Mandalay, Part2

It’s a short hop across the river to the ancient capital of Ava, and when we approach the ferry dock we are immediately pounced on by adorable children selling jewelry. We trade names, complements, even jokes,* and I promise to buy necklaces only from them, when I want them upon my return. (Which, of course, I do).

*Girl 1: Where are you from?

Me: America. Where are you from?

Girls 1 and 2 (in unison): My mother!

(All): Laughing.

Across the river we meet another contingent of smiling young people; and one persistent teenage girl in particular, who trailed us on her bicycle as we bounced off down the dusty dirt road in our horse-drawn cart. We pass through a small village and out into an expanse of rice paddies and chickpea fields, stupas visible in the distance, horse hooves clopping in a steady cadence.

The main point of interest here is a wooden monastery, built entirely of teak and supported by massive tree trunks. the details are beautifully carved, the floorboards warping and full of holes, the main hall dim and dusty. In one corner, English=language signs hang on the wall, and small desks are scattered with notebooks filled with Burmese script and sketches: novice monks and village children receive free education here, and as our tour guide brings out a donation of school supplies from a previous visitor, small boys scamper into the room to receive their gifts, then disappear, laughing in the shadows.

At our lovely lunch place in the Sagaing hills, our sweet tour guide Nilar delicately applies the ever-present thanaka to our faces in a leaf design. We stop at two temples in the hills as the sun gains power, the first a ‘cave’ built into a hillside, and the second an important stop for many pilgrims, but also a place with a panoramic view of the stupa-dotted hillsides and the wide Irrawaddy river.

Our last stop for the day, across the river, is Mingun, which contains the beginnings of what would have been a very large stupa…. but alas, the king died while it was still only partially completed, and no one dared finish it…. so here it sits, large cracks running jaggedly through it as a result of earthquakes; the remains of two large lions guarding the entrance.

Mingun is also home to the world’s largest working bell (as opposed the the much larger, but decidedly broken, bell I recently saw in Moscow). It’s riddled with etching and graffiti on the inside, where we stand and listen as people outside ring it with sturdy wooden sticks.

We have one more stop for the day, and just as I am thinking I am too tired to handle anymore, we emerge from the backstreets of the village to see a giant white wedding-cake of a building, stark white against the blue sky. Seven wavy seas form the bottom layers, broken by statues in small nooks. The middle level is lined with dancing carvings and flower-draped figures, and the Buddha is enshrined at the top of a set of steep stone steps. Many of the statues are broken, leaning, missing, and it gives the place an intriguing impression in the golden light of late afternoon.