Mandalay Pole Climbers

The way to get around Mandalay is by pedal cab, the three-wheel sidecar rickshaws are everywhere. If you have to get any great distance, it's worth hiring a cab for a few hours. A cab, I should point out, is actually a small truck with a covered bed. It can hold six people squeezed in tight. I hired a guy from my hotel and we agreed on a price of seven dollars. He wanted more, naturally, but I made sure to check the prices with a few other travelers and with the hotel. We agreed on the spots where we would stop and and where I would end my journey. I've learned to spell things out with such vendors to avoid confusion and, far too frequently, from being ripped off.

Near the end of our journey, the driver asked if I would mind if he made a short detour. I didn't mind. He stopped near a sort of village near the river. A group of locals were up to something near the road. I suggested I would have a look and he could collect me when he was ready.

What I saw was a large group of people gathered around a polished wooden pole (bamboo?) sticking a good five meters into the air. From the top, connected by a pulley to the ground so it could be raised and lowered, was a ring. From the ring fluttered pieces of paper.

As I approached, a group of boys were trying to climb it. They were unable to do so individually, but they soon figured out to form a crude pyramid ladder. This allowed a couple of boys to get closer, but still not close enough. On the ground, someone lowered the ring to encourage a few more to try to climb harder.

The boys wore shorts, but the one who wore a longyi wrapped up close soon found himself in a awkward position. As he clung to the pole, the longyi came loose. He couldn't let go to fix it. Meanwhile, other boys were scrambling over him. By the time he got clear of them and started down, he was completely compromised. What would have mortified me as a boy didn't bother him one bit. He laughed as he got redressed and laughed along with everyone else.

Eventually, one intrepid climber made it to the ring and grabbed an envelope.

Now it was the young men's turn. They were better climbers, but they quickly organized a pyramid. The ring had also moved higher up the bamboo pole. Standing on shoulders and heads, they climbed over each other to reach the ring.

One very clever fellow used a spare longyi and twisted it around the pole. A tight twist enable him to use it as a sort of climbing base. Loosening it, he could slide it up and tighten it again to climb a bit higher. In this way he made it to the top and swiped an envelope.

When he arrived on the ground, he opened the envelope to reveal his prize. It contained a coupon. Some one took the coupon and returned with a new longyi! He was genuinely pleased with the reward and everyone cheered when he held it aloft.

My driver showed up at this point and we went back to the cab. He took me a few hundred meters down the road to a restaurant by the river, telling me it was a good place to see the sunset. I reminded him that we agreed on a different destination, about two kilometers up the road. He insisted this was a good spot, but I held firm. He begrudgingly drove me to my destination.

I got out, counted seven dollars out of my wallet and handed it to him as I put on my camera gear and organized my tripod. He held the money in his hand and looked at me with confusion. I returned the confused look. “Seven dollars” he said. I nodded. He fanned out four bills. I short changed him? Huh! I pulled out three dollars and gave it to him. He got into the cab and drove off as I put away my wallet.

How could I have have miscounted four as seven? I could not recall ever miscounting with so few bills. Miscount one bill? Maybe. Miscount two? Unlikely. Miscount three? I opened my wallet and started counting back my purchases of the day. I could account for every expenditure but three dollars. The sneak palmed three bucks and managed to con me into giving him three more. I vowed not to get distracted when making any sort of payment. I knew there were rip-off artists in Yangon, but I had become too trusting of the regular folks in my travels that I let down my guard. Lesson learned.

See more photos here.

The Monastic City of Sagaing

In a bend in the Irrawaddy, just downriver of Mandalay, a ridge of hills rises along the western bank. Upon these hills is the city of Sagaing. The landscape is crowded with large trees and even larger pagodas, temples, stupas and other religious shrines, for this is the monastic heart of the country. There are a few proper roads through the area, but the cobbled trails, dusty paths and covered walkways entice any visitor to explore.

The city was built in the early fourteenth century, not long after the Mongols sacked Bagan. It remained the capital of the kingdom for fifty years before moving to another city, in the typical Burmese tradition of moving capitals. Today the city is home to thousands of monks, novices and nuns — and hundreds of ancient monasteries to support them.

The path to the highest point, Sagaing Hill, is a covered stairway running up the steep sides. From this radiates numerous other paths, some leading to nearby religious buildings, others leading off to distance locations and other hilltops. Climbing the stairs, monks and workers make their way to prayers and chores.

While it provides shade — and shelter in the rainy season — the canopy also blocks the view of the countryside. Ducking out from beneath offers glimpses of vistas.

