Pagan

The $5 guesthouse had hot water and a good mattress…so after a shower and a good night’s sleep, things were looking better in the morning. Amazingly, we were the only ones in the entire group who wanted a guide (and since there was only one guide, we considered ourselves lucky). We met our guide and contracted for a horse cart for the morning. The cart driver made a clucking noise to make the horse go (a lot like Starvin’ Marvin).

This place was a bit like South Park—the underwear gnomes – “Step 1- Build pagodas, Step 2 ____, Step 3- Build more pagodas.

The Pagan area actually covers 40 sq. km and everywhere you look are stupas and pagodas.

Most of the construction occurred between 1057 AD and 1287 AD. The official count back in the 13th century was 4446 monuments. The last count in 1978 showed 2230 monuments standing. We got a chance to see 6 of the major pagodas- Shwezigon (supposedly housing one of the four replicas of the Budda tooth). Here, John managed to buy a Buddhist monks’ alms bowl directly from the monastery, Kyansittha Umin, Gubyaukgyi, Htilominlo, U Pali Thein, and Ananda. At the Ananda pagoda, we actually found a book on the Nats….
A morning seeing pagodas was enough for us (and definitely, enough for the poor horse who literally had to cart us around). We got dropped off at a small local restaurant and grabbed lunch - more noodles with veggies. The menu even included “But Weiser” beer.
You got an eerie feeling of being constantly studied by the Burmese - and a sense of their constantly anticipating your next request. At restaurants, they would sit at a table and stare at us. If you made a comment to a vendor like, “The tables are beautiful but too big to carry home”, they would chase you to show you how it can be taken apart and folded up into a much smaller, carry-able size. One vendor saw me open my wallet and saw Singapore dollars- he followed us all the way to the horse cart, saying, “I’ll take Singapore dollars”.. If you slap a few mosquitoes while you’re at dinner, they would immediately run out with spray and mosquito coils.
After lunch, it was back to the hotel…and a chance to see a shin-pyu, the initiation ceremony for novice monks.

Until a Buddhist male has gone through the shin-pyu ceremony, he is regarded as no better than an animal. To become “human”, he has to withdraw for some time from secular life. Most only carry their alms bowl for a week or so. The ceremony is typically done between the boy’s ninth and twelfth birthdays.

The entire village is invited to the ceremony- the house is completely decorated like a temple of gold paper mache and the young boys are dressed as “princes” before the actual ceremony. Most families spend as much as $300- they must feed the monks and the entire village. After the guests are fed, they proceed to the monastery to shave their heads in preparation for the initiation. The parents hold a white cloth under the boy’s head while the monk shaves all the hair off.

The parents then bury the cloth with the hair near a pagoda. We watched the two older boys (about 9)- then a very young boy (about 3) get their heads shaved. John took a picture of the little boy after the shaving with the digital camera- and showed him his photo on the display. He kept looking at the picture and touching his head- amazed that he really had no hair.

Then, it was time for the dressing in the monk’s robe and the ceremony. It was truly an amazing event.
Back to the hotel and it was dinner time. Avoiding “longyi” night with the group (where everyone was required to wear the native skirt- longyi”), we headed to the “Sunset Garden” restaurant. It was a beautiful setting- in a huge garden overlooking the Irewaddy River. We got a true sunset and the entire restaurant to ourselves. It was so peaceful and beautiful.