Myanmar is Dormant

What will become of Myanmar? Will the Union disintegrate? Will sovereignty perpetuate?

I look forward to using this trip as a basis of comparison when I return to explore, say, the Golden Rock, or Myitkyina and the upper Irrawaddy. My guess is that things there won’t get worse. Barring another Cyclone Nargis, I have confidence that the 21st century, along with the Lady and her ilk, will eventually loosen the stranglehold that the generals have on their “subjects” (can’t really call them constituents). It also wouldn’t surprise me if the West’s economic sanctions were removed in the near future. I can’t claim enough understanding of their consequences to know whether or not lifting of sanctions would improve the lot of the average citizen, but I doubt it would hurt.

Democracy has little chance of taking root any time soon. (Keep in mind that the government lists as one of the people’s desires the “Crush[ing of] all internal and external destructive elements as the common enemy.”) Perhaps the majority would be best satisfied, and maybe even best served, if the country moved toward some version of “socialism with Chinese characteristics”: a repressive regime that allows for a wider and wider piece of the pie to end up somewhere besides its own pockets. Such a future would match my own sense of the people’s desire.

In the end Myanmar wasn’t as weird as I expected. Sure, the men wear garments that to outsiders look like long skirts. And yes, you have to feel despair over the wackiness of its dictators. Yet I also sensed in Myanmar a normalcy that might be a reason for optimism about the future (if it doesn’t become an excuse for inertia).

At the risk of sounding like a Chicago Cub fan, it’s just hard for me to believe that a place with this much going for it—assets, history, celebrity—won’t rise again. Any country can have a bad century, right?

Bagan is Monumental

Five tips for making the most of a visit to Bagan:

* Vary your ride. On day one you’ll likely want an overview of the entire plain. Choose either horse cart or air-conditioned taxi, depending on the heat. (Come to think of it, you will be lucky to find an air-conditioned taxi here.) For your remaining days, your best mode will be bicycle—preferably equipped with fat, knobby tires for traction on the sandy roads. (Come to think of it, you will be lucky to find fat, knobby tires here.) Wheels of some kind will be better than trying to see Bagan on foot—distances are too long for comfortable walking, and you’re an easy target for postcard/painting sellers if you don’t have a getaway vehicle.

* Keep your distance. Going inside the temples needn’t always be your goal. Few of the interiors are as rewarding as the outsides.

* Take extra-long siestas. The ideal schedule has you up and out before sunrise. Delight in the dark silhouettes against the changing colors of the morning sky and the mists among the desert plants. If you’re a breakfast person, grab some food about the time when you no longer need your windbreaker. Between roughly 11 and 4 you’ll want to seek shade. Late afternoon / early evening is another magical time to be out on your bicycle taking in the floodlit spires of the most-favored chedis (though you’ll need a flashlight—darkness descends quickly!).

* Remember the river. A sunset cruise on the Irrawaddy finishes your day in Bagan just as nicely as a climb up an elevated perch. Pushing off around 4:30 gives you time to motor upriver from the jetty past Bupaya, briefly pull alongside the massive steamer Road to Mandalay, and then pass Shwezigon just as its shiny gold top appears to age slightly, changing from dazzling new to lustrous antique with the changing angle of the sun’s rays. Eventually the boatman will cut the engine and let the craft float back down. If you’re close to the right, temple-less bank, you’ll see farmers hand-watering the lettuces, onions, and tomatoes that will appear at the morning’s markets in Nyaung Oo. At this hour the star attraction is Tan Kyi Taung, the gold stupa-ed paya atop the ridge on the sunset side. All day long this temple’s many cousins across the river have held the spotlight. Now, as the sun descends behind it, Tan Kyi Taung appears to be the last man standing. (People from Myanmar who visit Bagan often do so partly to make merit at four sites in particular, representing the cardinal directions. This temple stands at the western extreme, and is generally saved for last during a morning-long dash to get to all four.)

* Lose your socks. Or else you’ll get awfully tired of putting them on and taking them off all day.

Bagan is Heavenly

Can there be a grander way to begin a day than by balloon? Not by our reckoning. As we lifted above Shwezigon Pagoda, powered by hot air, watching the sun come up over the mountains in the distance, we thought perhaps we were getting a sneak peak at the view from heaven.

For most of the next hour we glided one or two hundred feet above the Bagan plain, high enough to reveal the majesty and scope of this fantastic ancient city, but not so high that we couldn’t make out any number of present-day goings-on: brick-making, crop-planting, water-carrying, breakfast-cooking.

We found the view to be only part of the wonder. The brain trust at Balloons Over Bagan has designed a pre- and post-flight ritual that stimulates all of the senses. We felt the sound and fury of the fans and gas jets as they inflated the 12-passenger vessels before takeoff. Champagne and croissants took the sting out of what our pilot described as a “controlled crash”—also known as a typical balloon landing.

To say that the company had thought of everything would be like saying that the ancient rulers of Bagan thought on a big scale—neither statement is really comprehensible until you’ve been here. Miss this ride at your own peril. You’ll never forgive yourself.