The top of Sagaing Hill sits the magnificent Soon U Ponya Shin Pagoda, its accompanying stupa and the magnificent tile-work that surrounds it.

It was behind this stupa that I heard the plaintive mew of a kitten. I discovered a skinny wretch of Siamese huddled among a pile of constructions supplies. When I came close, it wailed louder. The pitiful thing was clearly starving. I walked back to a food vendor I had passed some minutes earlier. The only meat they had was a soft candied jerky of some sort, about half the size of a traditional hot dog. I bought one and headed back to the forlorn feline. I handed the meat to the hungry cat who started chewing it immediately. Satisfied I had earned some Buddhist merit, I glanced around for more things to photograph. The kitten was mewing again. I turned back and saw the empty plastic bag that held the food. I fed it less than a minute ago. I concluded that a bird must of have swooped in and grabbed the meat. I walked back to the vendor and bought two more pieces of meat. I laid them out for the kitten and watched the eaves for marauding avians. I glanced down to see the last bit of the first meat strip disappear into the staving cat; the second followed less than a minute later. A bird had not snatched the meat, the kitten was that hungry. I was rewarded with a purr that nearly shook the ground upon which I stood.

The whole top Sagaing Hill is a colorful complex of terraces, covered areas, areas to meditate and areas to take in the fantastic views of the river and the city.

In addition to the monks and occasional nuns, local pilgrims spend much time on the hill. It took a bit of coaxing to get these woman to break from their formal countenance and give me a smile.

Despite the few tourists the country receives, enough of them make it to Sagaing that locals are not at all surprised. Westerners typically stick to well-traveled paths in Sagaing. Exploring the back streets opens up plenty of possibilities for meeting the people. I passed countless monasteries and schools. The schools were the most fun because the children in the yards run to the gate to say hello and goodbye, the only two English words they had know.

The back ways also provided access rarely visited stupas and to some of the lower hills with their seldom-scene views.

The hidden monasteries always provide at least a few monks eager to practice their English ... and who are more than happy to pose for a photo as well.

See more photos here.

Mandalay Artisans

Mandalay is the artistic capital of Myanmar. While you can find artisans at work all over the country, the greatest concentration is found here. In addition to gold beating, there is a marble carving, bronze casting and tapestry making.

The most noticeable of the craft shops is an entire area of the city devoted to stone carving. Buddhas and Nat deities carved from marble, line the small road on both sides, some ready for shipping, some still incomplete. While most of them are lifesize and slightly smaller, a few tower three meters or more in height.

Workers squat beside their statues. The sound of electric grinders drown out the tapping of the chisels as the carvers prepare the marble.  A surprising number of statues are completely carved except for the face. This remains as a rough block of stone. Presumably, a more skilled artisan would complete the face. Perhaps it requires some customization such as to carve it into the appearance of the buyer?

The whole area is covered in marble chips and dust. The ground near the carvers is a gravelly beach of marble rocks and sand. The air, too, is full of marble and it takes only a few minutes to start accumulating white dust on clothes and hair.

The artisans work in small teams, each person specializing in a particular technique or a particular part of the sculpture. Men do the actual carving while the women generally do the polishing and finishing. The statues are nearly all Buddhas and the local Burmese deity, the Nats. They all take a similar form, the traditional poses of "The Enlightened One." The Nats are a bit more novel as the finished version is usually given some paint highlights.

Not far from the marble carving area is the bronze foundry area. A dozen small shops cast everything from souvenirs to prayer bells to larger than life bronze Buddhas. There are few statues on display here; probably because the work is created to order. There are, however, plenty of brown clay models and molds.



Most shops use an in genious makeshift apparatus for polishing the metal. The device consists of an electric motor turning a cable inside a stiff hose. To the end is attached a wire wheel or whatever abrasive/polishing device they need. Sometimes they'll take the electric motor, pop a polishing wheel to the end of it and just use the whole contraption by hand. While not as powerful or versatile as a regular grinder, it gets the job done cheaply.

Tapestries are also big in Mandalay. Small teams of women gather around wooden frames stretched with red fabric. By the light of the window, they guild threads of bright color and gold through the cloth.

The complete tapestry is a rectangle about one by two meters. It contains Hindu and Buddhist scenes from history or allegory.

See the larger images here.

Irrawaddy Riverbank Life

Compared to Yangon, Mandalay is laid back and peaceful. However, to see some organized chaos, you have but to wander down to the river.
The sandy banks are practically overrun with bamboo huts. I'm tempted
to call them makeshift, but many of them have a feel of semi-permanence
about them. I'm sure a lot of them survive the wet season when the
Irrawaddy swells. Others are rebuilt year after year.

