It was back to the airport for our flight to Pagan. Landing in Pagan, there was the Prime Minister's brightly colored plane...not a good sign for us.
Waiting in the arrival hall for our Tourist Burma Pagan guide, we ladies decided to use the bathroom. All of a sudden, there was this huge, awful explosion. When Diana (in our group) flushed the toilet which had an old-fashioned overhead porcelain tank, the entire tank came crashing down, missing her head by inches, and smashing into a 1,000 pieces! Guards ran from all over the airport and Diana didn't know whether or not to cry, or laugh hysterically. Fortunately, this incident that could have been tragic ended up extremely funny.
Win, our Pagan guide, showed up about then and we started touring in another dilapidated bus. ...View image... Pagan was the first capital of a united Burma, and its peak was during the 11th through 13th centuries. It was the center of Buddhism in this part of the world and may have had any as many as 50,000 temples. Due to time, neglect and natural disasters, less than 2,000 remain.
On the way from the airport, we stopped for an hour or so at Nyaung-Oo, just in time to see a parade of young novices coming down the road. February is the end of Burma's winter season and as part of the spring ritual, young males are initiated as monks in Buddhism. Every Buddhist male (at some time in his life) must serve as a monk. It can be as little as a few days, weeks, months or years.
The young initiates, some as young as six or seven years old were parading through town on gaily decorated ponies and ox-carts. Musicians and pretty young girls in costumes preceded them, as they made their way to the hall to be feasted and later, their heads shaved. ...View image... At first, I thought they were little girls because of the make-up and decoration on them, but no, they were little boys. When the parade approached us, I turned to "ex-Marine" and said: "Oh my goodness, I've seen this on a documentary but who would have thought we'd see it in person!"
From there, we followed them into the temple ...View image...to watch all the festivities...
Leaving the temple, we drove to the Irra Inn, on a bluff overlooking the Irrawaddy River which wound its way through most of Burma. The Irra Inn was a small step up from our former hotel. A big plus were the river sights from the hotel which included: watching the people carry big loads on their heads...View image....huge water buffalos at work hauling gigantic teak logs which had been floated down the river, tied together like a raft, and then hauled out of the water to a nearby sawmill...
...and the cutest little boy.
Time for lunch, Temple visiting and a Marionette Show...
Published by Sheila Simkin on September 18, 2006 05:00 AM
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