The Cave at Lol Tun

Lastly we stop at the Lol Tun Caves. The caves are famous for their hand paintings dating back to over 10,000 years BC, the fossils of mammoths and other animals, wall paintings, ancient pottery and human remains.

We park in the small car park and are immediately welcomed by a very friendly and very pregnant dog. She makes a great fuss of us and follows us to the entrance.

Here a guide is compulsory as we will be walking for over 1 kilometre through these underground caves. It is not until we are nearly at the end of the walk that our guide tells us that everything we were hoping to see, other than the hand paintings, are in parts of the caves that are as yet inaccessible to tourists.


The lights throughout the caves are on separate circuits, and as we walk through the caves, the guide has to continually find the switch to turn the next few lights on. They are on timers so we cannot dawdle, or the lights go out on us. In true Mexican fashion some of the lights do not switch on. You would expect the guide to be aware of this and have a flashlight at the ready. But you would be wrong. Fortunately we have one of those tiny lights that attach to a key ring and that was our only light to guide us through some of the passageways.

We are amazed and rather touched to find that the dog has accompanied us the entire way through the tunnels. When the lights go off, she keeps quite close to us as if checking we are alright.

At the end of the tour the guide tells us that although we paid an entrance fee to go into the caves, that does not cover his charge and he expects to be paid. When we ask how much, he tells us $50 would be appropriate. Needless to say he is one very disappointed guide.

The dog, however, gets several biscuits from a package we have in the car and seems much happier than the guide.

The Metro

The next day, Monday, is a National Holiday and again we suspect everything will be closed. We ask our concierge at the front desk and she informs us that all the Museums are closed on Mondays anyway, but the stores will be open despite the holiday. She is wrong. The large stores are open but the smaller stores are not.

We decide to explore the Colonia Condessa, and take the Metro. It is our first experience of the Mexico City Metro system. It is the second largest subway system in the Americas, after New York, and is one of the world’s great architectural marvels. Because of the underground lake the entire 125 mile system had to be built so that it actually floats and can move up and down depending on the level of the lake. The trains run on pneumatic tires rather than steel tracks and move 5 million people a day smoothly and comfortably. It is efficient, fast and clean, and you might think all this would come at a price. But even more remarkable than its engineering is the fact that a ride of any distance is 2 pesos, about 15 cents. What more could anyone ask.

It’s three drawbacks are that at rush hour it is unbelievably crowded, there is a serious problem with pickpockets, and it is not safe for tourists at night.

The stations are often hard to find as the signage is poor, but once inside there are plenty of signs leading you to the correct platform. We wait until after 10am, hoping to avoid the crowds. The trains come every couple of minutes, but they are still amazingly busy and it is standing room only.

The system was started in the 60’s and is definitely shabby, but we are impressed by its cleanliness. There is no litter anywhere. The other noticeable difference from other major subways is all the backlit frames that line the walls are empty – there are no advertisers.

Very few of the riders are what might be called middle class: very few business suits, or well dressed women. This is transport for the working class masses.

There is one innovation that should be copied everywhere. During rush hour the front two cars are reserved for women and children only. We are also impressed to see the young give up their seats to the elderly. But unfortunately no one stands up for me.

Mexico City by Turibus

It is a beautiful sunny day with a strong breeze that keeps Mexico City’s well known smog from settling in and we have a wonderful view of the different neighborhoods from the upper deck of the Turibus. However at times, there is an element of danger as we pass under trees whose limbs smack us across our forehead if we don’t duck in time.

The centre of the city was designed and built in the 19th century by the Emperor Maximilian, a Frenchman of enormous wealth and very little intellect, who somehow found himself in Mexico. He was homesick for France and decided to build a city that reminded him of his beloved Paris. In this he was successful and today the boulevards, parks and buildings all remind us of that fabulous city.


Alongside these European streets are some wonderfully evocative Art Nouveau and Art Deco buildings that rose up during the City’s renaissance during the early 20th century. There are walls of Tiffany glass and stunning Diego Rivera murals, and entire suburbs of wonderful art deco architecture. Other wealthy suburbs are full of impressive 18th and 19th century houses and mansions.

