Novitiation Ceremony

We were driving around Bagan when we happened upon a Novitiation Ceremony.  It’s a ceremony of ordination and Novitiation.  Burma Buddhists strongly believe in the importance of them and their sons being initiated into novice-hood, as monks.  If men and their sons do not become novice monks, then as parents, they might suffer in hell in their next existence.  A monk is a very noble life for Buddhists.  The Burmese Buddhist tradition is for boys at ages 8 and 20 to enter the order for at least a week or more.  Boys could, of course, stay for a lifetime, but that’s not necessary. 

To become a novice, the boy must overcome three steps.  He must shave his head, wear the robe, and believe in Buddha.  The first two are parts of the Novitiation ceremony.  The third, of course, is the most difficult.

This is a really big ceremony.  It appeared to me to cost a small fortune.  If people are less fortunate, sometimes others in the community will donate money towards the family of the novice.  There is a really long parade with the whole family participating.  The parade usually goes to a famous pagoda and goes around it.  There is a big feast for the monks and invited guests.  There is also lots of loud music for dancing and amusement.

1.      This is the novice-to-be.  He is supposed to be dressed as a Prince.  I’m not sure why the lipstick, earrings, and all.  Perhaps that’s how a Burmese prince would dress.  He hasn’t had his head shaved yet.  He is riding a small horse.

2.      The novice’s sisters are also a big part of the parade.  They come after him and get their ears pierced as part of the ceremony, though I’m not sure about the connection.

3.      This is the start of the parade with the novitiate in front.  After him comes his brothers, cousins, etc.  The girls and family are farther back in the parade.

4.      This is farther back in the parade and not even the end.  More carriages were still coming out from the courtyard.

5.      This was the end of the parade.  It’s a cart that is hand-pushed.  On the cart is a “stereo” with a generator for power and some enormous speakers.  Burma Buddhists love loud music.  To really appreciate this ceremony, you really needed to hear the music and noise.

There are many videos on You-tube if you want to see and hear one.  Just query Burma Novitiation Ceremony and find a link to videos.

Pagodas by Horse Cart

We started one of our days in Bagan with a horse cart ride through the pagodas.  The horse cart drivers actually spoke fairly decent English with enough language skills to communicate most of what we wanted them to do and to answer most of our questions.  Of course, this is mostly just to be able to show you some more pagodas in Bagan.  We also saw some excavation sites, some temple reconstruction work, and lots more farming operations.

1.      The temples in the first photo were in pretty good shape and you can see that, at the end of the rainy season, there was lots of green in Bagan. 

2.      This was an interesting looking stupa and you might notice that it has lots of vegetation growing on it.  This was true of quite a few pagodas.

3.      If you look at the bricks on the pagoda just to Vicky’s left, these are original bricks and they are a bit wider and a bit thinner than our modern day bricks.  Once you are aware of that, it’s easy to spot the repairs done with today’s bricks.

4.      The pagoda in the fourth photo is a temple and it is huge.  I don’t know if this was a major pagoda for Bagan but it was the largest one that we saw on our horse cart ride.

5.      Those of you who know my wife know it was only a matter of time before she got hold of the reins of the horse cart, as you can see in the last photo.

Khayminga Temple Gatekeeper

We ended our horse cart ride at the Khayminga Temple Complex.  This complex had quite a number of pagodas, with most of them being not too large.  Some of the temple complexes have gatekeepers or key holders.  This person is like a caretaker.  Many of the pagodas are locked or have some fencing with locks to keep people out.  This can be because some of the pagodas have valuable artwork inside of them.  From what we learned, most of the gatekeepers are rather easy to deal with.  They just don’t want someone to steal or destroy the pagoda’s contents.

1.      The temple in the first photo might be the Khayminga Temple but I’m not certain of that.  It is in the Khayminga complex.  But you can see the gates at the two entrances to the temple in the photo, for which you need to get the key to access the temple.

2.      The gatekeepers usually live right in the midst of the temples and pagodas and that was the case here.  You can see the gatekeeper’s house in the second photo.

