-----
YANGON, Myanmar - The broom ladies appear at dusk, dozens of women in long dark skirts sweeping the dusty day from the cool stone terrace. The last orange glints of sun sparkle against the mountainous gold-leaf dome of Shwedagon, Yangon's vast temple. The terrace takes on a greenish hue, overflow from the fluorescent bulbs now lighting literally thousands of Buddha statues standing sentry about the platform. Incense, tart and sweet, drifts past. Beneath a pavilion, a half-dozen monks swathed in cotton the color of koi chant before a swirling image of a Buddha surrounded by flashing lights and another, on a video screen.
A gong tones. A bald-shaven teenager in monk's orange approaches, firmly shakes hands.
"Hello. Where are you from?" 'America' brings a wide grin. Here, at least, it's not a dirty word. Here, China plays the heavy.
'Here' is the land known by British Colonials as Burma, a flame-shaped wedge of Southeast Asia that is touched by Thailand, India, Bangladesh, China and Laos. Slightly smaller than Texas, it lays claim to 21/2 times the population - about 50 million. Since 1988, when a military junta took control, the country has been called Myanmar, though the U.S. - which bans investment there by U.S. citizens - still calls it Burma.
Among rights activists, taking a holiday in Myanmar / Burma is generally considered sleeping with the enemy. Visit the country, they argue, and you contribute financially to a repressive junta that has ignored election results and silenced opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. WHY GO? Why, you might ask, would someone even want to visit a poor, overpopulated country with limited facilities and a government philosophically aligned with Attila the Hun? But adventure is as personal as the novels you sneak when no one from work can see you. For some, adventure means some physical challenge; for others, it's a chance to let go of caution and let happen what may. For me, it's dipping a toe into the relative purity of cultures not yet devoured by an insane pace, stock market fever and Survivor. And places where Buddhism dominates hold special appeal for me. Myanmar - largely secluded from the West for much of the Old Century - surely fits the bill. But visiting felt treacherous, like going to South Africa during the apartheid years or taking a holiday in a posh Havana hotel when so many of my neighbors' lives have been ripped apart by the Castro regime.
Recently, though, things seemed to be looking up. In October 2000, the junta began closed-door reconciliation talks with Aung San, who remains under house arrest. Two dozen offices of Aung San's National League for Democracy, closed in the mid-1990s, have reopened. Some believe a recent shakeup within the junta indicates the government is serious about eliminating corruption. And while it is illegal for U.S. citizens to visit Cuba without permission from the U.S. government, Myanmar is fair game for Americans.
Final absolution came from Lonely Planet founder and independent travel guru Tony Wheeler, roundly criticized for publishing a guide to Myanmar. Last January, he and his wife returned to Myanmar to decide for themselves if tourist dollars were going to local people or simply propping up the government. His findings: that local people were better off now than in the late '80s, that contact with outsiders was important to them, that locals often talked openly about the government, that even supporters of Suu Kyi see tourism as a protection against the military. And yes, that much of the money spent goes directly to their pockets.
Conscience salved, my husband and I were off for 11 days in The Golden Land, the centerpiece of an Asian vacation. Our journey would take us to the capital, Yangon, to traditional villages surrounding the vast and shallow Inle Lake, on to the mythical Mandalay, into the mountains to an old British hill station, and down the muddy Irrawaddy to the archaeological center of Bagan. It wouldn't be nearly enough.
THE CAPITAL
Jeffrey Meyers, author of a biography on writer George Orwell, who spent five years in Burma during the 1920s, recently described Yangon as "a rich widow fallen on hard times . . . a broken-down and depressing city - more like Calcutta than the thriving capitals of Southeast Asia." True, Yangon is far from the catch she might have been in her debutante days. But the crow's-feet and wrinkles are testament to a vigorous life filled with contradictions and conundrums, and she has plenty yet to come.
The long road from airport to town is, surprisingly, a greenway leading past lakes and lush gardens and closer to town, signs advertising MacBurger - an impostor - and a local rip-off of Denny's. A swing past the huge park that is home to Shwedagon temple leads to the town center, a bustle of hawkers and orange-robed monks, bicycle-powered trishaws and belching autos, Colonial architectural delights covered with grime.