But Mexico City also has its less glamorous side and we pass through areas that are in stark relief to the magnificence of the main streets. Many of the areas, just a couple of streets away from the European boulevards, are extremely poor , with shabby run down buildings of indeterminate age, shoddily built with cheap materials that blight the streets with their uncared for exteriors. In fact a large percentage of these buildings appear to be derelict. It is interesting to note that the endless small apartment buildings of the mid 20th century are not handling the ravages of time nearly as well as their older counterparts.

The Village of Nowohen

We walk down into a valley and up the other side to reach the village of Nowohen where the Akha tribe lives. They also wear black clothing, but this time the women have magnificent silver headdresses, rows of beaded necklaces and beaded belts and bags. The headdresses are made of real silver and have been handed down from mother to daughter. However many of the younger women have given up wearing them because they are so uncomfortable. This, combined with the fact that tourists will pay $500 for one headdress, means that within a few years it may no longer be possible to see this tribe in their original clothing.





This village is quite clearly far more prosperous than the last one, with the 26 houses laid out along two dirt streets, and small corrals with goats, chickens and pigs.


The homes are larger, and better constructed, although still just made of bamboo and matting. We are grateful to see that everyone looks clean, at least when compared to the last village. It turns out that the success of this village is almost entirely due to the fact that a missionary came here 14 years ago, and has taught the village basic principals of hygiene, village planning and husbandry. The entire village has converted to Catholicism. This originally caused some problems as prior to the Missionary’s arrival a tribesman was allowed two wives if he could afford them. In an example of true wisdom seldom seen in the church, the Missionary has told the people that this is fine, and that the arrangement can continue as long as the two wives were acquired before they became Christian.
In this village the wife has a separate bedroom from the husband, and if the husband desires sex, he must knock on her bedroom door first and be invited in. We might be centuries ahead of them in many ways, but we still could learn something from this tribe!

Mandalay to Kyaingtong

We are flying to Kyaingtong to see the different tribes of Northern Mynamar that remain unaffected and virtually untouched by the outside world. We arrive in a very different Myanmar . The airport at Kyaingtong is little more than a couple of huts next to an airstrip. But security is the tightest we have seen. We are deep in the heart of the Golden Triangle and close to the Chinese border. This was the notorious heroin capital of the world, but the Junta claims to have completely wiped out all the poppy plantations over the last few years. Tourists have only been allowed back in over the last four years. Consequently there are none of the luxuries we have been enjoying. The hotel we are staying in is known to be the best in town, but would not qualify for one star. We were well aware of this when planning our trip and were rather anxious about what we would find. It was maybe even more basic than we expected, but we were happy to find that it was comparatively clean, and the staff very welcoming and friendly. However all the laundry was done by hand with no hot water, so the sheets and towels were grey, which was a little disturbing. We were on the third floor (no elevator of course). At the end of our corridor there was a door marked “emergency exit”. For a moment we were reassured, but then we discovered it was just a door opening on to a three storey drop into the middle of the neighbour’s pigsty. No stairs, no balcony. Nothing.

We are in the high country and the temperatures have plummeted. But there is no heating in the hotel and some of the windows have fixed open slatted glass. It is colder in the hotel than outside and Gordon, who feels the cold, is miserable. He sleeps with all his clothes on underneath a huge pile of blankets.

Touring Ava

The only way round the island is by horse and buggy and there are over 150 of them waiting at the ferry stop. It is all very orderly, and the drivers take customers in strict rotation. If this was a normal day in the high season, they would each have one customer a day, and sometimes two. But things are not normal in Myanmar , and our driver has been waiting three days for his turn. Sadder still is the fact that for his services he is paid the princely sum of $3. The buggy is small and he asks me to ride up front with him. This has obviously got more to do with placing my bulk in the easiest place for the horse, than for our comfort. The horse is tiny and we are introduced to her. Her name is Jasmine. I am sitting directly behind her rear quarters, next to the driver. The only thing between her backside and me is an open basket designed to catch any of her droppings. I had no idea that a small horse could produce quite so much manure in such a short time, while trotting round an island. Nor was I aware of just how pungent it could be. Jasmine, bless her, had eaten way too much earlier in the day and we were now reaping the benefits.

