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Farangs, Day 31 — Stupendous stupa supper
Bagan, Myanmar |
Bagan, Myanmar
Itinerary: We have an early breakfast before embarking on our scenic excursion through rural Burma. We will have lunch at a local restaurant before continuing on to Mount Popa, an extinct volcano. For those who climb the 777 steps to the shrine at the top of the peak, the views are spectacular!
We continue our scenic drive to Bagan (Pagan), passing through several quaint villages. Overnight in Pagan.
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Temples and stupas were everywhere. The morning pit-stop had us using bushes–guys in one direction, gals in the other.
Taung Kalat (pedestal hill), which has a Buddhist monastery on the top, is often called Mount Popa, which is the name of the actual volcano that caused the creation of the volcanic plug. To save confusion, the volcano is usually called Taung Ma-gyi (mother hill). There are 777 steps to the monastery. Our group chose not to climb to the top as it would have taken a fair amount of time, we’ve visited a lot of temples and monasteries, and we wanted to get on to Bagan.
We visited a small town and a couple of villages on the drive to Bagan. Also a basket and lacquerware workshop when we arrived in Bagan. We were shown how the lacquer is applied, engraved, color filled, or decorated with wafer-thin gold leaf, and how they weave the Burmese specialty of horse-hair cups and bowls, which Trish knew about. Horse-hair is wound around a reed frame which is then coated with lacquer. The final product is both strong and flexible and is supple enough that it doesn’t crack or break. All this work takes a long time, and everything for sale was very expensive.
The drive took about nine hours but went by quickly with the interesting scenery and stops. Nevertheless, we were very glad to get to our destination and have our welcome drink.
