Rangoon by any other name,

2170a  This is the Sule Pagoda & Bus Stop in Yangon.  Three busses and each assistant driver yelling his route at once.  Yikes!!

2171  This is the Sule Pagoda.  As you can see there's a row of grey, reverse sky boxes around the perimeter. 

2176b  This is the Colonial Era Post Office that is still serving in that function.  You can see the Burmese touches in the towers. 

2186  Young monks out looking for alms for their daily food.  The brown bowls are the traditional containers they carry.  They usually just walk along holding the bowl in front of them and don't say a word.  If you want to contribute you do, if not that's ok too.

2193  These young men are having breakfast in one of the many street side tea houses.  Nothing like a hot cup of tea, a bowl of noodles and the company of friends to get your day started with a smile.  Even an nosy tourist can't dampen that feeling of good cheer.

2197  These are typical Yangon apartments.  Remember, 8 stories and less, no elevator.

Feb 13 – Thilawa-Yangon, Myanmar (Burma) Day 2.  Well, you've already had the new port stuff I mostly dig up from travel books, Wikipedia, and our guides so we can get right to it.

Today we are driving into Yangon, the major city in Myanmar.  Our younger guide yesterday called the country Burma; he did not accept Yangon as the decision to change the name was made by the leaders of the Military takeover that has been ruling the country for years.  He views this as illegitimate.  Free speech was repressed violently until about 2 years ago when things loosened up a bit.  Just to show you how it goes here.  In 2008 the military, after many protests and several strikes, agreed to have free elections.  They held the election and when a candidate not to their liking won they refused to seat the new government.  Their explanation was, "We agreed to hold elections and we have.  We never agreed to abide by them."  Talk about malicious compliance.  That's it baby!

Our guide today is older and uses all the politically expedient names for things.  He calls the country Myanmar and refers to Yangon as Yangon and not Rangoon its former name.

Anyway, we are headed into Yangon/Rangoon to see some of the important sites.  It's about 20 miles from the port but will take us 60-90 minutes to get there depending on traffic.  Major roads here are 'paved' two-lane for the most part.  I say 'paved' because, although there may be some blacktop present it has large potholes and irregular shoulders.  There are some four lane roads but the flow of traffic on them is only fair.  Slow moving trucks and busses keep them from being driven efficiently.  Because today would have been the 100th birthday of the Father of Burma, Aung San, it's another holiday and traffic was bad going in to town.  In one village we were completely stopped for some time and then moved ahead one car length at a time.

As we got closer to Yangon the road widened to 4 lanes but the going was still pretty slow.  The next log jam was caused by a long 2-lane bridge over the Yangon River just outside the city.  It's just as well because across the bridge you are in Yangon proper and would have to deal with narrow streets anyway.  The bridge just gets traffic in the proper formation to enter the city. 

We stopped at the Sule Pagoda that marks the center of the city, the zero kilometer point as they say in Europe.  Some streets downtown are almost completely lined by colonial buildings.  Some have been well maintained, or probably more correctly rehabilitated.  There's a movement here to make demolition of colonial buildings impossible.  While the military was in firm control it was possible, with enough money spread to the right people, to knock down a beautiful colonial building to make a parking lot.  This has changed and many of the buildings are being restored.  The post office next to the Sule Pagoda is a great example of British Colonial architecture.

The Sule Pagoda creates a large traffic circle as the grounds are circular.  The plaza across from the Post office creates another traffic circle and the two share a small arc in common.  It's about 6 lanes wide and traffic is a bit chaotic.  There's a dimly marked crosswalk leading out to a small island where several direction signs and a traffic light create a small safety zone.  The reason I said the cross walk was dimly marked is not only because the paint is almost worn completely away (probably from scrubbing up all the blood of pedestrians that got smushed trying to cross) but I can tell you it is completely invisible to the drivers.  And that invisibility is not caused by bad eyesight; it's the result of a complete disregard for human life in their driving style.  If you assume that the pedestrian has the right-of-way in this crosswalk you are foolhardy to say the least and possibly delusional. 