There is little remaining on the Island to show that it was such an important place, other than the crumbling walls that used to surround the Royal Palace . But the Island is lovely with long “roads” or tracks arched with trees on either side, giving it the feel of rural France . The only other traffic is heavy carts, full of produce, being pulled by white oxen. The villages are also quite appealing, with the usual bamboo and rush buildings, with an occasional magnificent house made of teak. Many of the people stop and wave as we go round. The tour takes about three hours, the highlight of which is a beautiful teak monastery built in 1820. There are huge teak columns inside stretching up 30 feet to support the roof. The doors, windows and railings are all beautifully carved and still in excellent condition. It is quite stunning.

From there we go to the Ubein Bridge further up the river. This is known as the longest teak bridge in the world. In fact it is more like a jetty which spans the river. It is just under a mile long. This is the first tourist sight we have been to that is busy, but what is nice is that it is busy with locals who love the bridge. They all go for their evening walk across it, or take a picnic during the day. We are there for the sunset, which is quite incredible. We walk across mingling with the locals and a large number of monks, all enjoying this beautiful place. There are water buffalo below us swimming in the river. It is a truly exotic way to end a lovely day.

Ava - A Restaurant

In the afternoon we got to see Ava, which was the capital of Myanmar from 1418 to 1839. It is an island in the middle of the river. We catch what passes for a ferry across to the island, but is in fact little more than a few pieces of wood strung together with a small motor at the back. It seems that our water transport gets worse as our trip goes on. But this journey is only a few hundred yards. The island itself is a revelation, a beautiful serene place with no vehicles. There is a restaurant where the ferry stops and we have lunch. It is incredibly basic with tables and chairs set out on the dirt underneath a huge spreading tree. Dogs and flies fight for our attention, while chickens scratch in the dirt all around. There is even a huge black pig fast asleep between two of the tables. The waiter does his best to keep the flies away from our food with a fan which he periodically waves over our table, as if it was the most natural thing for a waiter to be doing. Despite this we are served a delicious lunch of fresh fish and fried rice, and it all seems very romantic.

Afterward our guide suggests that we take the fish head that we hadn’t touched and the remains of the fried rice to give to one of the begging children. We ask what they do with the fish head. They will apparently beat it all to a pulp, and then press it through a sieve that will allow any flesh to pass through and retain the bones. The flesh they collect will last a family a couple of days, when served with soup, rice and vegetables. Outside the restaurant is a young boy trying to sell us trinkets. I offer him the leftovers and his face lights up into the biggest smile you have ever seen. He is obviously thrilled and thanks us warmly. The guide tells us that his family will rarely have eaten anything as exotic as this. We feel terribly extravagant and wasteful.

Life In Mandalay

Mandalay is a much more attractive city than Yangon. Many of the streets are lined with trees, and bustle with people who seem happier and a little more prosperous than in Yangon . Large portions of the city have good middle class houses. Downtown is more like a downtown as we know it, with many streets full of shops, and a few selling named brands that are definitely high end. There is even a small shopping mall and a few neon signs, although the latter seems rather superfluous because of the lack of power to turn them on.

There are many motorbikes and thousands of bicycles that appear to take no notice of the rules of the road.


Road junctions and cross roads often have a policeman in the middle directing traffic, but no one pays them any attention. Cross roads are quite terrifying, and we sit white knuckled in our car, clinging to the back of the seat in front of us. I try closing my eyes, but it is impossible to keep them closed with all the noise around us.

This is the first place we have seen taxis, but they are not geared to the tourists. They are Mazda pick up trucks built in the 1940’s. They are amazingly small, looking like children’s toy cars. The passengers sit in the back of the pick up truck. You could perhaps squeeze two Americans in the back, but they would be very unhappy. But up to 10 Burmese somehow manage to ride this way.


We are pleased to see that there are many more monks here than anywhere we have been so far. The Mayor of Mandalay refused the Generals orders to kill monks and so Mandalay escaped much of the crackdown. But once the uprising was crushed the Mayor was fired from his job. There are also many nuns, who wear pink robes, and, like the monks go out in the morning to collect food from the people. However nuns can only go out twice a week and can only accept rice and vegetables.