For expats and travelers, the nexus of life here has always been the Strand, an outpost of the Raj built in 1901 that, in its day, was considered "the finest hostelry east of Suez." Time and history brought the usual havoc. During World War II, the Japanese used part of the hotel for a stable, and at one point a bomb came careening through the roof and landed unexploded - a local curiosity before it was hauled away. In the mid '90s, The Strand was restored to its former polish, a retreat of ceiling fans and teak inlays in a marble floor, of afternoon tea and traditional Burmese music that lingers, sweet and sad, like a stolen kiss. On Friday nights the bar hops with jazz music.
The hotel faces Strand Road, a ribbon through the Colonial district that edges the park separating city from shipping industry along the Irrawaddy. This is Asia as it has been for centuries. A huge fish tail hangs out of a large basket strapped to the back of a man striding past, dressed in the traditional sarong-like longyi. Another carries a wooden yoke across his shoulders, balancing baskets of oranges and limes. Every sidewalk is a market, books to bananas. A long queue waits to buy bread from the back of a truck.
A trishaw wheels past, flowers sprouting jauntily from a vase strapped to the handlebars. Traffic stops as a line of monks clutching rattan fans crosses the busy road. A child-nun in pink robes hurries past.
It's undoubtedly arrogant to think of some place as poor as Yangon as charming; it's only that way if you're a foreigner for whom the $1 taxi fare or $4 lunch for two is so cheap its laughable. Still, there is something beguiling about it all. Melancholy, too. If you have traveled Asia in recent times, you can guess what this place will become. Already, a few soul-less towers have cropped up like overgrown weeds, like the condos and malls and offices that have replaced once-traditional neighborhoods in Bangkok, Hong Kong, Beijing, Singapore. Billboards advertise English lessons and classes in Microsoft computing, the Cash Box karaoke bar and the international Mr. Universe bodybuilding contest held there last November.
"Toward a new, modern, developed nation," reads the official government slogan posted outside the airport - a government that claims 2001 as a "winning" year despite a recent report by the Asian Development Bank that the country spends only .17 percent of its GDP on education and .3 percent on healthcare, with an annual inflation rate of 27.2 percent. Already, a sign announces the entrance to the government's Department of Medical Sciences Stress Management Center.
But not yet.
We wander the crowded streets, stopping in a country music bar and eatery called City Point, where fried fish sandwiches are served up with cuts of Me and You and A Dog Named Blue and Let Me Be There in the Morning.
A friendly taxi driver - many speak decent English - takes us to Shwedagon. We pull off our shoes, climb a wide stair lined with shops selling Buddhist prayer beads and statues - and up to the temple for the end-of-day ritual and a sprinkle of broom lady dust.
INLE LAKE The flight from Yangon takes less time than the taxi ride from the small airport to the lake itself, a bumpy sway past ox carts, military transport trucks and the occasional tourist bus. Fields glow with yellow blooms and the gold of stupas that dot every sweep of landscape. The earth is red enough to make Georgia clay cry with jealousy.
The lake is a yawning but shallow inland sea, the Lake Okeechobee of the land stretching some 14 miles long, ringed by mountains and sheltered with a sky that, by night, seems filled with glitter. Our hotel is two-thirds of the way down lake; the ride in a motorized canoe takes an hour.
We aren't alone. Dozens of other water taxis hum about the lake, loaded with monks, farm wives with huge baskets of tomatoes and beans, tourists. Surprising numbers of tourists.
Our hotel is an upmarket version of a traditional lake village, a series of simple woven grass cottages on stilts. (Ours have indoor bathrooms; the locals mostly use the lake.)
The lure of Inle - along with its physical beauty - is the traditional ways that dominate. Fishermen angle with wooden fish traps tall as Michael Jordan. The lake's chief crop is tomatoes grown on fertile floating islands of seaweed and soil anchored with bamboo poles.
Men - never women - row flat-bottomed canoes in the region's traditional way, standing with one leg wrapped around the oar for a powerful stroke that doesn't tire arms and shoulders. In October, crews of 40 or more men race this way on ornate ceremonial barges at the annual Phaung Daw U festival.
