We have arrived in the city of temples Bagan. It is said that there was 10,000 Temples and Pagodas on this plain but only 2200 still exist. I will be able to tell you more about this next post.
2 days ago we left Kale for what was reported to be a 10 to 12 hour drive to Monyma. The main road was in very poor condition and using local knowledge we went the longer way around by continuing down the same valley we had follow the afternoon before.
There was evidence of the massive flood that had come down the river early in the year with bridges washed out and debris in trees indicating that a lot of people had been displaced and had there homes inundated.
All down the valley the rice harvest was well underway, with this process still being a total hand harvesting operation with most of the rice then hand threshed before being dried fully on woven mates on the side of the road or anywhere flat and clean with a lot of sun. A few lucky people got the threshing done by small engine driven Threshers.
After following this river for about 3.5 hour we headed east to our destination over I think 3 sets off mountains before crossing one of the big tributary’s of the Irrawaddy River into Monyma. Luckily the drive was only 8.5hs so we while Julie ducked down the street for the local Myanmar dress to wear for the time here.
Yesterday’s travels took us firstly to the temple with 500,000 images of Buddha then on to the largest standing Budda in Myanmar. We had seen this Buddha 40k across the plains yesterday before we got to town. This site is a collection of several large Budda statues in different poses, lying on the side and on the back plus the construction site for a second large standing Buddha even taller.
At the standing Buddha we were able to climb the 20 odd storeys to the top level. A view didn’t exist due to the window needing a clean, But I guess that the Buddhist visitors don’t do the climb for the view but for spiritual reasons. The climb was great as it’s the first real exercise Julie and I have done on the trip due to time constraints and weariness.
Leaving the temple site we pulled up down the road in a very small village for a cuppa and a visit to the village. This had a outside school for extra studies on the public holiday. The way village life worked was most interesting with both communal and individual farming.
All through Myanmar people have a cream of some sort on their face, yesterday lunch Julie found out more about it and tried some. The cream is a natural produce made from grinding up the bark of a special tree on a stone plate with a little water before appalling to the face to be used for both sun protection and a skin cream.
Most of our travel yesterday was in farming land that is above the monsoon flood level. It is really evident what the floods have on the soil nutrients levels and the crops. Down on the flood plains the crops looks very lush from the regular fertilising received with the flood slit. Most of the crops above the flood levels are looking very poorly and hungry. In these areas we saw a lot of ads nailed to trees for Fertilizer and Chemicals and we saw no ads on the flood plains.
We crossed the Irrawaddy River yesterday, which is one of the big rivers of Asia that’s stars up in Tibet along side the Mekong and the Yangtze.
We arrived in Begin mid afternoon ready for our rest day and temple visiting today.
Al Kent
Good meeting you today in Adel, Georgia USA at Pike Creek Turf . Enoyed the photos, come back soon.
Al Kent