We visit several craft houses, all of them working without lighting. We watch as women stoop over their embroidery doing the most intricate work in semi darkness. Three men noisily beat gold into gold leaf. They will be deaf by the end of their worklife.


Like the rest of the country, electricity is limited. Here they receive power for three days, and then just for 6 to 12 hours on the other four days. Water too is problematical. Each household has to pay $200 for the connection, a large amount of money to most families. On top of this they pay a monthly fee based on usage, but during the dry season there will often be no water available. Few have hot water, and sometimes the mornings are too cold for them to take a shower. If they live in houses and apartments that are more than two stories high, very often the water will not pump up to the higher floors.

Mandalay

Our first stop is the old Royal Palace built in the 1860’s. It is a huge square compound, surrounded on all four sides by a wall and a moat The wall is two kilometres long on each of the four sides.


The entire place was bombed in the war, and virtually destroyed. The government, recognizing a tourist attraction when they see one, decided to rebuild it in the 1990’s. However, where there were once huge wooden columns there are now huge cement columns, and where there was gold leaf covering everything there is now gold paint. It all looks so tacky, and very few people go there. To make matters worse the huge grounds that were so beautiful, are now full of unsightly cheap housing used solely to house army soldiers. Min, our guide, is making her opening political statement by taking us here first.


However a block or so away is one of the original buildings. It is in this building that the King died, and his son wanted to preserve it as a special and separate monument, so moved it away from the palace, thus unwittingly insuring its survival during the bombings. It is one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen, built entirely of teak and covered in intricate carvings. Both inside and out were originally covered in gold, but very little remains on the outside because of the weather. But the inside still gleams, the many tall golden pillars supporting the roof look like a shining forest, It is an amazing sight, that dazzles the eye.


From here we go to lunch in a local restaurant where we have to listen to a CD of Christmas Carols sung in English by a Burmese singer who obviously learned parrot fashion from listening to the original, and has no idea what he is saying. We recognize the song “I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”, but instead of singing “If Daddy had only seen” He sang” If Veddy Veddy on the scene”, and “He thought that I was tucked up in my bedroom fast asleep” became “he thawed a ice water up in my bedroom vast and leap".

Mandalay - The First Sights

A magical morning as we sail into Mandalay. We sail under two iron bridges with hills on either side, full of golden stuppas that glisten in the early morning sun.


Small fishing boats with one solid bright coloured sail, emerge slowly out of the mists and smoke that rise off the land and drift across the wide river. Ships carrying huge piles of rice chug along the river and are laden to the point where it seems that they would sink if you loaded one more sack on board. The ships are as old and dilapidated as the buses from the 1940’s, and their crews aren’t much better. They are all in dirty white T shirts and ragged longyis, and they wave as we go by.


It is exactly as we imagined it as kids in school, reading Rudyard Kipling and learning about the glory days of the British Empire.

Once ashore we are met by our new guide, Min, a woman of about 40 suffering from a severe case of flu. It seems that half the country is in the grips of flu.. A Boy named Sue had it, but not badly, his driver had it, the two other passengers on the ship had it, two of the crew had it, and it is obvious that many people we see have it. But no one has seemed as sick as Min, who we are sure will not make it through the day. She is dressed for winter, with a rather strange hand knitted pink wool hat pulled down to her eyebrows, and a matching scarf wrapped twice round her neck and mouth. She has a huge padded coat which she holds tightly around her body, boots and a pair of gloves. The only part of her body exposed to the elements is her eyes. Where she found this clothing is a mystery, Mandalay is always hot and we never saw a shop selling anything like these clothes. She had to blow her nose constantly, which unfortunately she did directly into her hand, and then wiped her hand with a piece of toilet paper. This was not appealing.

Both she and her husband are tour guides, and have two children. Because of the lack of tourists they were in dire straits and she has to work, no matter how sick she feels. She is only able to talk in a whisper because of her sore throat, and has to stop often to cough. We are reluctant to deprive her of the little income we are bringing her, so we control our impulse to tell her to go home.

Burma - More Things We Have Learned

As we continue to quietly sail down the Irrawaddy River we pick up more information about Burma.
1. The Irrawaddy River rises 50 feet in the rainy season. In the delta region it can rise 200 feet.