3.      The gatekeeper is in the third photo and she was a 78 year-old, cheroot-smoking grandmother.  We had quite a chat with her as she told us about her family and the temples and her job.

4.      To gain access to the gates and temples, it is customary to tip the gatekeepers.  I took it a step further and smoked a cheroot with her.  The coconut shells are ashtrays as she was very concerned about fires in her bamboo house. 

5.      The temples at Khayminga were old and probably done with bad construction or poor cement.  Earthquakes in the area haven’t helped these pagodas.  Anything look odd in the photo?  (and I don’t mean Vicky or me!)

New Bagan Village

South of Old Bagan is a relatively new settlement area called New Bagan.  Our guide said that the people living in New Bagan used to live in Old Bagan.  They are the families that took care of the temples and pagodas in Old Bagan.  But the military government of Myanmar moved them out of Old Bagan for “archeological purposes”.  The government wanted to protect the archeological integrity of the area and make needed repairs.  At any rate, these people got displaced but didn’t move very far and they are still beside the Irrawaddy River.  We walked through the village and met various people, got to see several houses, watched a young person doing her homework, and so on. 

1.      This is the first woman that we met in the village.  She is standing outside of her house.  Her family had gathered plants along the roads to feed to their livestock, in this case oxen.  They are chopping up the feed on the ground. 

2.      The second photo is just a close-up of the woman.

3.      The third photo is another family that we met.  They had a nice house and a nice complex, along with five children.  You can see the pipe coming off the rain gutters and they had some piping that took the water and funneled it into the big clay pots on the ground in the back right.

4.      This child was one year old that day and he was learning to walk using the home-made walker that you see in the photo.

5.      The young men of the village were playing ‘cane ball’ and I joined in for about ten minutes.  They keep a 4-5 inch rattan ball in the air by all means except their hands.  Despite not being a soccer player, I did okay.

Irrawaddy River Cruise

We went for a cruise on the Irrawaddy River (also spelled Ayeyarwady or Ayerawaddy) late one afternoon.  The Irrawaddy is Burma’s main river and it runs through the center of the country.  The entire river is within Burma’s borders and is 1,350 miles long.  The river starts high in the Myanmar Himalayas near the border with Tibet.  The name is believed to be derived from a Sanskrit term for “elephant river” but there are other ideas on the source of the name.  After Rudyard Kipling’s poem, the Irrawaddy is sometimes referred to as “The Road to Mandalay”.

1.      The first photo is just to show you how wide the Irrawaddy is in Bagan.  At places on the Irrawaddy, the river is a half-mile wide.  The average depth of the river is 30 feet.

2.      We really enjoyed the river.  It was much cooler on the river and really very pleasant.  But even on the river in Bagan, you are still viewing pagodas.

3.      As I looked closely at this photo, I counted some thirteen pagodas, but there were probably more than that in view.

4.      There were all sorts of boats on the river but all of the boats in this photo are tourist boats.

5.      We cut the motor on our boat and drifted in the river until after sunset.  The boat in the last photo is a water taxi which takes people to work and back.

Green Elephant Restaurant

This posting will all be from one meal.  This was a lunch after a morning of temple viewing and coconut tree climbing.  Once again, we had a river view, though these photos will not show the river.

1.      We were told that the name of this restaurant was the Riverview Restaurant but you can see the sign in the photo as we walked to the restaurant.

2.      Talk about great presentation: when our food was delivered, there was a guy banging a gong to get our attention and two guys carrying our lunch on their shoulders.

3.      Our lunch included rice, soup-from-the-fence (bean leaf soup, from beans grown on a fence), butter fish in a tamarind sauce, beef in black curry, eggplant, and a salad of greens, peanuts, peppers, onions, watercress, etc.

4.      You can see Vicky enjoying her meal in the fourth photo.

5.      Dessert was steamed bananas with milk, sesame seeds, and dried fruit.

More Bagan Pagodas

We are finally about to leave Bagan, so of course, I can’t help myself but to make one more pagoda posting.

