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On the road to Mandalay
On the road to Mandalay
28.JUL.04 Riverboat cruise treats visitor to a firsthand look at the people, culture of Burma Rudyard Kipling's poem "Mandalay" expressed the allure of the Orient under the tropical sun for Western imperialists. In the 19th century, Mandalay was "liberated" by a British-led army carried up the Irrawaddy River on riverboats and barges from the British base in the port city of Rangoon (now called Yangon). And this invasion up the water road to Mandalay inspired Kipling's poem. Last November, my wife and I took a Smithsonian Institution-sponsored tour in Burma, officially the Union of Myanmar. The tour's highlight was a riverboat cruise on the Irrawaddy down to the former imperial cities of Mandalay and Bagan. We embarked at Bhamo, a few miles south of the Burma Road built during World War II by the Anglo-American militaries to carry war supplies through the mountains from British India to our allies in China. Above Bhamo, the river is too shallow for the 3-foot draft of our boat, the Pandaw III. A boat's deck is a splendid vantage to view the silent fireworks of the day's dawning, which suggested "thunder" to the poet. Kipling never actually viewed the sunrise over the Irrawaddy, getting no closer to the river than the British garrisons in neighboring India. Nor do the finny species called flying fishes ever take the road to Mandalay, and the time I saw the splashes of marine animals at play, keener eyes on the boat declared them dolphins. Sitting on the Pandaw's sundeck, canopied against the scorching sun, we could enjoy the river-cooled breeze so the temperature rarely rose above 85 F in the shade, and we consumed the British prescription for fighting malaria, gin and tonic. In this comfort, we could watch the river traffic and the scenic countryside pass by. Channeled by the north-south mountain ranges, the northern stretch of the Irrawaddy is framed by high banks and a series of defiles. Although we were traveling in the dry season, the jungle was still lush green from seven months of monsoon rains. The greenery along the riverbanks was broken by clearings for small farms and villages of thatched huts with bamboo matting sides typically set on pilings so that water from torrential rains wouldn't swamp the living quarters. The river's annual flooding serves to fertilize the land, with jetties diverting the sediment-laden water into paddies where rice is planted by hand, as it has been for centuries. Water buffalo and oxen are still used to till the land, and we hardly saw a tractor except pulling trailers in the market towns in competition with animal-drawn carts. The Irrawaddy is the central north-south waterway through the heartland of the Burmese people, Myanmar's largest ethnic group. Shallow-draft boats and barges carry rice and other supplies upriver from the lowlands and return downstream with village industry products, such as clay pots and bamboo mats. Bamboo and teakwood rafts float downriver, sometimes assisted by powered boats, other times by boatsmen with long poles. The river also carries sediment that includes flecks of gold. At certain river bends where new sediment settles, rows of sand-sifting boats suck up and sluice deposits from the river bottom. In Mandalay, the river gold is processed into tissue-thin strips that are sold to devout Buddhists who attach them to statues of the Buddha as temple gifts. Such gifts earn merit to advance one's status in the next reincarnation. Even more merit comes from building shrines or, better yet, big temples to the Buddha. The people of Myanmar are predominantly Buddhist, and their shrines and temples, typically with whitewashed bases and gold caps, were frequent sights along the banks of the river. These religious structures became more numerous and more spectacular as the river entered the rich flatlands. Some temple tops were crowned with racks of bells that tinkled in the wind. Visiting magnificent temples was one of the attractions of the tour. And the soles of our tender feet got a workout because it is an insult to walk into the temples except in bare feet. We were also privileged to visit small villages far upriver from the cities. Away from the major tourist sites, we were like the coming of the circus when our boat moored near a village and we trooped ashore to see how the people lived and worked while the villagers were fascinated to see the boat people and their strange contraptions, like those that could produce instant pictures. At one village where we had visited a pottery-making complex, we got behind schedule and had to use flashlights on the rough pathway heading back to the boat. This light show attracted the interest of the village children who tagged along. On the way, I noticed that a couple of boys were attempting to step on the beam from my light so I made it jump about so they could play a dancing game with the beam as we strolled down the trail. It was interesting to see communities that lived so close to virtually unspoiled nature. Not wholly unspoiled because plastic bags had reached remote villages, and we saw the discards littering village walkways and jungle trails, presumably because people were unfamiliar with what to do with nonbiodegradable products. Also, overlogging turned some areas into moonscape. Everywhere, the outside world creeps into traditional culture. In a village where women carried water from a communal well in buckets balanced on a shoulder pole, one family's humble hut had a fuel-oil generator to power a satellite TV. Our deepest penetration into the jungle was to visit the elephants that work harvesting teak trees. We landed at Katha, the lumber town that was the model for "Burmese Days," George Orwell's caustic novel about the arrogance and smallmindedness of the British who ruled Burma until the middle of the last century when the desire of Western nations to rule foreign peoples waned. From Katha, a bus took us into the hinterland on an unusually smooth road for the area because it served the lucrative teakwood business. It was a toll road owned by one of the country's generals. Many normally public facilities are owned as profit centers for supporters of the military government. Bribes are another source of income. I had never seen under-the-table money change hands so openly. The rampant corruption explains why the last time the military allowed an election, the opposition party won an estimated 80 percent of the vote, but the military held onto power anyway. A local source estimated that about half of the country's wealth is consumed by the military and security forces. There is some need for a large military to hold the country together because ethnic minorities capable of armed