2. Many villagers on the banks of the river have to move their homes, their belongings and their livestock every 6 months. Then they return a few months later when the rain stops.


3. 60% of the population of Bagan works in the tourist industry.

4. The tourist industry is down by 80% this year, and some say it is down by up to 90%. The people of Bagan are really hurting, as is the rest of the country.

5. On our one hour drive back from Poppa to Bagan, we saw exactly three other cars.

6. We have been traveling for 9 days now and have seen very few monks.

7. Many workers who we talk to in the tourist industry, tell us directly that they hate their government.

8. There is a pension for people over 65, but it consists of a few dollars a month, and no one can live on it. Consequently yet another burden is placed on the workers – they have to support their parents in their old age.

9. A phone line, believe it or not, costs $5,500 to install. A cell phone costs over $2000 and can only be bought on the black market, which in this case means buying one from a government employee.

10. Electricity is cheap, but who cares, if you can hardly ever get it.

11. Men and women of all ages wear a skin cream made from the bark of the Dhanakhar tree. It protects from the sun, and helps against acne and wrinkles. It is a yellow color and the women and children paint it on to their faces every day.


When boys get old enough to feel self conscious, they stop wearing it in the day time. But most everyone, including the men, put it on at night. We have been commenting that the Burmese have wonderful skin, and if this is the reason for it, we have to get some! But maybe it’s too late!

Thoughts on Burma as we Cruise down the Irrawaddy

The rest of the day is spent gently cruising down the river. While we are sitting idly on the sun deck watching the world go by, albeit it very slowly, we are left to ponder some of the things we have seen and learned so far in Burma:

1. A huge majority of the people are dressed in clothes which are falling apart, but are always comparatively clean.

2. Children have to wear a school uniform of a green longyi with a white shirt for both girls and boys. They also have to buy all their books, paper and pencils. Consequently many parents can’t afford to send their children to school.

3. Women do not wear wedding rings. Instead they wear their long shiny black hair pinned up if they are married, or hanging down their back if they are single. Presumably it is fairly easy to let your hair fall down accidentally.

4. Many towns away from the river have no water supply. Water is piped to a central collection point. The local villagers then have to collect it and take it to their villages. They use barrels placed on a cart and pulled by oxen to do this.

5. The landscape that is not farmed is full of bushes and trees that are all young and small. Trees taller than about 20 feet are a rarity, with the exception of palm trees. This is a direct result of the deforestation, especially of the teak trees. It is one of the worst countries in the world for deforestation.

6. At around 5 or 6 each evening the sky becomes full of smoke, sometimes becoming so thick that it makes you choke. This is because everyone burns their rubbish each evening.

7. Burma makes one of the best beers in the world – Myanmar Beer. It is really inexpensive, and on this ship it is free just like the soft drinks.

8. Burma also has a wine industry with a few vineyards. It is a young industry with a lot to learn. But when 90% of the population is Buddhists, and good Buddhists don’t drink, one has to wonder why they are bothering.

Back to the Pandaw 2

When we return to the ship, we are offered a complimentary cocktail of the day. Today it is Gin Fizz , and Gordon manages to down three of them in no time flat. This is a lifestyle we could definitely get used to.

The other couple on board are an Englishman and his German wife who now live in Australia . Their names are Derek and Helga. I am desperate for them to be wonderful company, or eccentric, or even better, dreadfully awful, so that I will have something entertaining to write about. But sadly they are none of these things. They are just ordinary people, notable for very little other than his appalling “English teeth”. They both have the flu, neither of them drink, and they like to be in bed by 9pm. Suffice it to say, that if we were able to choose our travel companions, Derek and Helga would not be our first choice
When we arrive at the dining room for dinner, the staff have set two tables for two and one table for four, giving us the option of dining together or separately. Derek and Helga arrive first and we see that they have chosen to dine separately. Only the English would find themselves alone on a boat and chose not to dine together!


The restaurant is on the lower deck and has double doors that open onto the “promenade deck” , which itself is just a foot or two above the water. We have a table right by the open doors and it feels as if we are on a low platform floating down the river. There are no lights to be seen anywhere and we can just make out the river bank with the help of the moonlight. The sky is full of stars, and the river flows by our table. The food is mediocre but the evening is magical

Ohn Ne Choung

The village is a 45 minute walk to the nearest road, and so the most convenient transport they have is boats, and any outside life they see is brought to them by whatever boats stop at their river bank. Consequently the arrival of the Pandaw 2 is cause for great excitement and the entire village has turned out to welcome us. Actually it is almost entirely children who are waiting on the river bank, waving and smiling as we arrive.