1.      This was a mini-lecture about the evolution of stupa construction.  You can see our guide’s drawings on how stupa construction changed over the centuries.

2.      I loved all the pagodas but what really enhanced them for me was that they were smack in the middle of farming country with the farmers going about their business as usual and ignoring us tourists along with the pagodas.

3.      The third photo is a great one (courtesy of Pete or Vicky).  It shows how the original brick pagoda was once covered over with plaster that was quite ornate in its time.  As neat as they are today, I can only imagine them back in their heyday.

4.      This is a view of the Bagan Plains from the 13-story Nanmyint Viewing Tower.  There are probably 50 pagodas in this photo.

5.      Vicky’s smile sums up how much we liked the pagodas of Bagan.

Welcome to Mandalay

Mandalay was the last royal capital of Burma.  It is the second largest city in Burma with about 1.2 million people.  It’s about 450 miles north of Yangon and pretty much right in the center of Burma.  Mandalay is the economic hub of upper Burma and considered the center of Burmese culture.  There has been a large influx of Chinese immigrants to Mandalay in the last twenty years, and China is the main economic partner for this area, with India being next.  Burma adjoins both China and India, along with three other countries. 

Mandalay was founded in early 1857 so it is not an ancient city.  It was founded by King Mindon (or Mingdon) at the foot of Mandalay Hill.  Mandalay, as a capital city, only had two kings: King Mindon and his son, King Thibaw.  After that, the British succeeded in their conquest of upper Burma in 1885.

Most of Mandalay was destroyed by Allied bombing during World War II.  So Mandalay is not only not an ancient city, it is mostly made up of buildings built after World War II.  Mandalay city is really not very special to see.  Most of the buildings are just square concrete structures.  The city is laid out on a grid, courtesy of the British, so it’s easy to navigate.  The traffic was easy compared to Yangon.  I would say there was moderate to heavy traffic in town but the traffic was always moving. 

1.      Most of my photos show towns, so I included the first photo.  This is from our flight into Mandalay.  Most of Myanmar is agriculture.  Flying into all the towns, it was almost all agriculture right up to the cities.  Most of what you see in the first photo is rice which is far and away the number one agriculture product of Myanmar.

2.      Mandalay Hill is probably the most distinguishing landmark in Mandalay.  This photo was taken across the street from our hotel.  You can see Mandalay Hill in the distance.  To the left is the old Royal Palace and the water is the moat around the palace.

3.      The third photo was taken from atop Mandalay Hill.  It was not a very clear day but in the lower left quadrant of the photo, you can see that Mandalay also has some pagodas.

4.      The fourth photo is a typical traffic photo.  Our guide said that there are one million motorbikes in Mandalay.  Motorbikes are everywhere in Mandalay but at busy intersections, they tend to ban together and make their crossing in mass, probably for protection. 

5.      The second photo was taken from just to the left of this photo.  Our hotel is across the street to the right of this photo.  QUIZ QUESTION: What is peculiar in this last photo?      (See answer below this photo)

Some of the world’s drivers are used to sitting on the left side of the car and driving on the right side of the road. The UK and most former British colonies are used to sitting on the right side and driving on the left side of the road.  But how about having right hand steering and driving on the right hand side of the road? Myanmar has the distinction of having this split personality.

Myanmar was a British colony until 1948. The cars had right hand steering and drove on the left side of the road. In 1970 all traffic was moved to the right. I asked several people for the cause of the change and there are two commonly held theories, both of which point to the eccentricities of General Ne Win. One theory is that Ne Win’s wife’s astrologer said that the country would be better off driving on the right side of the road. The second is that the General had a dream that the country should switch directions. Either way, the General called the shots and traffic was directed to change sides overnight.

Despite the lane shifts, virtually every vehicle in Myanmar has right hand steering. Many vehicles are very old, and those that are considered modern are second hand imports from Japan. It isn’t just the cars that have to catch up. One can still see old traffic signs in downtown Yangon facing the wrong direction.