The daily market rotates among five villages. Most farmers and shoppers come as we do, by boat; others by foot or ox cart, loaded with emerald chilies and saffron-colored corn and beans the size of a child's fist; tomatoes, fish fresh or dried or salted; tangy fried tofu snacks. The country may be poor but the land is rich, and no one seems hungry. Tribal women - there are eight major primary ethnic groups living near the lake - wrap their heads in bright plaid cloths to block the sun. Men and women both wear longyis and carry bright woven shoulder bags.
The people are friendly, laughing with us, happy to have us snap their photos, delighted when we show them their images in the video display of a digital camera. All, that is, except the man who runs the gambling booths, where shoppers plunk down their kyat on a decorated square and hope the giant falling dice will land with a matching symbol. "No photos!" he snarls. A new security recruit for Vegas.
A dozen or so tables are covered with souvenirs - a recent phenomenon, says our guide, a college student who works at the hotel and studies by correspondence at the regional university, thanks to his tribe's scholarship program. The tables are piled with aged temple carvings, accordion-folded prayer books, Buddha images, small touristy weight sets - all illegal to remove from the country, we later learn. But their owners are anxious to sell; items initially priced $120 drop by 80 percent with haggling.
For two days, we motor from market to village to "factories" - cottages where silver jewelry, brilliant silks, cigars, ironwork and parasols are made with careful hands, one by one. Fascinating to watch as the silver beads are cast into molds, the umbrellas shades dotted with pressed wildflowers; cheaper, we learn, to buy in the markets.
Religious monuments in white or gold leaf dot villages and riverbanks; there are more than 200 monasteries here. The 120-year-old wooden Nga Phe Kyaung is noted theoretically for its Buddha images, but tourists come as much to see the jumping cats, who leap on command through small hoops. The holiest of the temples is Phaung Daw U, home to five 12th Century statues, so revered that the gold leaf rubbed on them as offerings have obscured their shape. During the annual fall festival, the statues are carried about the lake on ceremonial barges; it is said that some years ago, when one of the barges capsized, only four of the statues were recovered. Yet when monks returned with them to the monastery, the fifth was already in its proper place.
In a place like this, you can almost believe such magic is real.
MANDALAY Despite posh hotels and a new airport slicker than MIA, Mandalay is something of a disappointment. The Mandalay Fort - a huge walled compound built in the mid 19th Century - is a poor reconstruction of the original wooden palace, devastated by fire in 1945. The temple atop the 977 steps - yes, we counted - of Mandalay Hill offers great views but is otherwise uninspiring; the walk is dotted with temples and statues but seems shabby. The busy streets were dustier and less interesting than in Yangon. Better was the area around Mahamuni temple, where craftsmen carve the giant Buddha statues that appear throughout the country.
Come evening, we visit the underground a-nyeint pwe performance of the Mustache Brothers. Pwe is a traditional form of entertainment involving music and comic skits about everyday life. In the case of the Mustache Brothers, this has sometimes involved jokes that point at the foibles of the government - a practice that has landed one of the brothers in prison and put others under watch, which is why their performance is slightly underground. But it's not hard to find - the Lonely Planet guide features it on a map - and the family of performers welcomes publicity. It was the adverse publicity attracted when director Rob Reiner got involved, says a brother, that led to the early release of the jailed Par Par Lay two years shy of his seven-year sentence.
Indeed, Mandalay seemed less buoyant, a bit more restrictive than Yangon. Though we were welcome to go nearly everywhere we wanted on our rented bikes, huge signs at the Mandalay Fort made it clear we would be arrested and deported if we deviated from the main palace road to other parts of the fort grounds. A massive billboard on a main road proclaim "The People's Desire" - English-language propaganda reminding visitors of the official line.
We follow the British Raj and head for the hills just beyond the city.
Warned of the long train ride from Yangon to Mandalay, we substitute a four-hour chug to Pyin U Lwin, a summer retreat for heat-weary Brits at the turn of the last century. Even in first class, the granite-hard benches are barely padded. Lwin is a sweet and dusty town, with horse carts as taxis, a smattering of Colonial houses and a pretty but unremarkable botanical garden. The music blaring from the speakers outside the temples prevented us from venturing inside.