The village has a population of 1800, and 1000 of them are children. This is the result of a village with very little electricity and only one television.
There must be over a hundred children greeting us and they are delightful. They get an enormous amount of pleasure from having their photo taken and then seeing it reproduced on the screen on the back of the camera.


Most of them are under 10 and obviously have not seen themselves very often, and some don’t recognize themselves. The other kids tell them that it is them they are looking at and there is a huge amount of giggling. There is one boy of about 10 who has a tattered New York Yankees cap, which he is wearing sideways.


Street fashion has reached a village in Burma , that has no streets
We are told not to offer the kids any money. Instead, we are asked to give any candy or money that we have to the school teacher who will distribute it later.


This way they do not learn to beg and so we have a delightful time without any of the begging that we are besieged with in the larger towns. They follow us everywhere and some even hold our hands. We do give the school teacher some money, but it disappears into his pocket and we have a sneaking suspicion that it will stay there and not reach the kids.

The Road To Mandalay

Our ship, The Pandaw 2, takes the phrase “at a leisurely pace” to new extremes. At times it is hard to tell that we are moving and every other boat on the river overtakes us, even the little one man fishing boats. At some point we expect to see a row boat go past. The four of us sit on the sundeck in the reclining chairs, a drink in hand, surrounded with staff, and watch the life on the river bank as it slowly passes by. We have never felt so decadent and we agree that we are taking indolence to a new level.
At 4pm, we stop at a small village called Ohn Ne Choung, and are free to wander round for an hour. There is no dock, and the ship merely pulls into the river bank and throws out a gang plank.


We cross it and climb the steep sandy bank to find the village. The houses are the usual two room affairs made of bamboo and rattan. Each has a large fenced area around it with either a pig, or an ox tethered in the yard, or the well to do have both, plus chickens. It’s a bit like having your car and dinner sitting in the garden. There are narrow lanes between the houses often lined with trees making it very picturesque. There are some wider roads to allow the ox and cart to travel through it. The ground is very fine dirt, almost sand like, and so everywhere is dusty. There are a few power lines and no running water or sewer pipes. All the water is taken from the river, which is filthy. There is a constant stream of people going down to the river to fetch water in two pails hanging from a bamboo pole strung across their neck.

Poppa - Dinner and Politics

We buy a bottle of Champagne, which a Boy named Sue has never tasted before. He takes to it like a duck takes to water, and demolishes the best part of the bottle while we are still working on our first glass. We do nothing to stop him, as his reluctance to talk politics disappears with each glass he consumes. He tells us that this Hotel would normally be packed at this time of year. Last year every hotel in Bagan was filled and there weren’t enough cars, drivers, and tour guides to go round. This year the Hotels are empty, and the tour guides and drivers are struggling to find work. He goes on to say how life is getting harder every year for the people of Burma. He, and most of the educated people, are fed up and really angry. But the poor and uneducated are not interested in politics. He claims that when the demonstrations were going on, the government actually rounded up the people from the countryside and offered them food, soap and shampoo if they would gather in the streets and shout pro government slogans, which of course they did. Buddhists believe that what ever happens to them in this life is a direct result of how they behaved in their last life. So a hard life is just seen as a penalty that must be endured, and not as something that can be changed.

We revisit the discussion of education, and he tells us that University is little more than a joke. He went to University, and all he had to do was go for one month each year for 3 years and then he got his degree. He said it was really just a party for the one month a year and he gained very little from it.

If you want to be a tour guide, you have to attend another school. The exams at the end of this course were difficult tests on your language skills, history skills and knowledge of architecture as it applies to the Stuppas and Palaces. However all he was taught in the classes were the rules and regulations that the government has put in place to regulate tourism. Consequently only one in seven passes the exam.