I would think all of this would increase accident rates and confuse drivers. Myanmar drivers, however, appear orderly, within the cities as well as in the countryside. Whether they are in two, three, four or eight-wheeled vehicles, drivers stick to the right side of the road and, despite logistical challenges, changed over without any negative consequences.

There is one anomaly we found to the right hand driving set up. The boats in Inle Lake still stick to the left when they pass each other. Perhaps time has indeed stood still in some parts of Burma.

Maha Muni Temple

Our first stop after arriving in Mandalay was the Maha Muni Temple, aka the ‘Great Sage Temple’ and also spelled Mahamuni Temple.  Buddha visited here and explained his teachings to the local king.  The king was so impressed with Buddha and his teachings that he had a statue made of Buddha’s likeness while Buddha was there.  Buddha saw the statue and touched it seven times.  We visited the temple and saw the gold covered Buddha statue.  Of course, this was really a temple complex with many buildings and spaces between buildings.  This was another situation where you really need sound and smell to fully appreciate the photos.  This will be but a small glimpse of the temple complex.

1.      You can see Vicky about to enter the Maha Muni Temple complex.  It was not particularly impressive from the outside.

2.      This is the Buddha statue.  It has so much gold on it, it’s hard to tell what Buddha looked like originally.  People put gold leaf on Buddha to signify putting a robe on Buddha, so perhaps like ‘giving a monk a robe’.  The area that you see in this photo was off limits to women.  Only men could access this area of the temple.  They had guards to see that only men went up to the alter, though a woman or two in our group might have pretended they didn’t understand or had failed to read the sign.  They didn’t get in however…

3.      I took the third photo from right behind the men in the second photo.  I’m looking back along the temple entrance direction.  You can see how close the women are allowed, the third kneeling area back from the statue.  I don’t know why women aren't allowed any closer, other than long standing tradition.

4.      Quite a few people asked me about how poorer families accomplished a Novitiation Ceremony, like I showed from Bagan.  In the fourth photo, you can see the young novice-monk, dressed as a prince.  We saw at least five or six Novitiation groups in this temple while we were there.  They didn’t, of course, have any horses or carts.  They just walked in a line in and around the temple complex.  You can see a few others in his ceremony to the right of him and behind him.

5.      In another building of the complex, we saw six old bronze statues that have a very long history as “war loot”.  These were originally Khmer statutes from Angkor Wat in Cambodia.  They have a long history of conquest and movement.  Of the 30 that were originally brought to Burma from Siam (Thailand), all but six were melted down to make canons.  The six remaining bronze statues are all in this temple.  But the excitement and draw is that these statues are reported to have “healing qualities”.  According to our guide and the written information, you are supposed to rub the part of the statue that you want healed.  So, if you have a sore knee, you should rub the statue’s knee.  The statue that Vicky is rubbing in the last photo is the Shiva statue.  Vicky is rubbing the tummy, most likely to protect her stomach from any ailments while on the trip.  You can see the areas of the statues that are most well rubbed.  Along these lines, someone in our group asked our guide why it was that the statue’s groin area was completely rubbed away.  Our guide smiled and gave an answer that I believe was something like taking the 5th Amendment…

Maha Muni Vendors

I have had a lot of feedback regarding how could the Burmese build so many pagodas and put so much gold leaf on Buddha statues, and yet have so many poor people.  I don’t have an answer for that.  Building pagodas and placing gold leaf on Buddha’s are very important to the Buddhist people.  It’s tradition and it has lots of meaning and presumably reward for the people. 

But one thing I will add is that there was lots of commerce and vending around pagodas and Buddha statues.  I would say that all major pagodas and all major temples with important Buddha statues had many vendors.  The Maha Muni temple was no exception.  Most of the vendors in the temple complex carried their goods on their heads.  We did see some people on the floor with their goods but my guess is that the monks would not let them set up shop inside the temple but would allow vending inside the temple.  There were also many vendors outside this temple. 

