Inside the forbidden land
KAMINI SAWHNEY
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Images from a trip through the heart of Myanmar.
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Enduring beauty: The Guni temple in Bagan; Buddhist monks at the Shwe Dagon pagoda in Yangon; Serenity at dusk on Inle Lake. Photos: REUTERS, THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY
I'M going to Myanmar, I told a friend. Why would you do a thing like that, she cried. Isn't it a scary sort of a place?
No, the Myanmarese are not scary... gracious, brave and enduring, but not scary... unless they are in uniform; many of its people now seem sunk in a quiet resignation, as they struggle to retain some dignity in their lives. After all Myanmar is now being ostracised ... the U.S. and the U.K. have urged their people not to visit the country.
A central question, of course, is whether visiting Myanmar encourages the military regime to continue with its repression or whether it preserves the country and its people from further isolation. Well, you know which school of thought I belong to.
Inspired by the Mahatma
We barely land when we drive off to first take a look at where SHE lives. Don't let the word `Suu Kyi' sully your lips. It makes the Myanmarese wriggle with unease, even her passive supporters. She's just referred to as "the lady"... . No proper nouns please. But there's no getting to smell even the corner of the street she lives on. One of the main roads in the university area where she remains in detention at her home is completely cut off from traffic. So you have to take a long detour if you need to cross the area.
I am overcome with pride when a professor I chat with tells me that the lady has drawn much of her inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi, especially the determination that her struggle will be non-violent. As you drive through the stately tree-lined avenues of Yangon, your heart goes out to a woman who has been cut off from her people and her city for so many years; who sits within those four walls day after day, perhaps reading, may be listening to music, or just praying that one day this too will pass.
"At least the world remembers Suu Kyi," a young man tells me agitatedly. "But what about her supporters? Some butchered, others flung into prison and left to die. Who remembers them?"
Architectural marvel
If the lady dominates Yangon's political landscape, it is the Shwe Dagon that captures its soul. Nothing prepares you for this stunning dome of gold that glistens as the sun dips over Yangon. The massive pagoda is an architectural marvel, its stupa soaring a 100 metres high and covered with over 8,000 solid slabs of gold, its tip studded with diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires.
This is one of the few major tourist attractions of the world where I notice more locals than sightseers. Everywhere there are devotees; kneeling, lighting incense sticks, chanting, oblivious to the scenes around them... lost in a world of prayer.
The Shwe Dagon has survived many a disaster — fires, earthquakes and a British army that plundered its treasure. But each time it has emerged more splendid than the last, so that the Myanmarese believe no lasting damage can befall the soul of Myanmar, the Shwe Dagon. Perhaps it is this belief that helps them hold out for better times.
A visit to the market place in Yangon and you are almost transported back to Bhindi bazaar — piles of vegetables, fish and vendors jostling for space and your attention. A very Indian looking fisherwoman urges me to take home a kilo of fish. I try a spot of Tamil with her and the next instant we are chatting like old buddies. Arpudham has no idea when her parents came here from Tamil Nadu. Though she still wears a sari, speaks Tamil and goes to the temple, India is only a land she's heard about. "I want to go home, at least to visit," she tells me wistfully, "but where's the money?"
Our guide tells us that at one point in time almost 60 per cent of Yangon's people were Indian. The Chettiars, South India's powerful traders, were there to do business, and many others, who came either as labourers or to work as babus. The babus had a head start with the English and were often the link between the British and the locals.
The exodus began after the war, but India has left its culinary mark here. Many of the curries remind you of the rich gravies back home. Myanmar seems to have absorbed the influences of the countries around it to create a cuisine uniquely its own. The Chinese touch is visible in the noodles that have become a staple food here. But the Myanmarese signature dish mohinga is a noodle soup made of fish stock and a whole lot of garnishes the Chinese would never use. And this is snack country... just like home. Women sitting in front of little stoves frying pakodas made from lentils or vegetables, and mixtures that include pork and chicken.