As the bottle of champagne empties, a Boy named Sue gets more and more depressed and ends the evening by saying that if things don’t get better soon, he will try and leave Burma and live somewhere far away, where he will be able to send money home to support his family. He is a bright, intelligent and hard working young man, and one that most countries would want to keep as a valuable asset. But we have the feeling that the Generals would not be upset to see him go.

We admire what he has achieved, and are sad for him. His life is going to be hard, and the only reason for that, is that he was born in Burma.

Living in Bagan

Everyone we meet asks us to compare Bagan with Angkor Wat. But they are totally different. Firstly Bagan is on a flat plain. Secondly the scale is so different. Here the buildings are on a much smaller scale, but there are thousands of them. Angkor Wat is all about scale, huge buildings with decaying stucco covered with carvings and statues. Bagan was originally similar, but the stucco was made of mud and over the centuries was worn away by the elements. What remained of the stucco was mostly shaken loose by the 1975 earthquake. So now all the buildings are red brick, which gives them a totally different feel.


The town of Bagan is divided into Old Bagan and New Bagan. The centre of Old Bagan is a one square mile lot that is surrounded by a City Wall and Moat built in the 9th century.


There are 75 stuppas within the city wall, and until recently several small villages.


The family of a Boy named Sue lived in one of these villages. In 1990 the generals told everyone living within the City Wall that they had five days to tear down their house and move to an area the generals would provide. On the 5th day the Generals sent a large truck to each house and the family was ordered to load everything they owned including as much of the structure of their old house as possible, onto the truck. They were then taken to a plot of land in New Bagan, where all their belongings were dumped. They were told that this was their new home. They were given no help or monetary aid to build their new house.

A Boy named Sue is much more reticent about discussing the Generals than our previous guide, but he did tell us that story, as well as telling us that all the guides hate the present Government. However, when we told him that we had heard that all of Myanmar only got electricity for 3 days a week, he looked totally shocked that we knew this and refused to discuss it. This, despite the fact that Bagan is plagued by electricity cuts all the time. We are staying in one of Bagan’s five star Hotels, which is lovely. However the power shuts off several times each evening and everything goes pitch black for a few moments before the generators kick in. The same happens in the restaurants we eat in at night. When the power is on, it is totally erratic with the lights dimming and brightening again all the time. We have a television in the room which, because of the power supply, only produces a picture intermittently, although the sound works all the time.

This is also the first hotel we have stayed in that has Internet. However whenever we try to use it, we are told that it is down and that it will probably be switched on tomorrow. But tomorrow never comes. It is never available for our use during our stay.

Bagan and Our Guide

Our guide in Bagan immediately reminds us of Lawrence, but without the star quality. He is twenty two, tall and lean with a terrible complexion and very trendy black framed glasses. Like many of the young Myanmar men his shiny black hair has dyed brown highlights. He has on a baby blue sweater over a white shirt and dark longyi, which he wears slung very low over his hips. He carries a mobile phone in his hand, and hanging from it is a small, terminally cute, white and pink teddy bear with a heart emblazoned on its chest. The overall effect leads one to question his sexuality. When he walks, the question is answered by a delicate swaying of the hips. He flashes a 200 megawatt smile that transforms his acne scared face into a very attractive one. What he has been unable to do with his complexion, he has made up for with many trips to the dentist. His teeth sparkle and gleam in the sunlight. He introduces himself by his Myanmar name, which is, he acknowledges, too difficult for foreigners to pronounce, so he suggests we call him Soe. Well that gets us off to a good start, and from this point on we refer to him as a Boy named Sue. He is charming and far easier company than Lawrence, plus he is an intelligent and knowledgeable guide.


We spend the next two days touring Bagan. Until today, we have been unsure about how well Mynamar compares to our previous trip to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Today, Myanmar comes into its own. Bagan is breathtaking; a large plain of around 42 square kilometers on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, that is home to a few small villages and over 4000 temples and stuppas. Most of them were built between the 11th and 13th centuries, although the earliest date back to the 3rd century, and we see several from the 9th century.


It all came to an end with the Mongolian Invasion in 1287. Fortunately the Mongols were also Buddhists and left the Pagodas intact. At one point there were 5000 of them, but the ravages of time reduced that number considerably. Then a huge earthquake in 1975 damaged many more. Now there are around 4,000 but many are just piles of rubble. There are maybe 2,000 that are worth a visit. We only have two days, and manage to see about 15!