One reason to come here is to stay at Candacraig, once a British officers chummery where the Raj lives on - without the glamour. The wide porches invited a book and a cup of tea, though we never managed the second. The food was traditional English, which is to say overcooked and bland. The high-ceilinged rooms were spare and, at night, downright cold, with none of the cheery warmth the fireplace would have thrown off in days of the Raj. Still, it was a chance to sleep in history.
Sore, we pass on the train ride back to Mandalay in favor of an hour-long taxi ride. It is morning, school time, and the potholed road is lined with children whose parents can afford to pay for school. In crisp white shirts and deep green longyi, they travel on bicycles, on foot, packed into group jitneys. Families with small children arrive on trishaw - dad peddling with a child in his lap, two wedged into the forward-looking sidecar seat and one or two wedged on the seat looking back. The family minibus. Women in fuchsia, morning-glory blue, sunflower yellow glow against the green fields. A queue of monks in ocher robes snakes along the road, stopping for morning alms of rice from locals along the road.
A worthy show for $10, taxi ride included.
BAGAN On the Irrawaddy, the tourist ferry is middle ground, a leap up from the crowded local ferry and a long step down from The Road to Mandalay luxury cruise-tour operated by Orient Express. With reclining seats and a restaurant, it offers comforts enough for the eight-hour trip through the misty sunrise, past iridescent fields punctuated with stupas. At Bagan, though, the dock is no more than a long plank down to a mud bank; well worth the dollar to help with bags. Bagan is to Myanmar what Ankor Wat is to Cambodia, Giza is to Egypt, Tikal is to Guatemala, Chichen Itza is to Mexico - a testament to a time when their cultures were the cultures, and others looked on in awe.
It is true that in 1975, an earthquake rocked the area, bringing many temples to rubble. But, to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of its demise have been overstated. Today some 2,000-3,000 of the stupas and temples remain over 19 square miles, though many are reconstructions. The monuments date from the 11th to 13th centuries, when wars were commanded from atop elephants and kings were said to be felled by magic bows. Some monuments are short and stout, molded mounds of clay; others reach 200 feet and shimmer with gilded promise. A few retain intricate ceiling paintings - most were chiseled out long ago. One is used in ordination ceremonies when a young man or woman enters the monastery or nunnery. In another, the huge Buddha statues seem to be smiling or frowning, depending on the angle from which you view them. But it's not the individual stupas and temples that tickle the imagination, but the sheer number of them. Stand at sunset on a high terrace, watch from a balloon at sunrise, meander through them on the back of a horse cart or the seat of bicycle - the place feels like an illusion, but it is real. And serene. Villagers were uprooted from their homes in the archaeological zone - rudely, with two weeks' notice - some years back. Today the monuments sit alone in tall grass, by muddy paths more suited to ox carts than tour buses. Cars are few, and there is only a handful of delightful hotels and small restaurants at the edge of the temple complex, along the river. The only distraction is the souvenir hawkers, nudging you to buy cheap lacquer coasters or cloth paintings. You can't blame them; a man may work a day or more on a cloth painting that sells for a few dollars. Far better ware comes from the nearby village of Myinkaba, center of Myanmar's lacquerware industry. Here, lacquered pieces are made as they have been for centuries, with time and care on a dirt floor beneath the shade of a wooden lean-to. The base vessel - a small box, large platter, vase or stand - is woven from horsehair or bamboo; some are made from hard bamboo. The lacquer - from a tree in a neighboring state - is painted on in a single color, then a design scratched upon it. Each color of the design requires a different layer of lacquer. A piece of the best quality takes 14 coats, in a process that can take seven months. Prices aren't cheap - a large, high-quality piece can cost hundreds of dollars, even here - but they are negotiable. And so we find ourselves traipsing from family to family, examining the quality and designs and prices. By days' end, we've convinced a shopkeeper to build a crate that will hold not only the bowl we've bought from him, but also the giant puppet from Mandalay, the hat and platter from Inle Lake, the lacquer that will be Christmas presents, the pots we hope to make into lamps. The holidays are past, and the crate - promised weeks ago - has yet to arrive. We've got our fingers crossed. Meanwhile, we've got our memories, and the wonder that comes with a modern-day visit into that National Geographic pages of decades past. And yes, some sadness. People here may speak their minds, but quietly. "We'd rather have Aung San," one said, "but people want peace, too."