The banks of the Irrawaddy are lined with boats for as far as the eye
can see. There are no dock facilities, no jetty, just boats pressed
against the shore - and to each other.

While quite a few are used as informal houseboats, most are in the process of unloading cargo.

Finished goods arrive from Yangon while raw materials, mainly wood, travel downriver from various places. When it's time to unload the vessels, everyone pitches in. Baskets are the prefered way of moving smaller items.

Here a family loads a local truck with bamboo brought from up river. The riverbank has quite an industry cutting and preparing these poles.

The early morning light makes for gorgeous photos. On the top of the bank, along the roadside, I tried to get a group of kids to pose as they sat on the stone wall, but they were surprisingly shy. These two girls, working at a tea shop, happily volunteered.

Just about everything of potential value is reused on the riverbank. These oil drums, for example, have been battered, beaten and repaired countless times.

The storage areas on shore also provide excellent photo opportunities.

One of the more unusual raw materials arriving at Mandalay is one that is in abundance along the river: sand. Construction projects continue in the city and sand is a vital component of the concrete. The sand from the many islands in the middle of the river are best since they are free of organic matter (unlike that on the shore where I stood). Most of the small boat operators haul the sand to the bank by the basket load, but the more technologically advanced use a water pump to draw the sand through heavy hoses. It provides the local kids an opportune place to play.

Just a bit upriver from the "commercial bank," an inlet acts a bit of a harbor. It's not deep enough to let the larger boats in, but it makes a fine place to organize an prepare floating materials such as these logs.

People walk across the log rafts as they would a sidewalk. It is quite common to see people fishing from them and it's the ideal location to wash your clothes or whatever else needs a good scrubbing.

The most interesting thing about these log rafts is that not only do people work on them, they actually live on them. I saw numerous lean-to and hut dwellings, complete with cooking fires.

There's a small village on the other side of the inlet. Several boats ply between the shores, taking people to work and kids to school. The rowers use a peculiar crossed oar method to power their boats.

As the sun sets on the other side of the Irrawaddy, I'm given one more beautiful vista to enjoy.

See the full size photos here.

Mandalay Gold Beaters

Gold leaf is one of the most common materials in a Buddhist temple. In addition to statuary and sacred items being layered in gold leaf, it's also used by worshipers. They take tiny squares and carefully apply it to statues and other items as a way of making merit. Some items, like the sacred Buddha images of Inle Lake have had so much gold leaf applied to them that they appear as shapeless blobs. Gold leaf is in demand and this particular Mandalay shop employs a large staff to prepare it.

In the final product, small squares of gold leaf are cut from a larger round piece and carefully places on the yellow paper. The squares are then stacked in a box. A box of twenty-five squares may sell for between fifteen and twenty dollars depending on the price of gold. You're not actually paying for gold so much as the labor that goes into the preparation.

The round pieces of gold have been pounded against sheets of heavy bamboo parchment. Here, the shop's top gold trimmer shows the product as it comes from the gold beaters.

The process begins with a ribbon of gold about 0.025 mm thick. This is cut into squares of about 3 cm and sandwiched between sheets of specially prepared bamboo parchment. Preparing this paper is a task unto itself and requires a few days, from soaking select bamboo pieces to pounding out the finished product. Pounding the bamboo sheets is performed by a group of women squatting in a small, very noisy, dimly lit and very humid basement room. They pound the parchment until it is the right consistency for the next phase of the process. 

Upstairs, the men go to work on the gold. Numerous squares are sandwiched between layers of parchment and wrapped in sheepskin before being tied against a large stone.

Leaning against a wooden rail, the men begin a rhythmic beating of the packages. Although they each start with their own cadence, they inevitably form a constant beat that is remarkably musical. A small bowl with a hole in the bottom is placed in a jar of water to measure the amount of time the gold is pounded. When the bowl sinks, the men reposition the packages to ensure even distribution.

Each man has his own personal hammer. He usually begins in his teens as a sort of apprentice, spending a few weeks practicing the pounding technique on packages of bamboo sheets without gold. Once the masters are satisfied with his abilities, he is given his first gold to beat. After a few years of this, they are in remarkably good physical condition.

I was granted the opportunity to try my hand at the task, with a dummy package, of course. In bare feet, I positioned myself over the stone. One of the men tied the package and showed me how to strike it. The hammer is understandably heavy, but when I hit the sheepskin-wrapped package, I was pleasantly surprised; the hammer bounced. Instead of having to physically haul the hammer back to the overhead position, I had only to maintain the momentum and start the downward swing. It was like beating a very large drum. I kept up with the rest of the crew for a few minutes until the bowl sank in the jar.