Pindaya - The Caves

After much political discussion, and a three hour journey, through beautiful countryside, we finally reach the caves of Pindaya. The caves are half way up a hillside and there are 8,090 Buddhas inside them.


The first one was put there over 200 years ago and it became popular to put a Buddha in there to celebrate your life. The difference with these Buddhas is that the face of each Buddha has been crafted to the likeness of the person donating it. So, each one is different. We also learn to tell the difference between Indian Buddhas, Chinese Buddhas, Thai Buddhas and Myanmar Buddhas.

The town of Pindaya is charming and we have lunch by the small lake in the centre of town. It is a beautifully decorated restaurant with a big deck right out over the water. We have a table on the deck, and are served the best meal we have had so far in Myanmar. It costs $12 for the two of us including two beers and a cappuccino. But it is accompanied by a performance that doesn’t quite fit the surroundings. A local man, of about forty, walks along the edge of the lake and stops directly below us. He proceeds to take off his shirt and wash it in the lake. Then he takes of his longyi and washes that. He is now standing directly in front of us in nothing but his “tighty whities”, or in this case “tighty brownies”, doing his laundry. He then proceeds to bathe himself covering his body in a soapy foam and then splashing about in the lake to wash it off. Finally he washes his hair. When all this is finished, he climbs out of the lake and proceeds to do a vigorous work out routine in nothing but his underwear. If he had been 20 years younger and twenty pounds lighter it might have been entertaining. As it was, it just impeded our digestion. It was like watching a train wreck. You really didn’t want to see it, but you couldn’t help but watch.

People washing themselves and their clothes in the lakes and rivers is a common sight in Myanmar, but this is the first time we have seen it elevated to performance art.

After this “dinner show” we drive to the nearest airport and catch a flight to Began where we will spend the next three nights.



We say goodbye to Rosa, who has been a riveting travel companion, completely open and honest in our discussions about her country, and we have come away wiser and sadder.

Inle Lake - Our Guide's Further Thoughts

Indien, with its 1090 stuppas, is a wonderful place with a spiritual peacefulness that makes it feel quite special. The views of the surrounding countryside are lovely, and yet we are the only tourists there all afternoon. This leads to another long and frank discussion with our guide about the state of Myanmar. She explains how the poor people in Myanmar are not concerned with politics. Buddhists believe that what happens to them in this life is a direct result of what they did in their past life. If times are extremely hard in this life, they accept it. They do not blame the current regime for their misfortune. Our guide tells us that when the crackdown occurred she was actually traveling in the country, and she asked a woman she met, if she knew of what was happening in Yangon. The woman didn’t. And when the guide started to tell her that monks had been shot, the woman said “Don’t talk to me about politics, it doesn’t concern me”. It is only the educated who come to recognize the repercussions of the current regime’s behaviour. The regime therefore makes sure that the schools are poor, and education past elementary is expensive, thus insuring that the people remain uneducated, uncomplaining and uninterested. This is why most uprisings start with the educated.

She also tells us a fact that the Government does not want outsiders to know. The electricity for the country comes from one Hydro Electric Dam built at the end of Lake Inle by the Japanese in the early 60s. Over the years the level of the lake has dropped as village construction increases and silt builds up against the dam. This has severely impacted the output of the dam turbines. The entire country now only gets full power for 3 days a week, and for 6 hours a day on the other four days. All the major hotels and tourist restaurants have generators.

Another points she tells us is that the average Myanmar citizen, no matter how poor, donates around 40% of their earnings to the temples, thus showing how important religion is to them.


She also discusses the influence of the Chinese on her country. There are many Chinese in Myanmar , and particularly in this area, because of the closeness of the border. Rosa explains that the Chinese are very smart business people, and that all the businesses are owned by Chinese, while all the work is done by the Burmese. All the guides we have throughout our stay in Myanmar, are united in their dislike of the Chinese. Not only does China plunder the resources of Myanmar without a thought for the people, but a large proportion of the 300,000 tourists Burma gets each year are Chinese, and the guides say that the Chinese are rude and pushy tourists unwilling to pay much money for anything.