1.      This vendor was selling small packets and bags of herbs, medicines, and teas.  You can see the women behind her has set her platter on a small green stool.  This woman has a red stool for the same purpose.  They sell and rest their heads awhile and then move along.

2.      I’m not sure what the woman in the second photo was selling but she seemed happy enough to have her photo taken.  Some vendors signaled me that they didn’t want their photo taken.

3.      This woman was selling fresh pineapple and oranges.  We watched her cut up the pineapples and peal the oranges and put them on her tray. Everything was very fresh.

4.      This is another Novitiation Ceremony.  They are walking around the temple complex.  I’m not sure but I would assume the fruit on their heads was for their feast at the end of the parade.

5.      Vicky took a shot at carrying a vendor’s wares on her head, much to the amusement of some of the locals to the left of her.  The woman on the ground praying is probably praying that Vicky’s tray doesn’t land on her.  Vicky said the tray was quite heavy, though well-balanced.  She said the weight was a great incentive to sell things fast.

Mya Wady Nunnery

Our next stop was a nunnery.  Girls go to a nunnery something like the boys go to a monastery, though there are differences.  Boys are expected to become novice monks during their lives while the girls are not “expected” to go to a nunnery.  Girls do not get Novitiation Ceremonies when they go to a nunnery.  Many girls choose to go to a nunnery for educational opportunities, though there are also many other reasons.  And this nunnery, like most in Burma, is a Buddhist nunnery. 

This nunnery is supported by the people of Mandalay.  The government does not support it.  There are about 285 Buddhist nuns in Mandalay and about 150 of them live here.  This nunnery building in the first photo was started in 1956 and it is still under construction today.  The ages of the nuns in this nunnery was from ages 8 to 68.  Monks go to the streets at dawn and collect food donated directly from people.  The nuns go to town two times a week to collect food donated by people.  The head nuns are in charge and assign the work to the other nuns.

1.      This building is the nuns main building but the complex has many other buildings.  Again, construction began on this building in 1956.  You can’t see the whole building in this photo as it was a large structure.

2.      This is the first floor of the building and this photo only shows about one-quarter of the building.  I had better photos of the other side but there was almost nothing on the other side, while this side at least had many bags of donated rice that you can see.

3.      We held a lengthy Q&A with these three nuns.  It was really quite interesting asking them questions.  They were a bit shy at first but seemed to warm up as the conversation went on.  We also donated some items to the nunnery.

QUICK QUIZ:  What is the Average age of the three nuns?   OR, if you prefer, how old is the nun on the right?   (since both questions have the same answer)  (See answer at end of this Post)

4.      You can see the nuns lining up for lunch.  The nuns only get two meals a day: breakfast and lunch.  If they get hungry after lunch, they can only have water or juice for the rest of the day.

5.      We weren’t allowed to go inside but this made a nice photo.  Most of their lunch looked to be rice, though they did have a little something to put on the rice.  Their dinner bell is just to the left of this photo, it’s the tip of an old bomb shell.

 What is the Average age of the three nuns?  37 (33 - 40 - 37)

Sedona Hotel

The Mandalay Sedona Hotel provided us with quite nice accommodations.  They even served us High Tea every afternoon in the Club Lounge with tea, coffee, and some delicious snacks.  The High Tea is no doubt a holdover from the British days in Mandalay.

1.      I took the first photo from our hotel room.  We looked directly at Mandalay Hill, the Royal Palace, and the Royal Palace Moat.  I loved that view.

2.      Lots of interesting things happened at the hotel.  In this photo, this couple was getting married.  They are on the entrance walkway to the hotel and you can see lots of koi in the pond behind them.