Yangon's roads may be stately but anything outside the cities rivals travel in Bihar. So the solution is either to fly or to float down the Ayeyarwady or the Irrawaddy, as we know it. The military has been on a name-changing binge like many of our politicians; determined to stamp out the colonial touches... so if you are familiar with the old names it's often confusing.
Spires of Bagan
If you don't have the time to boat, then a tiny little aircraft takes you on half an hour hops between most major cities, much like a bus service. And that's how we reach Bagan.
It is impossible to describe Bagan. It takes your breath away, makes you long to travel back in time and see, if just for a moment, what it all must have looked like 900 years ago at the height of its glory, when it was the capital of the Bamar kingdom. The spires of thousands of pagodas rise against the skyline; every size you can conceive of. What you see today are sandstone and brick structures but Marco Polo's description of Bagan, when he visited in the 13th century, talks of the pagodas covered in gold or silver a finger thick. This is surely one of the wonders of the world and you mourn that more people have not been able to enjoy it. Where are all the people of Bagan you wonder; or is it only a huge dusty plain with amazing monuments. And then you learn they have all been removed from this area with military precision to a new location called New Bagan eight kilometres away. In Myanmar, you do not argue with the military. Bagan's hotels are also located in new Bagan, most of them on the banks of the river. So you can watch the sun rise over the waters as you sip your early morning coffee, and breakfast with the birds.
Road to Mandalay
Then, it is time to journey on the road to Mandalay. But after the almost magical city that Kipling evokes in The Road to Mandalay, journey's end leaves you with a distinct sense of let down. A hot crowded city like so many others and you wonder what the fuss was all about, until you learn that Kipling never set foot in Mandalay. Its new state-of-the-art airport is a sad, desolate place with barely a fraction of the visitors the government hoped to attract.
Mandalay was to be an international gateway into upper Burma where foreign tourists could fly in directly from their countries. But once the world decided to cold shoulder the military regime, its check-in counters stand forlorn, waiting for the scores of visitors who never arrived.
Mandalay was built about 150 years ago by King Mindon as a centre for Buddhist teaching, and is still considered by many Myanmarese as the cultural and spiritual hub of the country. Two-thirds of the country's monks are said to live in this area and one of their monasteries, the Shwe Nandaw Kyaung, is perhaps the only building apart from the royal palace to have survived. Made completely of wood, it is covered with the most exquisite carvings of ornamental figures and flowers and gives you an idea of what Mindon's golden city must have once looked like. British bombing during the World War II destroyed the rest of the royal palace. A replica now stands in its place but its walls do not whisper their history; it is a shell without a soul.
What is stunning though is a view from the top of Mandalay Hill. The only problem with doing a sunset viewing is the need to wrestle with other tourists for a good position. Everyone's there for the same thing, and there's only so much space.
On the Inle lake
But it is that magical mystery tour on the Inle Lake that completes the Myanmar experience. This is Shan territory — the land of rugged landscape, of fiercely independent tribesmen, and anti-government rebels who have been fighting the military for decades. All of that fades into the mist of the mountains as you glide through the waters of the lake where the Inthas live; their lives inextricably linked with these waters, their homes built over it on stilts. The image of the Intha fisherman is mesmerising, as he stands on one leg at the stern of his boat, much like a stork, using his other leg to steer his way through the tangle of floating weeds.
As your boat chugs through this vast expanse (158 sq km) you come upon ingenious little kitchen gardens. The Inthas create their own floating gardens tying together hollow-stemmed floating weeds, so that they form a large bed. These are anchored with bamboo poles to the bottom of the lake and, voila, you have a garden that grows cauliflowers, tomatoes, beans and whatever else. It's a whole world in itself.
Our hotel is on the water too, with little bamboo walkways that lead to our rooms; a bamboo hotel floating on the water. And as you sip your wine and watch the darkness steal in, it's an other worldly feeling, far away from the noise, the grime and the business of daily living. The magic is complete.
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