I had the guys gather for a formal portrait. It took several attempts because they could not help laughing.

As I left, I ran into one of the senior gold beaters and had him pose with his hammer. Years of work have carved him into a gold pounding machine with a physique envied by any westerner of his age. As monotenous as the job may be, I can't help but wonder if it might not be a good retirement option: move to Mandalay and get into shape by taking up gold beating.

It beats the hell out of golf, that's for sure.

See more photos here.

Mingun Morning

Mingun is a town, for lack of a better word, located eleven kilometers upriver of Mandalay. It's worth seeing for a few reasons. It has the largest ringing bell in the world. I would have had the largest stupa in the world had the project to build it been completed. Now it is the largest pile of bricks in the world. It also has an architecturally unique, white temple mountain.

My objective was to photograph the stupa as the sun was coming up. If you arrive at the river before dawn, as any good photographer would do, you're told that the boats going to Mingun don't leave until 9AM. My plan was to rent a whole boat and leave when I damned well wanted to. In order to accomplish this, I solicited my fellow hotel guests. Anyone wanting to go to Mingun should arrive at the lobby just before 6AM and we would take a taxi to the river. We ended up with eight, altogether.

At the river, we met with a number of captains willing to take us and we agreed on a price of about $25. That was close to what it would have cost had we each bought a ticket at 9AM. We scrambled across the boats, tied up side by side, and boarded ours. The crew cast off and drifted out into the current as the engines got going. It was now just under an hour before the sun rose. By the time we arrived at Mingun, I should be able to get my photo of the sunrise on the stupa.

Our pilot was a girl of about seventeen. She handled the boat like a pro.

Then we got stuck on a sandbar. There are a lot of sandbars in the river during dry season. They have a nasty habit of shifting around and it was our misfortune to discover one. The crew did their best to try to free us.

By now, the sun was just cresting the horizon. The monochrome morning was giving way to the golden light of dawn. The captain had called for a relief boat and we transfered from our stricken vessel to the rescue craft and continued up the river. Other boats were making their way up or down, providing lots of interesting photographic subjects.

We arrived at the riverbank in Mingun. Just up the river I spotted a white ceremonial staircase leading to a small pogoda.

There was my magnificent ruin. At 450 feet across, it was planned to be over 500 feet tall. It would truly have been spectacular. It's awe inspiring when you consider that since the creation of the pyramids of the Egyptian and Inca, no one has attempted to create such a massive brick structure.

The king started construction on the stupa in 1791, but work was abandoned when he died in 1819. In 1838, an earthquake cracked the very foundation of the unfinished stupa. Another earthquake in 1956 caused further devastation. On the west side, a huge fissure runs up the structure, exposing the brick construction. There are still four entrances into niches on each side, however. These continue to attract worshipers.

It's possible to walk to the top, along a jumble of fallen brickwork. Many locals do so on a regular basis. From the top of the old stupa, I could see the nearby Myatheindan Pagoda, built in 1816.

It's not hard to see why this pagoda is nicked named "the wedding cake pagoda."

At sunrise or sunset, this building makes for fantastic photos. When the sun is too high, though, it looks washed out.

The locals were busy going about their morning chores and pretty much ignoring me and my fellow travelers as we explored the ancient buildings. There are plenty of curious places to visit in Mingun, but when traveling with a group, it's necessary to make plans and stick with them. I hope to return and spend a few days in Mingun to see whatever else I can.

In addition to capturing the morning light, the other advantage of arriving early is that there are no tourists. Every vista was mercifully free of floppy hat sporting gawkers. By 10AM, however, the tourist boats were arriving. By that time, the local trinket hawkers who all but ignored me on my arrival were in full operation mode and I could not pass a stall without being offered a miniature bell or some other souvenir.

I would have very much liked to have a souvenir of the great bell, but the ones being sold looked nothing like the monster housed its own enclosure between the stupa ruin and the wedding cake. At 90 tons, this gargantuan bell stands 12 feet high and fifty feet in circumference. It's supported by a huge girder held up by two massive iron columns bolted together. The bell leans against a wooden bumper to keep it from touching the column; it appears to have shifted since it was first put in place. While it's possible to ring the bell with the short club provided, I would dearly love to hear a tree-trunk size clanger hammer into the side of this particular bell. I have no doubt that when it first rang a hundred years ago, it could have been heard for miles up and down the Irrawaddy. Fantastic.

See more photos from Mingun here.