3.      Mandalay was our half-way point in Burma and several of us asked our guide about laundry service.  He made special arrangements for us at the Sedona Hotel.  The special arrangement was not having the hotel do our laundry as he told us it would be too expensive.  He had a nearby local family come to the hotel, pick up our laundry, launder it and return it the next day.  You can see our laundry crew in the photo.  Much to our surprise, and right in the middle of the hotel lobby, the first thing they did was to dump all of our laundry out of the bag and onto the hotel floor.  They then separated our laundry by shirts, pants, bras, panties, etc.  Then they totaled each item and calculated our billing for us.  Once I got over the surprise of seeing our laundry spread out on the floor of the hotel lobby – and with other guests all around it, I recovered enough to give them some very specific instructions: I told them that I only wanted my clothes beaten against the very smooth rocks, no granite or rough stones.  Our laundry came back the next day, in fabulous shape, and we were only charged US $3.

4.      The grounds around the hotel were quite nice.  In the back gardens, they had quite a few interesting seating arrangements, very much on the artistic side.  You can see Vicky sitting in one in the fourth photo.

5.      We also went swimming two afternoons at this hotel.  The heat and humidity were enough to drive us into the pool, but we managed to drag ourselves away each day in time for High Tea.

Mandalay Royal Palace

Buddha evidently stated that he envisioned a great city at the foot of Mandalay Hill.  King Mindon made that happen.  And right at the foot of Mandalay Hill, he also built his Royal Palace, starting early in the year 1857.  The Mandalay Royal Palace only had two kings, King Mindon and his son, King Thibaw.  It ended when the British conquered this area of Burma in 1885.

The Royal Palace originally consisted of 114 buildings, all made of Teak wood.  The wall around the palace is 26 feet high and well over four miles long.  The palace also has a 230 foot wide moat around it and it is one of the world’s few remaining water-filled moats.  While the moat is still full of water and fish, the crocodiles are gone.

The original Royal Palace was destroyed during World War II, by bombs and fire, from Allied bombing.  The palace was reconstructed in the 1990’s but now has just over 40 buildings, most of which are empty.  The public only has limited access to the Royal Palace as it is controlled by the Military.

1.      This is the initial palace building.   It’s a very high multi-layered building with the main throne room and it was quite an impressive building.  There are seven throne rooms in all in the complex.

2.      The second photo is from the back side of the initial palace building in the first photo.  It gives a glimpse of the size and layout of the buildings in the complex.

3.      There is some significance to the third photo.  This is the divide between the king’s buildings and the queen’s buildings, or women’s quarters.  The king’s buildings are the gold gilt filigree buildings.  The queen’s or women’s buildings are the red buildings.  The last king, King Thibaw had 50 queens.  That might explain why they originally had 114 buildings.

4.      The fourth photo was taken from the same spot as the second photo, but just aimed over to the right.  The tower in the center was a watch tower that was disguised to look like a temple.  They evidently didn’t want people or enemies to know that they were watching them.

5.      The last photo is just to let you see the inside of one of the buildings, in this case, the Promenade Hall.

U-Bein Bridge

The U-Bein Bridge is in Amarapura Township.  The bridge spans across Lake Taungthaman.  The U-Bein Bridge is the oldest and longest teak wood bridge in the world.  It is about three-fourths of a mile long and was built around 1850.  It’s an important passageway for the local people but is now also a major tourist attraction and consequently a big area for souvenir vendors.  The bridge features 1,086 teak pillars and the wood all came from the former Royal Palace at Inwa when King Mindon decided to move the Royal Palace to Mandalay.

1.      This photo was taken from some distance back to give an idea of the size and scope of the lake and bridge.  Much of the bridge is still to the left of what can be seen in the photo.

2.      Vicky is on the bridge and now the rest of the bridge can be seen stretching to the far shore of the lake.

3.      The roofed areas of the bridge were mostly for sitting and of course, many vendors located there as well.  In this middle area of the bridge, the lake was covered with water weeds.

4.      I took this photo from our boat ride.  This is what most of the bridge was like…and yes, no walls or guard rails.

5.      We were told that sunset is the most popular time for the bridge, primarily due to the fabulous sunsets…and the sun didn’t let us down.

