A Saturday night departure from Dulles…
…arriving Monday morning in Yangon, Myanmar. A slow ride through rush hour traffic to our hotel adjoining the zoo. A shower and then a walk to the Shwedegon Pagoda – Myanmar’s most spectacular pagoda. We will return at the end of our stay in Myanmar for a closer look.
A word about Myanmar (formerly Burma): it is a long, narrow country that in its northern extension thrusts between India and China in the mountains, follows the Irrawaddy River south as it broadens into broad flat valley that is the home of historic capitals for many different kingdoms over time and then continues over several hundred miles to the delta and the Indian Ocean. It’s long coastline starts at Bangladesh and continues past the Irrawaddy delta to share part of a long peninsula with Thailand.
It’s two major cities are Yangon (formerly Rangoon) a major port in the delta and Mandalay in the center of the country. It’s population of 55 million is largely Buddhist with a diversity of ethnic groups retaining identities and some dating from historic inmigrations from India, China, and British colonization. It’s recent history has seen independence in 1948 followed by a long period of despotism, military rule, and isolation that led to severe economic hardship and only recently a move toward democracy. It continues to wrestle with separatist movements and rebel armies along its borders, and religious conflict. But a large majority of Burmese see a hopeful future under the democratically-elected 74-year old daughter of the leader of post-war independence Aung Sung Suu Kyi. All around Yangon are signs of an economic awakening.
Monday Night: Our first meeting as a group of 13 — mostly American/Canadian somewhat Boomer demographic (but not all) and interesting backgrounds. An early group dinner (more on Burmese food later), and an alarm set for a 4:30 am wake up.
Mandalay: An hour flight to Mandalay and an 8:30 start to a busy day. Mandalay is a city of 7 million set on a broad flat plain along the Irrawaddy. It was built as a capital by the last of the Burmese kings in the 1850s, with a large walled and moated palace compound in the center. The spectacular teak palace buildings were bombed to dust in the Japanese invasion in WWII, with the exception of one that had previously been moved out of the compound and donated to Buddhist monks. Recently, the government has recreated a few of the buildings that were once in what is otherwise now an empty square of land brick-walled and moated off from the rest of a thriving city (photos of the palace area to come).
Today, Mandalay is a flat and spread-out sprawl around the empty palace grounds of motorcycle-infested streets with one-story buildings alternating shops, outdoor dining tables, and little factories all open to the street, punctuated by small temples and monasteries thrusting their stupas above the trees. In the misty distance closer to the river there is a metropolis of spread out high-rise buildings and everywhere signs of commerce.