resistance to the central authorities occupy the rugged countryside of Myanmar's borderlands. Heavy commerce in illegal drugs out of some border regions is conducted with shadowy associations between the central authorities and borderland insurgents. According to our guide, Myanmar's 50 million people support some 400,000 monks. Most people in Myanmar have few material possessions and a "good job" pays a dollar a day. But somehow ordinary people manage to make generous contributions to the upkeep of the monks, who appear to eat very well. The Buddhist goal is to free oneself of the craving to acquire things and dominate people. Even the country's rulers pay lip service to this ideal of rising above worldly concerns. As American tourists, we were embarrassingly rich compared to the people we were visiting. As a gesture of appreciation for the local people's hospitality, we donated school supplies to elementary schools we visited. A U.S. embassy official in Yangon, Myanmar's capital, briefed us on the delicate political situation in Myanmar, where Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the pro-democracy party and daughter of the country's assassinated independence leader, was still under house arrest. The briefing was off the record, but I can say it confirmed what I knew from personal observation and published sources. I would not recommend going to Myanmar without a reliable guide. Burma's pro-democracy party has called for a boycott of travel to Myanmar to protest the military dictatorship. Going there means coming down on the side of those who believe it is important to promote peaceful contact with peoples whose governments we dislike. The U.S. government maintains a boycott of Myanmar products, and we could not bring home products other than "informational materials" and "works of art." We did bring home printed matter, and I'm sticking to my story that my miniature jade elephants are "works of art." Because of international pressure on the Myanmar government to respect human rights, we weren't able to use either credit cards or travelers checks in Myanmar. Noticeably not participating in these boycotts are Myanmar's immediate neighbors. While we were in Yangon, the foreign minister of India was on a goodwill visit. When we were in Bagan, we saw the motorcades of heads of government attending a regional economic conference of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. China, a big player in the region, has built an extension of the Burma Road down toward Mandalay with expectations of an eventual connection to the sea at Yangon. In the beguiling coda to Kipling's poem, the temple bells chimed, "Come ye back ye British soldier/Come ye back to Mandalay." The Burmese mock Kipling's pretension that the local culture had any desire for a return of the foreign occupiers. But tourists are welcome. http://www.communitytimes.com/print_...p?sdetail=1719 |
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On the road to Mandalay
"Bagyan" wrote om... On the road to Mandalay Rudyard Kipling's poem "Mandalay" expressed the allure of the Orient.. ........... According to our guide, Myanmar's 50 million people ... I would not recommend going to Myanmar without a reliable guide. Who was your guide ? Was it a MTT guide ? Our guide was Khin Khin Shwe (MaLay) We made a big tour in Myanmar, not just the central tourist area's but also to the border areas in October last year, about one month before you. I very much enjoyed the peacefull silence in Bagan and the numerous meetings with the unspoilt people of the tribes in the remote areas. Going there means coming down on the side of those who believe it is important to promote peaceful contact with peoples whose governments we dislike. The U.S. government maintains a boycott of Myanmar products,... Not just the US, also Europe I clearly condemn the sanctions, they are contraproductive "Sanctions against Myanmar have done nothing in the past year to resolve the country's political and economic crisis." Jeffrey Sachs (director of the EarthInstitute at Columbia University) in the Financial Times July 27 2004 http://news.ft.com/s01/servlet/Conte...012571727 092 In the beguiling coda to Kipling's poem, the temple bells chimed, "Come ye back ye British soldier/Come ye back to Mandalay." "If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed naught else." (The road to Mandalay - Rudyard Kipling in 1897) These are my pictures of the Golden Land: http://www.actagena.org/pictures/Myanmar/index.html |
#3
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On the road to Mandalay
Frans Vandenbosch wrote:
These are my pictures of the Golden Land: http://www.actagena.org/pictures/Myanmar/index.html Nice. How much was thanaka and the longhi in your pix? |
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On the road to Mandalay
Frans Vandenbosch wrote:
"ggg" wrote in ... Frans Vandenbosch wrote: These are my pictures of the Golden Land: http://www.actagena.org/pictures/Myanmar/index.html Nice. How much was thanaka and the longhi in your pix? do you mean: http://www.actagena.org/pictures/Mya....2003%20-%2014. yes. 05.html and: http://www.actagena.org/pictures/Mya...-%2008.58.html excellent. Thanks. |
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On the road to Mandalay
ggg wrote:
http://www.communitytimes.com/print_...p?sdetail=1719 I received an unsolicited brochure for a similar tour of India. The price is over $30k for a few weeks. And therefore probably about $500 if you book it in India. miguel -- Hit The Road! Photos and tales from around the world: http://travel.u.nu |
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On the road to Mandalay
ggg wrote:
http://www.communitytimes.com/print_...p?sdetail=1719 I received an unsolicited brochure for a similar tour of India. The price is over $30k for a few weeks. And therefore probably about $500 if you book it in India. miguel -- Hit The Road! Photos and tales from around the world: http://travel.u.nu |
#7
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On the road to Mandalay
Miguel Cruz wrote:
ggg wrote: http://www.communitytimes.com/print_...p?sdetail=1719 I received an unsolicited brochure for a similar tour of India. The price is over $30k for a few weeks. And therefore probably about $500 if you book it in India. miguel yeah. |
#8
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On the road to Mandalay
"ggg" ... Miguel Cruz wrote: ggg wrote: http://www.communitytimes.com/print_...p?sdetail=1719 I received an unsolicited brochure for a similar tour of India. The price is over $30k for a few weeks. And therefore probably about $500 if you book it in India. miguel yeah. Why are people so stupid to pay too much ? |
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