Big book reader

I’d intended to wake really early and see the Buddha being washed at the Mahamuni Paya, but despite an early night I just wasn’t up to a 3am rise. Instead, I got up at 7, had breakfast and took a trip up to Mandalay Hill.

There are covered steps leading all the way up to the top with various pagodas on the way. A couple are quite basic, though the upper couple have some tall Buddha statues. The topmost one stands with his arm outstretched pointing to where Mandalay was to be built, and now stands.

If you’re lazy, you can now be driven up to the top via a relatively new road, but that takes the fun (and sweat) out of it.

Book storage

At the bottom I snapped a picture of a wedding couple – it seems to be the season for it – and next stopped at the Sandamani Paya which contains 1774 marble slabs. Each is housed in its own mini-pagoda and is one page (well, two – they’re carved om both sides) of the Suttavinaya Abhidhamma, part of the teachings of Buddha. There’s a similar pagoda mearby which is far better maintained and which contains the Tripitaka canon. It’s also on the $10 ticket which I wasn’t wanting to pay and which my driver was happy about.

*pointy pointy*

My next stop was at the university. The owner of the guest house I’d stayed at in Bagan had studied here and told me I must see the central building as it’s a great example of British colonialism – all huge columns and impressive steps. See it, I did. Get pictures, I did not. I was hastily shoo-ed away by the gate guardswho obviously mistook me for an anti-establishment oik with a penchant for blowing up educational structures with my laser canon cunningly disguised as a small camera.

It was nice, though. Honest.

Aw, ain't she sweet?

I’d also wanted to go to the Shwe In Bin Kyaung in the “monk district” but my driver was after another 1000K to go there and I already felt I’d been overcharged for my morning as it was. It’s fun being driven around in a 45 year-old converted Mazda van, but the pleasure is only worth so much.

As such, I was back at the Royal somewhat earlier than anticipated. I was going to have a shower, but I’d left a near-ful bottle of gel in the bathroom the previous day and some bugger had nicked it. Instead, I walked off out to check my email, grab some lunch and organise a motorcycle to get me to the bus depot.

The bike came to 2000K, the lunch to 1800K (thick spaghetti-like noodles in a chicken curry sauce… served cold) and the internet to 800K. As it always seemed to, regardless of how long I was in there.

Going... up

I finished off with a 500K orange drink from the stall I’d visited the previous day. By the time I got back to the hotel my motorbike was waiting for me. I was at the bus way before check-in time, loaded on with my luggage and we departed on the pip of 5pm.

Eagle Eye

I had a nice lie in this morning till after 8am (wow!), devoured breakfast and walked around the corner to the cinema. I’d noticed last night that the sign for Transporter 3 had been taken down, but it seems they always change the films on a Friday and always have an English one on as the early showing at 10am. The “new” film was Eagle Eye which fortunately I’d not seen, so I paid 1200K for a cheap seat (1500K gets you the balcony) and picked up some snacks.

Myanmar is the first country to fail my “Coke and popcorn” test for the cinema. Everywhere I’ve been, a medium Coke and popcorn has cost approximately the same as a cinema ticket. The UK, Singapore, Bangkok, India… everywhere. Mind, the problem here is that they don’t actually sell Coke or popcorn. Still, my bottle of water and packet of baked potato things came to 600K rather than nearer 1000K. Actually, the going rate for a can of Coke in Myanmar is 1100-1200K so if I had been able to buy one then the theory would have buoyed out!

The cinema was a little scruffy – obviously based on the old “proper” cinemas back home, but upkeep of the decor hasn’t been their priority. However, it’s comfy and the sound and picture quality are perfectly fine. There’s a no smoking policy, but there’s still the usual “chat away if you want to” rule that seems to be endemic in SE Asia. At least there are no mobile phones – I think I’ve seen three people use them in my entire stay in the country.

Another clue that the building was British-based (possibly even British-built) was my first encounter with stand-up urinals in male toilets since I arrived in Myanmar. Normally it’s just a collection of toilet stalls.

