After an overnight bus ride from Yangon, I took a days rest at Mymyo, the `only’ hill station in Myanmar, located close to Mandalay. I stayed at this very colonial British club house turned resort; a charming red mansion with a lovely driveway, garden, patio, and balcony on the outside and a warm and cozy interior, complete with a piano, fire place and banister stairways from the past. A fumbling entourage of humble employees ensured a comfortable stay. Other than a vast, beautiful botanical garden, in excellent maintenance, Mymyo is a quaint town with a smattering of lovely colonial bungalows which are mostly abandoned. As usual, the markets are still alive. The neat rows of shops, with old and new signboards of bakers, and merchants, reminded me of its cantonment past. I could imagine a lively market, bustling with young, smart railway and army officers, taking a few days break from work and the humid weather at Yangon, Mandalay or the teak jungles to enjoy English breakfast at the sunny roadside cafes of Mymyo. But today, this pretty little market, struggles to bake a decent loaf of bread.
My guide, Ameena, a third generation, half Tamil, half Burmese Muslim lady, received me the next day morning and we were on our 2 hour ride to Mandalay. She was more a companion than a guide, and talking to her made interesting learning about migrant populations in Myanmar. She said she lived in Mandalay, in a locality full of `Madrasis’. Undoubtedly, the legacy of migrants from the Madras Presidency lives on in Myanmar. There is also a huge population of people of Nepali origins settled in Myanmar; particularly in Mymyo. Known as Gorkhalese, most of them have an ancestry in Myanmar dating back to the Raj.
We drove past teak wood plantations, which looked more like forests interspersed with quaint vegetable farms, and flower beds. I watched the trucks, laden with amazingly huge cylinders of teak go by. But even more fascinating were the vans loaded with tons of neatly stacked flowers!! All on their way to the Thai border. Mymyo is well known for its horticulture efforts since the British time. But the tradition of decorating homes with fancy flowers is long since gone with the British.
Finally, I was in Mandalay, facing the prominent Mandalay hills, sprouting many old and new pagodas all uniformly painted white with golden domes. Ameena and I, headed straight for the Fort Palace, in the northern end of the city, surrounded by a wide moat, connected with a bridge on all four sides. The present wood palace is actually an exercise in reconstruction after the original 1857 palace it was thoroughly razed to the ground in the WW II bombings. The king’s private apartment, `The Glass Palace’ dazzled in the hot afternoon sun. It’s not just the most extensively gilded among the many official and residential structures within the fort complex, but it’s also the most elaborately decorated with tiny bits of colored glass. It literally `reflects’ its short-lived grandeur.
Although Mandalay city was founded as recently as 1857 by King Mindon, it is surrounded by medieval history on either side of a lifeline called River Irrawady. After the fall of the `Golden Era’ at Pagan in the 12th Century the towns of Saigon, Inwa, Amrapura, and Mingun saw successive back and forth as political nerve centres. And there is something special about each of these settlements.
At Amrapura, for instance, a visit to the 100 year old Mahagandhayon Monastry, one of the largest in the world, is a must. The monastery is home to several thousands of young and old monks. The Bagaya Monastry of Inwa, built completely of teakwood in 1834, is a phenomenal piece of architecture with some of the supporting teak pillars as large as 3m in circumference. It is definitely one of its kind heritage monument. Although, blackened with age, its intricate carvings, the lacquered pillars and gilded cool interiors are still resplendent in beauty. Saigon too has many monasteries and pagodas. Rebuilt and renovated over the centuries, some of the pagodas on the Saigon hills, date back to the 14th century. Amrapura also boasts of the longest surviving teak wood bridge in the world. Although rickety, this 150 year old and 1.2 km long bridge connects villages along the lagoons and islands on the Irrawady and is still used by pedestrians and cyclists.
Mingun is 11kms upstream of Mandalay, on the opposite bank of the Irrawady. Had it not been for the 200 year old Mingun Pagoda, this sleepy village wouldn’t stand a chance in history’s memory. The Pagoda is most certainly one of the most amazing architectural remains in Myanmar. It’s huge. Reportedly, the massive earthquake in 1838 reduced its height to half. Or else the pagoda would have been the largest in the world. The remaining half itself looks formidable, with gaping cracks cutting across its `all brick’ edifice. I thoroughly enjoyed my bullock cart rides to the pagodas, along the vast alluvial plains of this village.
But, it was sailing across the Irrawady to reach Mingun, which will remain my most memorable experience about Myanmar. I have this penchant for crossing arterial rivers like Irrawady, which cuts across one or several countries. The quiet solitary ride on the upper deck of the motorized boat, watching the Mingun Pagoda, rise like an isolated hill on the flat banks in the horizon, will always remain afresh in my memory. Every river is a lifeline. And rivers like the Irrawady, are indeed so. Starting at its two main tributaries, Rivers Mihika and the Mallika in the northern states, the Irrawady cuts across the entire length of Burma. The agrarian economy and the teakwood trade of British Burma, was completely dependent on this. The river was the most convenient mode of transportation for massive loads of teakwood from the forested upper reaches of Myanmar, to the docks at Yangon. There are references to how river Irrawady had more wood in the water than water itself!!
Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it to the 4000 and more monuments at Pagan, further north of Mandalay. That’s because I didn’t want to rush Pagan. I wanted a week long stay just in Pagan to explore the `Golden Era’ architectural remains. “Maybe sometime soon”, said Ameena, as we rounded off our trip at one of the many popular tea shop restaurants. And yes, there was still so much more to see and learn of contemporary Myanmar in Mandalay.
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