femme farang

The temples and children of Burma and other curiosities

 

I should take a moment here to explain that my camera is magical and enchanted. I swapped cameras with the crazy Spanish girl at work, who was looking for a smaller point-and-shoot type camera, whilst I was interested in taking more ambitious shots. It's the best decision we could have made. This camera is GOLD! We were actually joking on this trip that the camera makes things look better than they are in real life! I am still figuring out the settings, but we could really see the difference between what Avi's smaller point-and -shoot camera could capture in certain light in comparison to this little treasure. I LOVE this photo!

 

The children in Burma are amazing. They are all very good English speakers and very charming. Most Burmans wear clay on their face like this to make their skin whiter. Everywhere we went, a horde of children followed us, speaking every language under the sun to try to get our attention. It seems, based on their knowledge of European languages, that the majority of tourists to Burma come from Italy, Spain and France. They tried to sell us postcards and jewellery and sometimes acted as tour guides. What I found most interesting was that almost every child, woman and man I met asked me for my lipstick (the men and children to give to their mums, wives and sisters). It seems that good lipstick is hard to come by in Burma. Because my lipstick cost $30, I wasn't that willing to part with it, but I did end up applying some on children everywhere (cleaning it between wipes).

If any of you ever get to Burma, make sure you come prepared with a bag full of sweets, pens, hairclips, bracelets, cheap $2 lipsticks and any other little treasures. Burmans love to trade, with one market lady insisting on swapping Langi's bic lighter from Australia for a Burmese one! I wish I had been carrying more things. I ended up giving away my comb and some random currency from Vietnam and Australia to the kiddies.

This is the money shot of the whole trip!

 

These paintings are made with river sand, giving them an interesting texture. They were for sale outside all the temples in Bagan.

This is a dish that affectionately came to be known as 'bog juice' because it had such a full on flavour and smell that we thought it may have come from the gutters of Yangon. It was served to us with every meal. The food in Burma is not spectacular. They eat mainly very small portions of very oily curry and rice. It can be made quite nicely, but it gets a bit old after three days. It is quite heavy.

 

A charming street urchin who serenaded us with bollywood hits all the way back to our hotel.

This is betel nut paraphernalia. Betel nut is chewed by all the men in Burma. It gives off a nice cinamony smell. It also numbs your gums.

A tapestry workshop. Most people think these come from Thailand, but it looks like they originate in Burma.

A real life poacher's shop.

A gold leaf factory.

 

Unfortunately for me, I spent a lot of time in this toilet in a temple in Mandalay.

 

Random animal bits for sale outside a temple in Mandalay.

Baganistan

On our first day in Bagan, we decided to climb Mount Popa:

The stairs you see on the right are lined with markets and monkeys. As is customary before entering temples in Burma, we had to take our shoes off and walk up the stairs barefoot.

This is us walking through what is probably monkey pee.

 

The markets in Bagan remind me of Nepal:

Everywhere you look, something interesting is happening. You can imagine the sweet smell of tamarind, betel nut and spices everywhere. We were the only foreigners at the market.

We paid a man named Koko to take us around on his horse, Rambo, all day so we could visit the amazing temples, which rival Angkor Wat in my opinion. Interestingly, the horse and cart thing isn't just for tourists but seems to be a regular form of transport for locals too.

A horse and cart taxi stand:

 

You'd never see this guy walking down the street in Belconnen!

 

Because it was rainy season, part of the main road of Bagan had become flooded and had turned into a river of sorts.

We stopped at the side of the road to watch this chap climb up the palm to get sap from the leaves to make a kind of whiskey.

We paid this chap a few dollars each to take us out to a 200-year-old teak monastery:

The light wasn't great for taking photos.

These people were flooded out of their village, so they had moved to the village surrounding the monastery until the water subsided.

Burmese Days

I just don't seem to have enough time to write all I want to about this trip, but I think it is important to put the pictures up ASAP or they'll never get there.

All I want to say about the trip is that it is by far one of the most interesting places I have visited and I am totally heartbroken for the Burmese people who are suffering terribly at the hands of the thugs in the military. I am blown away by the bravery of the protesters and hope that their efforts aren't for nothing. At the moment, things don't look good for them.

 

We visited a lot of teak monasteries around Burma. One of the great things about these places, which are often more than 200 years old, is that monks can still be found quietly going about their lives. I took this photo in private. All of the photos you find here with monks' faces were taken only after I asked permission (except the ones of them protesting, which were taken from a moving car).

This particular monetary was very peaceful. Just outside this window that the monk is looking through we could hear the sound of child monks chanting their prayers under a tree.

Taken form the back of our horse and cart as we rode through the temples of Bagan, which is more impressive than Angkor Wat, if you ask me.

Word has been spreading through blogs on the internet about the military raiding monasteries and systematically brutalising and bludgeoning monks to death. There is nothing sadder than hearing accounts of monasteries being raided at 2 am and people being able to hear terrified monks crying for mercy as they are beaten to death. Some of the photos we have seen of dead bodies are truly horrifying.

 

Monks protesting in Yangon.

Taken from our taxi in Mandalay as the monks' protest holds up traffic. We were a bit paranoid about taking photographs for fear that our cameras would be confiscated.

And that's a promise.