Lake Taungthaman

Lake Taungthaman is the lake through which the U-Bein Bridge was built.  The lake is shallow normally but was really shallow when we were there.  Our guide estimated the average depth at about five feet.  That was fairly obvious by the number of guys standing out in the various sections of the lake fishing.

Pete, Vicky and I took a paddle boat out into the lake from the western shore.  We went out just before sunset and really enjoyed our stay out on the lake.

1.      This is the northern area of the lake as the bridge is just to the right of this photo.  You can see a number of boats on the eastern shore that will be taking people out on the lake at sunset.  The temple on the right side is the Kyauktawgyi Temple which was built in the 1800’s.

2.      The second photo gives you a closer look at one of the paddle boats.  You can also see the temple in this photo.

3.      Our boatman took us under the U-Bein Bridge to the southern portion of the lake and this was one of my sunset photos.

4.      Nothing like a bottle of wine…while drifting along at paddle-speed and waiting for sunset.

5.      I love this photo of Pete (Vicky’s brother) toasting the sunset.

Duck Herding

These photos were taken while we were walking across the U-Bein Bridge, from atop the bridge. 

1.      We saw this guy out maneuvering his boat in an odd manner and I stopped to try and determine what he was doing.

2.      I really had no idea until this second photo.  At that point, I thought “is he really herding the ducks?”

3.      By this third photo, it was obvious that he was, in fact, herding the ducks.

4.      From this point, they swam down a narrow area of open water and right into a caged area on the western shore.  We never got any information from our guide but I assume that this guy “farms” ducks by keeping them protected in a pen at night and letting them free feed by day out in the lake.  I would also assume that he has clipped their wings so that they can’t fly away.  And we did have some delicious duck served to us in a Chinese/Burmese restaurant in Mandalay.

5.      We also saw several dozen fisherman in the water.  This guy was near the middle of the lake.  It looked like perch they were catching but I was told they were Tilapia.

Kuthodaw Paya

The Kuthodaw Paya or Shrine lies at the foot of Mandalay Hill and was built during the reign of King Mindon.  It was built at the same time as the construction of the Royal Palace or between the years of 1860 and 1869.  They call it “the world’s largest book”.  It has 729 marble slabs which are inscribed on both sides with the entire collection of Buddhist writings.  It would take a year of reading for eight hours a day to read it all.  It was done to preserve Buddha’s teachings, as previously, his writings were kept on banana leaves.

Each tablet has its own protective building.  The complex or shrine is 13 acres.  There are many other buildings and stupas, besides the tablet buildings.  It was an interesting stop. 

1.      This is the entrance way to the shrine complex.  It didn’t appear to be very large or special from the entrance.

2.      After walking along the entrance pathway for a while, I took this photo.  You can see that we are still a long way from the Kuthodaw Paya.

3.      You can see some of the 729 marble slab protective buildings in this photo.  They were in rows with plenty of space between them for large trees and sitting areas.

4.      It’s easier to see a row of the protective buildings in this fourth photo.

5.      You can see one of the marble slabs which stand inside each of the protective buildings.  Both sides of each slab are carved with writings, and all writings were originally with gold letters.

More Kuthodaw Paya

We are still at the Kuthodaw Paya.  The Kuthodaw Paya is a Buddhist stupa.  The stupa is 188 feet tall.  If you recall, a temple can be entered and has Buddha statues inside but a stupa cannot be entered, it has a solid center.

1.      The Kuthodaw Paya is in the first photo and the stairway that you can see in the photo is only a stairway to the upper portion of the stupa and it doesn’t go inside it.

2.      The Kuthodaw Paya is just to the right side of this photo.  The stairs to the upper Kuthodaw are guarded by mythical creatures.  You can also see a few marble inscription buildings in this photo.

3.      There are Buddha alters/temples on all four sides of the Kuthodaw Paya, beyond each Paya stairway.  The Buddha statue that you see was carved out of one solid piece of marble.     

4.      I wandered off the beaten path in the shrine and came upon what I would assume is the ‘maintenance shed’.  The crew must have had the day off.

