Myanmar: Markets, Monasteries & Monks
As you can tell, this post is focused on another one of our many stops in Southeast Asia last month. After sailing out of Phuket, Thailand, we headed north and docked at Yangon, Miramar (formerly known as Burma). We stayed at this port for three days, so we were able to do a lot of exploring. Two of the days were spent exploring on our own, and the other day was spent on a tour.
Like some of our other ports on this trip, Yangon does not really cater to tourists (except at some of the major sights) so you better have a good map if you want to get around. The language doesn’t even have characters that we recognized. The signs look more like swirly hieroglyphics! We did have a map, and we used it to walk ALL over the city. We literally walked about 10 miles the first day… in the 100-degree heat! As tiring as walking can be, it gives you a better idea of what a place is truly like. If you just cab it from one major sight to another, you miss all the “life” that’s happening in between.
The biggest attraction in Yangon is the insanely huge Schwedegon Pagoda, and we spent a good three hours exploring it. The place is like a buddhist village in that it’s so big, with a giant 325-foot stupa, surrounded by loads of temples, shrines and Buddhas. It was actually hard to photograph because there was just so much going on there, visually. We started exploring in the morning and had to stop by 1pm or so because the sun was making the marble floors so hot that we literally had to run from one shaded spot to another (as with most Buddhist temples and pagodas like this, you can’t wear shoes or socks while inside.)
On the day we went on a tour, we took a 2-hour (ish) bus ride to Bago, where we made several stops, the first of which being a monastery. That was really interesting because we got to see the daily lives of the monks, including the very young ones. They were very gracious about letting us take their photos, so it was quite a treat. We then walked through a small village where some of the young monks lived and saw some fabric weavers. They were so young, yet so skilled at operating these huge looms.
Finally, we walked through a few of the local markets up in Bago. It was interesting, because the people were SO not used to seeing tourists (Westerners, especially). The markets were so colorful and full of things I had never seen before. I think we were looking at some of the produce there with a similar expression to how they looked at our cameras!
Here are some of my (and Karen’s) images from Myanmar….