As in Thailand and India, the national anthem is played at the beginning of the film. A “warning” appears beforehand that “Loyal citizens will respect their nation’s flag”. Everyone rose as the grainy footage of a flickering flag (it looked like something from Thunderbirds) flashed up… and then they sat down again without waiting for the clip to run its full length. The film was decent enough with only two pauses as the power went and was switched to generator and back. The audience reaction was muted enough that this is obviously a common occurence.

Once outside, I was flagged down by a tri-shaw driver in a Man U shirt (what else outside of Manchester?). We ended up talking for half an hour in the sun. Like most Burmese, he’s not happy with the way the country is currently run and wishes the British were back in charge! He obviously doesn’t know what a state our own country is in… Mind, at least we have free education (he’s got 2 daughters of school age), reliable gas and electric, clean water, paved roads, hospitals…

At around 13:00 I started walking, my planned destination being Mandalay Hill, though the guy I’d been talking to told me to go in the morning. The officers on duty often don’t start checking for the $10 tickets until afternoon when most tourists head up to watch the sunset. I decided to circumnavigate the palace walls, but grossly underestimated the distance. It’s huge!

Halfway along the south wall, I saw a bridge over the moat and thought it would be nice to cross over and walk close to the walls themselves. Tourists can only enter from the east entrance, but I was only interested in seeing the outside. As I crossed the bridge, one of a handful of men in uniform stood up from his desk and approached. I smiled pleasantly at him and received:

“Grunt!”
“Hi, is it possible to walk along the wall here?”
I finger-mimed walking and pointed along the wall.
“Grunt!”
I pointed back over the bridge and round to the north.
“I walk that way?”
“Grunt!”

No pointers, no directions, no smile, no nothing. And he wasn’t even speaking, he was – in honesty – grunting. I’ve heard enough Burmese to know when I’m getting instructions and when I’m getting low-brow Neanderthalese.

“OK, f*ck you very much”

I smiled and waved as I turned. “Goodbye! Arsehole!”

Well, if they can’t be polite to me… It seems they either pick the naturally brain dead to envelop in their uniforms, or beat their IQs out of them. I suppose if you’re willingly kow-towing to the authorities here you have to be some kind of moron. Or the schoolyard bully.

By the time I approached the north-east corner it was around 14:30. I referred to my Lonely Planet and discovered that the post offices in Myanmar close at 15:30 and don’t open on weekends. The postcards I had in my bag had to go today, so Myanmar Hill would wait till tomorrow. I walked on to the north-west corner and down the western edge to 22nd Street where the office was very easy to find. It’s got two huge red postboxes outside that look like they’re made of brick and the door is bracketted by sturdy white pillars. Again, definitely some British influence.

Here’s a doozy – compare the postage rates here with, say, Denmark. In Copenhagen I paid – at the current rate of exchange – just shy of £1 Sterling per stamp to send cards back to the UK. Which is insane. Here, it’s 30K. Which at the official rate of exchange is approximately $US5 or £3-ish. However, only people who get caught out and change currency at the airports get that rate. I got approximately 1000K per US Dollar which means my stamps were nearer 3c or 2p each. If I’d had time I’d have sent 100 of the things. As it was the postcards were only 10 for 1000K!

Cards posted, I headed south towards the guest house. I stopped on the way at a street stall that was doing cold fruit drinks. I’d caught sight of one that a customer had – pink and with coconut shavings on top, filling up an old-fashioned pint glass with a handle. 500K got me a strawberry whatever-it-was. From what I saw, it was made with chopped and pulped fresh fruit, plain yogurt, ice and sugar with the coconut shavings all over the top. I watched someone else attack theirs so I knew how to drink it – first you stir it with a spoon (provided) then eat it by scooping it out. Very, very nice indeed. I will be having one more tomorrow! Maybe orange this time.

Back at the Royal, I had a shower (cold, again) and worked on the video I’d taken yesterday. I’d skipped lunch, but the restaurants seem to liven up as darkness falls so I thought I’d wait till around 18:30 before I picked somewhere to eat.

Tomorrow would be an early, and very long, day.