5.      As we were leaving the Kuthodaw, Vicky purchased a lotus blossom from a vendor.  This is what a working mother looks like in Burma.

Royal Palace Monastery

The Royal Palace Monastery, also called the Shwenandaw Kyaung, was built by King Mindon.  This building was located inside the Royal Palace grounds and was part of the 114 building palace.  It was King Mindon’s living quarters in the Royal Palace.  Then, after King Mindon died, his son, King Thibaw had the building moved outside of the Royal Palace grounds.  He had it turned into a monastery to honor his father.

The building is all teak wood and all tongue and groove, so they were able to take it apart, move it, and put it back together.  Of the original 114 buildings of the Royal Palace, this is the only one that remains today, specifically because it was moved outside the palace grounds.  All the other buildings were destroyed by Allied bombing during World War II.  Originally, the entire inside and outside of this building was completely covered in gold leaf.  Today, there are only small sections inside that are covered with gold leaf.

And now for the craziest thing that we learned here.  According to our guide, the American Embassy pays for the maintenance of this building.  He didn’t know why or how and a quick search online didn’t tell me either but I found it very interesting.  Our tax dollars at work…

1.      This is the building from the back side, due to the height and angle of the sun when we were there.  Again, this building is large, all teak wood, and all intricately carved.

2.      This will give you some idea of the intricate carving done on the entire outer building.

3.      This is the area where today, the monks live, stay, and pray.

4.      This is the opposite side of the building from the prior photo.  You can see that ladies are not allowed in the area of the main Buddha image.

5.      I, of course, went into the area of the main Buddha image to take this photo.

Gold Leaf Workshop

We stopped at a gold leaf workshop, which was far more fascinating than I ever expected.  Gold leaf has been produced here since the 9th or 10th centuries.  It’s mostly used for religious purposes but also in public buildings and personal residences.  Putting gold leaf on a Buddha statue brings great merit to the faithful. 

It seems strange that the gold leaf is still beaten by hand, much like it was back in the 9th or 10th centuries.  That was one of the most fascinating things we learned.  There is a huge market for gold leaf in Burma as well as Thailand and other SE Asian countries.  So the Japanese developed a mechanized process to produce the same gold leaf.  But despite the technology of the Japanese and all the modern-day engineering and expertise, the Japanese cannot get the gold leaf as thin as the hand pounders in Burma.  Amazing!

1.      The gold beaters get paid US $7-8 dollars a day for eight hours of pounding, or about a dollar an hour.  The gold is inside paper and stacked in layers.  They pound it for days.  Since the gold is bundled up within the paper bundles, the beaters cannot see the gold.  We asked “how” the beaters knew when the gold leaf was the right thickness and it was time to stop pounding.  We were told that “they just know”.  We insisted, “but How?”  No further explanation was given.

2.      I gave some gold leaf a good pounding.  I think that I pounded long enough to earn about two cents.  And yes, I had to take my shoes off to do the gold pounding.  I spent about half my time in Burma in my bare feet.

3.      The workshop makes their own paper.  They put gold between sheets of this paper to pound it into gold leaf.  You can see their display of the paper making process, from left to right.  The paper is made from bamboo.                                                                                            QUICK QUIZ:  How long does it take them to make the bamboo paper that is used in the gold leaf pounding process?   (Answer at end of the Post)

4.      The gold is beat so thin that it is almost transparent.  At that point, small squares are mounted on sheets of paper to be sold.  One small square of gold leaf sells for about US $3.  This woman is sitting in a walled and guarded room, though we were allowed inside.

5.      They had a gift shop at the gold leaf workshop.  We didn’t purchase anything, but as you can see, they did have some lovely gold leaf items.

This was part of why the gold leaf workshop was so fascinating. They not only pound the gold leaf by hand with sledgehammers but they also make the paper that they use in the pounding process - out of bamboo.  And it takes "OVER THREE YEARS" to make the paper.

How someone over 1000 years ago figured out how to make this obviously special paper and how they stuck with the process long enough to get it right, I can’t imagine.  But evidently they did.