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Our 5th day
From the hotel room we can see the palace and its large compound. Our next stops are the ancient cities around Mandalay, - Sagaing, Ava and the longest Teak Bridge in the world, the U Bein Bridge – magnificent scenery at sunset.
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6th day
Our boat passes villages on the riverbanks -
from Mandalay to the former vast metropolis of Buddhist culture: Bagan.
We enjoy the fresh breeze and watch farmers as they work on their fields. Work is hard but people live and work in harmony with their family and nature.
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“A light rain was falling and the sky was dark with heavy clouds when I reached Pagan.
In the distance I saw the pagodas for which it is renowned. They loomed, huge, remote and mysterious, out of the mist of the early morning like the vague recollections of a fantastic dream. The river steamer set me down at a bedraggled village some miles from my destination, and I waited in the drizzle while my servant found an ox-wagon to take me on my way.”
The Gentleman in the Parlour, W. Somerset Maugham, 1935
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the 7th day
Our horse-cart takes us round the highlights of Bagan. I feel like I am travelling back through the centuries.
The steps to the pagodas are littered with shoes - this is sacred earth: more than 2000 years of history. An old woman with a candle leads us down a deep tunnel. We see Mongolian drawings from the age of Kublai Khan! I have Somerset Maugham and his novel in mind when he travelled through old Burma:
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“But of all these pagodas only one, the Ananda, is still a place of pilgrimage. Here are four huge gilded Buddhas standing against a gilded wall in a lofty gilded chamber. You look at them one by one through a gilded archway. In that glowing dimness they are inscrutable. In front of one a mendicant in his yellow robe chants in a high-pitched voice some litany that you do not understand. But the other pagodas are deserted. Grass grows in the chinks of the pavement and young trees have taken root in the crannies. They are the refuge of birds. Hawks wheel about their summits and little green parrots chatter in the eaves. They are like bizarre and monstrous flowers turned to stone.
Within the pagodas images of the Buddha sit in meditation. The gold leaf has long since worn away from the colossal figures and the figures are crumbling to dust. The fantastic lions that guard the entranceways are rotting on their pedestals.”
The Gentleman in the Parlour, W. Somerset Maugham, 1935
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