Bagan is Benighted

Reasonable people might recount our evening bicycle ride on the plain of Bagan using very different descriptors—thrilling, frightening, unusual, unwise, heart-warming, heart-pounding. All would probably agree that we earned our supper.

Along the way we passed through a technological existence far removed from our day-to-day. The road crew applied hot tar and gravel by hand. Goat herders whistled their charges along sandy paths. West Pya-Saw village was built of thatch and bamboo, lit by candle.

We reached our intended sunset viewing pagoda just in time to catch the afterglow. The Shan Mountains turned to silhouette, and distant temples began to light up in glorious and varied styles across the plain. Some of the largest brick-only structures had their outlines illuminated with fairy lights. Those with more gold in their spires were spotlighted as if they were parts of a film studio logo. The lovely Dhammayazaka, which seemed to glow from within like a giant tree ornament, guided us home.

We surely needed its landmark as we rode back through the nearly pitch-black and suddenly quiet village. Our progress was slowed by a flat tire and the dune-like conditions of the track. Only 45 minutes earlier, the same route was a busy swirl of livestock and cooking and evening gossip. The rhythms of that pre-modern place, like its close neighbor Pya-tha-da Pagoda, must be governed primarily by the sun.

After finally reaching the paved road we hugged its edge. Depending on your point of view, we were either invisible or invincible. We pulled off whenever we saw a car approach, at one point nearly colliding with a large gravel pile that the road crew had left near the shoulder. Note for next time: no leaving home without the headlamp.

Myanmar is Multifaceted

I confess to arriving in Myanmar predisposed to look for its bizarre side. Everyone says it’s a weird country, which of course is music to the ears of most travelers. Why else do we go places, if not to see and do things that are out of the ordinary?

I told myself to rely on conversations rather than proclamations. The posted stuff does tend to be what you encounter first, though. Here and there were signs announcing:

Our Three Main National Causes

• Non-disintegration of the Union
• Non-disintegration of national solidarity
• Perpetuation of sovereignty

The in-flight magazine published a few government-approved lists, with titles such as “People’s Desire.” Among these desires are “Oppos[ing] those relying on external elements, acting as stooges, holding negative views.” The list of “Four Economic Objectives” concludes that “The initiative to shape the national economy must be kept in the hands of the State and the national peoples.”

Naturally, neither those subjects, nor any of the “Four Social Objectives” (“Uplift of dynamism of patriotic spirit,” etc., etc.), ever came up in chatting with people. Rather than non-disintegration of the union, everyone we spoke to seemed interested in non-disintegration of, say, their phone service or their bank account. Nearly all of the folks we met were lovely, generous, realistic, and industrious, making lemonade from lemons.

More than once we were approached by people who claimed to be students or academics. Their desire for English conversation and connections to the outside world bordered on the desperate. One self-described science professor spotted us walking along a side street and pulled over her car (twice!) to (double) check that we really wanted to be on foot. Her offers to drive us where we were going felt awkward for all concerned—we knew we didn’t really have a destination, and she knew she didn’t really have much waiting for her at the office. Getting ahead through education seems futile in Myanmar, where the government apparently closes universities and colleges on a whim, sometimes for months at a time.

Maybe the slice of the population we met wasn’t representative. Maybe in Myanmar there’s no such thing. Much more than its neighboring countries, it seems to be a place full of many ethnicities and landscapes and agendas. I was surprised by the variety of faces we encountered. The number of people whose people seemed to come from India and China was higher than I’m used to seeing in Bangkok.

Another surprise was the perfection of Shwedagon Pagoda. I knew it was going to be gold-plated and glittering, but I didn’t expect to feel so many forces swirling around, from the spiritual to the artistic, the touristic to the pilgrimatic. All roads lead there. A place to become restored, in case one’s faith has waned. Maybe the most stunning site in Asia.

Yet the same spot delivers quirkiness. Encircling the head of every single Buddha image on the Shwedagon grounds is a disconcerting neon halo. These recently installed rainbows, swirling and pulsing and spinning in endless different patterns, turn the serene into the silly.

We divided our eight days equally between Yangon and Bagan, not counting a quick break from the boundless Bagan to see where the road south goes from there. Abandoning ourselves to serendipity nearly always worked out, even though we often had no idea what was going on or what was being explained to us.

There was the time we got a little lost during a long hot stroll and ended up in the back of a pickup truck surrounded by 30 or 40 school kids and their lunch tiffins. The boys climbed onto the roof, the girls squeezed in wherever they could. Only one flat tire later, we arrived safely at a road we recognized.

We wondered at one point about the history of a handsome wooden monastery, but signage and local knowledge was in short supply, so we simply soaked up its beauty and called it good. Another time, the roly-poly abbot of a temple school mystified us with palm readings and palm-leaf Pali texts, before providing us a sparkling blessing in response to our donation. Sometimes we felt, by the time we got back to our hotel, that we hadn’t really done much. Oddly, Myanmar rewards not doing much. You just walk around for a while, take in the abstruseness, and end up feeling satisfied.