To make matters worse, right where we got off our bus is a very active transportation hub.  Busses fly in and fly out like hummingbirds around a feeder.  The busses are mostly very old and whatever signage they had is long gone or no longer functional.  They compensate for this by having an "assistant driver" stand in the rear doorway, did I mention that the doors on these busses never close, of the bus shouting out the route description and heaven knows what else.  They have one thing in common, they are very loud and they have to be.  The assistant drivers have another function.  If you are almost missing a bus that's pulling out, you run beside the door and he grabs your arm at the wrist so you can grab his and he hauls you aboard.  In the 15 minutes we spent there I saw that happen several times.  If the bus is early, the assistant driver will dismount and stand by the bus yelling out his information for the entire time the bus is there.  With other busses coming and going this creates quite a cacophony of voices.  It was mesmerizing to watch what I'm calling the ballet of the busses.  It's these small insights that make travel worthwhile.

A multitude of people move through the plaza area because of the pagoda, the post office and the bus hub.  This is a perfect place for monks to gather to accept alms for their morning meal.  In Myanmar every male is expected to serve some time as a monk to learn the traditions of Buddhism.  Every morning almost every monk in the country goes out to gather alms for their two meals, early morning and near noon.  People donate food items or money the monks use to buy food. 

Our next destination is the Shwedagon Pagoda.  To get there we will have to drive quite a way through the city.  On the way we passed several churches and mosques.  The Emmanual Baptist Church, a large building, is located right on the city center square.  Little street markets are located on many of the small side streets off the main thoroughfare.  The city is full of small tea shops.  At 9am many of them are very busy, their small plastic tables surrounded by people sitting in the small plastic chairs drinking tea, enjoying a bowl of noodles and talking.  Some of the tea shops are more upscale with wooden tables and metal chairs.  In the former type you saw mainly students and workers, in the latter there were white-shirted businessmen and well-dressed ladies.  Most of the buildings are loft style construction, a business on the ground level, with apartments on the upper floors.  Of course, Buddhist temples and pagodas abound.  It seems like every neighborhood has one. 

When we arrived at the Shwedagon Pagoda our guide mentioned that those of us in shorts would have to rent a garment from the pagoda staff to cover our knees.  I hate traveling in long pants in hot, humid places and I knew this would be a problem in the temples and mosques to come. 

So, with the assistance of a young girl from our tour operator yesterday in Thanlyin Village I found a little shop that sold longyi, the men's kilt like garment that is the national costume of Myanmar.  We had to walk a little way back into the market and go inside a store to find them because the mostly deals with locals.  The lady in the shop had no idea what the price was in US$ so my able assistant translated it for her.  It really didn't matter because it wound up that she didn't take any foreign currency.  Their currency is the Myanmar Kyat and it's worth about a mil or one-tenth of a penny, so there are roughly 1,000 to the US$.  The marked price on the longyi was 5,000MMK to that's $5.  I gave my guide $5 and she gave the lady 5,000MMK and I left with my very own Myanmar longyi.  It's dark blue, almost purple with a grid of orange lines forming squares of blue about a quarter inch on a side.  I was very pleased to see the bride and groom later both in orange.

As we left the bus I pulled my longyi out of my trusty Duluth Trading shoulder bag and accompanied by the grins of the guide and staff at the pagoda tied myself up thus covering my offensive knees and legs.  Of course the thing came untied after I walked about 30 feet so our guide's assistant tied it up for me.  I guess he was used to having more spare material to work with that my girth provided so his came untied about 25 minutes later.  At this point our guide showed me another way to tie it that was very successful.  He was a larger man than average himself.  At first I felt a little silly with no shoes or socks wearing my Myanmar maxi-kilt.  But it was cooler than pants so mission accomplished.

Back to the Shwedagon Pagoda.  It is believed to be the earliest pagoda of the Gautama Buddha Era, built by King Okkalapa more than 2,500 years ago.  Built atop the city's highest hill it is visible from everywhere in the city.  The large golden stupa is 326 feet high and is topped by more than 6,500 diamonds, rubies and other precious stones.  It didn't start out that tall but over the 2.5 millennia of its existence it has been added to by various kings and rulers much like the Karnack Temple area in Egypt was expanded by various pharaohs.  Unfortunately the lower part of the stupa, the bell shaped area is covered by bamboo scaffolding.  It seems that a wealthy donor has decided that the thin gold leaf covering the stupa should be replaced by gold tiles about 3mm thick.  The top part has been done but they are still working on the lower part. 

