Events of Monday 18th February, 2013
With a car, driver and guide at my disposal, I'd decided to try to meet up with the 'Road to Mandalay' ship at its temporary upstream limit of Myin Mu. The plan was then to go on from Myin Mu to the fairly large town of Mon Ywa before returning to my hotel in Mandalay.
Myin Mu is a fairly typical small town where a flattish stretch of riverbank behind a group of houses is used as a 'dock' where passengers can board the various river services and massive amounts of freight are interchanged between river craft and large lorries drawn up on the shore. We'd arrived before the 'Road to Mandalay' but the logistics manager, Mr. Soe Soe, and his team of ground staff were already hard at work making the site ready for the landing of the Guests. Because of the low water level, the 'Road to Mandalay' would moor mid-stream and a couple of ferry boats were on hand to bring people ashore to join the six or seven buses already lined-up which would be used for the Guests' activities that day.
Mr. Soe Soe invited me to join him for a drink in a typical tea shop, just across the road from the dock.
Whilst we were sitting and chatting, I was amazed when the Head Monk from the Bagan Monastery came in. Apparently, he had business to conduct in one of the Monasteries in Mandalay but it was a very unexpected reunion.
Soon, the 'Road to Mandalay' ship was sighted and she anchored midstream. The first of the two ferry boats moved out to pick up Guests and, in a short while, all the guests for the road trip had come ashore and been seated in the appropriate coach.
I was able to greet a number of old friends from the ship's hotel staff and the team of guides. Doctor Hla Tun came ashore for a while and we went to (another) tea shop for a drink and a chat.
However, there were guests still on the ship whom the Doctor needed to look after, so the Doctor and I said "goodbye". He returned to the ship using one of the ferry boats and I continued on to Mon Ywa with my driver and guide.
In the Po Khaung Hills, east of Mon Ywa, is the sprawling site of Bodhi Tataung, home to around 10,000 Buddha images. I wandered amongst the statues whilst my driver and guide took lunch.
Then, we drove the short distance to the 90 metre reclining Buddha and 167 metre standing Buddha. You can climb up inside the standing Buddha - each floor forms an elaborately-decorated temple. I was a little disappointed that we could only get to the 10th floor as the higher floors had been temporarily closed for some reason.
The reclining and standing Buddhas.
If 10,000 Buddha images of Bodhi Tataung seems a lot, try half a million. We drove to the Thanboddhay Temple which was started in 1939 by a monk called Mo Hnyin Sayadaw. There are now well over 500,000 Buddhas decorating the building - mostly small, unpainted clay figures. My guide said that the Monk's aim was to allow even poor people to be able to donate a Buddha image to the temple.
Every surface within the temple is crammed with small Buddha images.
We then moved onto the town of Mon Ywa which my 'Lonely Planet' guide characterises as "a scrappy trade town of some 300,000 people". I didn't see anything to warrant disputing that opinion. Whilst photographing a lattice post semaphore signal on the railway, I saw a passenger train heading for Mandalay, having passed another passenger train heading in the opposite direction at the nearby station.
In the town centre, there's a suitably triumphant statue of General Aung San on horseback. He is considered the 'Father of Modern Burma' (see Wikipedia article). With nothing further to detain us, we started back towards Mandalay ourselves. We stopped for a few minutes at one village where I took some pictures and, by arrangement, paused at Myin Mu where I briefly saw Doctor Hla Tun. Then it was on to Mandalay, pausing only at the road toll stations. I needed to get to bed early as I had an early start the following day in order to catch the train to Maymyo.
My Pictures
Myin Mu, Burma.
Mon Ywa Buddhas.
Thanboddhay Paya, Mon Ywa.
Mon Ywa Station, Burma.
By road from Mon Ywa to Mandalay.
Tuesday, 19 February 2013
Myin Mu and Mon Ywa
