Cho leaves the motorbike behind and we wade, to the temple.
Parts are pretty deep. We go slow.
This temple has a long damp, wet, dripping deep cave, illuminated by the odd neon bar mounted on sticks.
Its slippery, parts are like oil on glass. the ceiling is full of bats, the smell of bats is unique. I remember reading that apparently bats deliberately cultivate bugs and stuff in so they kill other competitors for cave space. Nice what pops in my mind at a time like this.
Bits are only do-able on all fours, the Bat excrement on the floor makes it specially slippery. Little jumping crabs run about on the floor, getting out of our way.
After all that, suddenly the cave opens up, daylight floods in on a single natural column on top of which is (of course) a golden stupa !
It's totally unexpected and I'm going nuts with my camera.
a bit further on is a lake, surrounded by on all sides by limestone cliffs. The guidebook did mention this secret hidden lake.
A careful trip back and we (the Taxi driver and I) are offered lunch at the monastery.
Then back along the path we came, wading through water from ankle to thigh height.
The two more cave temples, where the queen of a defeated king sought refuge in the 7th c.
---o(O)o---
On Sunday ( 12Jul09 ) there is a mountain to climb, with a monastery on top (naturally). Any hill in Burma, and there is stupa on it.
It's raining in shorts bursts only. It's 3 hours round trip, 2500 ft. Water running down stairs, and I meet a group of guys carting stuff up for monks.
Seems that the monks here are relaxed lot, kids can join, boys, and they play and laugh and the monks are fine with all that. It's a pleasant contrast to the more intense and austere "shush...." way that I would imagine in my serious Germanic soul.
There are a lot of nuns here too, they wear pink, which I find is great for quick identification at a distance, because in robes and shaven heads its hard to tell at a distance sometimes. Not that it matters, one pays respect to both nuns and monks here.
---o(O)o---
I'm back in Moulmain (Malawmyine) 12Jul09 . I actually missed the place while in Hpa-an.
As if to welcome me back in style I asked for a larger room than the broom cupboard I had last time. I'm shown into the northern upstairs wing of the old villa. there are two four poster beds draped with mosquito nets and views of the sea across the road. Wow.
This IS the larger room, complete with furniture, high ceiling and bedside fan.
Its times like this I dream of retiring and writing. The writers of old used to hole up in places like this and write. No immediate chance of that though, there is the small matter of some source of income to consider....
Sitting in a Burmese tea house, by the side of the road, pouring endless cups of Chinese tea and nibbling fried stuff, bisquits and whatever they have.
The world drifts by.
A lively market just around the corner, dirt roads, people milling about.
This feels more home to me than anywhere else. I know I'm on a two week holiday cum honeymoon in a foreign country where I can travel wherever I want but I think it's more than that.
I don't feel that in Western countries, there is something that we have lost in the West (and gained something else in its place) and there is something they still have here, and something else they don't have.
Not better or worse, just different.
Don't know what it is they still have.
I like certain antiques, the feel of age, of use. To me it feels like I've stepped into the way of life and the culture from which those antiques comes, the source itself.
Yes, yes, I know: If I was Burmese and grew up here I'd probably try my best to get out of the place. Wouldn't be able to wait to claw my way to Australia or somewhere else.
Ironic.
The grass is always greener etc.....
It seems, I like living between places, knowing many really well and being the connection between them.
On the way to the main Pagoda of Moulmain, another older man asks me:
"where are you from ?"
"Australia"
"ONE ?" (meaning: travelling alone?)
"yes, one"
"Me one too, I'm an old bachelor"
"No wife no kids ?"
"No. - Freedom." He laughs, "I go where I like, I wander around."
"Me too, no wife no kids"
"What is your job ?" I ask.
" NO job now" he turns his palms up, "but I have lots of money".
"Ah retired"
"yes"
"Are you bored ?"
"Yes. better hurry, sunset will finish soon"
He assumed I'd come for the sunset, its a popular tourist spot for sunset viewing.
Travelling in Myanmar: People here don't stare, don't pester, and don't treat you like a purple alien with antennae. Kids will call out and laugh. University students might ask to have a picture taken with me on odd occasions, but that is all. Of course the main tourist areas attract the usual scene, yet even that is mild in Myanmar.
- if an area is out of bounds for tourists, there's a good reason, don't go there.
- there is TINY tiny backpacker scene here, its the way I can afford to travel here.
ok enough for now... off to Naw-la-bo Pagoda tomorrow... rainy season means no real public transport so will hire a motorbike taxi if possible.
cheers
Heiko
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'dance me to the children who are asking to be born....' - Leonard Cohen
Haiko's - blog list here or direct: life42 or backpacking or stories
I walk with her, and I hear the gentle beating of mighty wings....
I hear the sound of her wings.... and the darkness lifts from my soul...
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