We entered the pagoda by the southern stairway.  At the top of the stairway you are in a small pavilion connected to the pagoda by a covered bridge about a fifty yards long.  When you enter the pagoda proper it's a sight to see.  It covers a huge area, several acres at least.  It's more properly called the Shwedagon Pagoda Platform as it has more than one pagoda on it.  In fact there are three.  The Shwedagon Pagoda was the first and is the largest by far.  In later projects they added two smaller pagodas off to the side.  The largest of these is one third the side of the Shwedagon.  Of course the form of these pagodas is always a stupa. 

There are images of 18 different Buddhas around the platform.  Five are around the Shwedagon, one at each of the cardinal points and the fifth inside the circle made by the other four on the eastern side.  Between these Buddhas there are shrines of all sorts making roughly a square with rounded corners around the Shwedagon.  The proper way to walk around a pagoda is clockwise so we turned left and started around.

There's a wide walkway between the center square and the outer perimeter of the platform.  Around the border of the platform are temples and shrines of all sizes, some of wood, others of stone or plaster.  Each has a prayer area in front for the burning on incense and praying.  At both sides of each of the four cardinally located Buddhas and at each corner of the square around the large Shwedagon pagoda there's a Planetary Post.  These posts are dedicated to the days of the week.  Those of you who are particularly observant are saying, "Wait a minute!  As you described the locations of these Planetary Posts there should be twelve of them."  (two beside each of four Buddhas and one at each corner of the rounded square.  That's 12.)  To which I would respond, "You are correct Tonto.  There are 12."  As I was to discover not all days are equal in the eyes of Buddha.  Friday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, all the days located at the sides of the Buddhas have two posts, one for those born in the AM and one for those born in the PM.  The northeast corner is Sunday, the southeast corner is Tuesday and the southwest corner is Saturday.  You say that only accounts for 11, also correct.  The northwest corner is dedicated to Rahu and I have no idea what that is. 

Anyway, each Planetary Post has a large pot of water that can be refilled by a tall goose necked fixture with a valve.  On the table around the pot are some small silver highly decorated bowls.  Seated behind the pot is a carved marble Buddha.  The idea is that you find the post that corresponds to the day you were born.  Then you dip the small bowl into the pot and pour the water over Buddha's head once for every year you have been alive.  This is supposed to bring you good fortune.  The Tuesday pole was particularly busy; four people were dousing the Buddha really well.  Tuesday's Buddha was adorned with several floral necklaces and had several sticks burning in his incense box.

Describing the various structures on the platform would take volumes.  I'll have to let my pictures speak for me on that subject.  To say that it is a wonderland of white, gold, dark wood, stone temples, shrines and altars is about all that can be done.

From Shwedagon Pagoda we headed downtown to the Sule Sangri-la Hotel for lunch.  Lunch was great!!  Real Thai food not watered down for the tourists.  One dish in particular, shrimp in a brown sauce that looked almost like chili but without meat was blazing.  I took some because it looked interesting and when I started to eat it I discovered it was chunks of shrimp.  Everything from the fruit to the desserts was exceptional.  The even had some sushi including some actual nigiri, both tuna and salmon.  Best lunch I've ever had off the ship.

From the hotel we walked a short way to Bogyoke Aung San Market (aka Scott Market).  It's in a colonial building and there are hundreds of small shops inside selling everything from jewelry to carvings, clothing and leather goods.

After the market we headed to the Chauk Htat Gyi Monastery to see their Reclining Buddha.  It's 223-feet long and is one of the largest in Myanmar and certainly the largest I've ever seen.  I had seen a large one in Viet Nam but it was carved from stone, this one is frame and plaster.  Once again it's shoes and socks off but I didn't have to get out my longyi as my shorts were long enough to cover my knees.  I had to wear them at low tide to get them that long but no one could tell that because my shirt is not tucked in and hangs down low enough to cover.

At one end of the Buddha they have a platform you can climb up to get a clear picture of the statue over the fence that surrounds it.  I think it's at that end because the statue has interesting figures on the soles of his feet.  The statue is painted in very bright colors.  Buddha's lips and nails are bright red, not sure what that means.  The soles of his feet are a very deep dusty rose and the figures embossed into them are gold.  The monastery that maintains this Buddha is pretty small to have such a large statue.

Our entertainment tonight was a reprise of the show Variations put the Rotterdam Cast.  I decided to see it again but D skipped it.