{"id":895,"date":"2022-01-24T13:14:16","date_gmt":"2022-01-24T13:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/guysibilla.com\/?p=895"},"modified":"2022-01-25T13:29:04","modified_gmt":"2022-01-25T13:29:04","slug":"waking-in-rangoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/guysibilla.com\/?p=895","title":{"rendered":"Waking In Rangoon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Myanmar (fka Burma) is the Land of Four Million Pagodas<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n

I woke up in Rangoon on my birthday.\u00a0 I had promised myself some time
ago that I was going to be here for just this occasion.\u00a0 At my age,
birthdays have become private affairs.\u00a0 Although I have no problem in
joining in on the revelry to celebrate someone else\u2019s birthday, I have gone to
great lengths to avoid celebrating my own.\u00a0 So once a year, I need a place
to hideout for a while.\u00a0 This time I passed anonymously into the Year of
the Horse in the arms of distant, mysterious, exotic Rangoon.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/span>I had come to the realization that at my age, I tended to like things that were
at least as old as I was.\u00a0 The older things were, the less old I
felt.\u00a0 Some years ago, I had read about the thousand year-old
archaeological zone of Bagan in central Burma (nka Myanmar) in a National
Geographic Magazine.\u00a0 Not only did this meet my age criteria but also I
would have Rangoon as a present.\u00a0 So off I went.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The glory days for Rangoon may be behind it. The year round heat and pestering
humidity has thrown a veil of mildew across every building in the city.\u00a0
It looks more like the decadence of Venice without the romance of the
canals.\u00a0 This was just one obvious consequence of the abdication of
control by the British Crown since 1937.\u00a0 But even in its state of decay,
there is a pervasive charm.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It is impossible not to be enchanted by Rangoon.\u00a0 Burmese men, preoccupied in
their conversations, constantly tie and retie their\u00a0longyis\u00a0<\/em>(sarongs)
as if it were a national past time.\u00a0 Two young ladies sitting at a card
table manage a long line of customers waiting patiently to exchange money for
use of their telephone.\u00a0 Crowds of people trying to cross the chaotic
streets jammed with vehicles perform a ballet to the music of car horns as
Burmese drivers prefer honking to braking.\u00a0 And lights flicker incessantly
as instantaneous and unpredictable power outages punctuate the rhythm of the
day.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And where else but in Rangoon can you buy luck?\u00a0 Merchants peddle good fortune near
the Buddhist shrine\u00a0Sule Pagoda<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 For 100\u00a0Kyats<\/em>\u00a0(pronounced
\u201cchats\u201d) bird catchers will let you release a sparrow into the Myanmar skies to
insure good luck.\u00a0 Instead of blowing out candles on a cake, I forked over
14 cents and let one fly.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I have always loved the name of my birthday city.\u00a0 \u201cRangoon.\u201d\u00a0 Actually, it
is now called \u201cYangon.\u201d\u00a0 But telling people you spent your birthday in
\u201cRangoon\u201d has a sexy, turn-of-the-century, British colonial ring to it.\u00a0
Substitute \u201cYangon\u201d in the same sentence and it sounds as if you went to a
Chinese restaurant.\u00a0 I am not alone in this feeling as many of the Burmese
refuse to call their home by any other name than the one I prefer.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The British could only have been stunned by the imagination and commitment of the
Burmese Buddhists.\u00a0 Consider praying with monks in the heart of Rangoon at
the\u00a0Shwedagon<\/em>\u00a0Pagoda.\u00a0 You circle what may very well be
the largest gold dome on earth.\u00a0 The central dome vaults 300 feet skyward
and is covered with 8,688 solid gold slabs.\u00a0 The top is shrouded by a
solid gold\u00a0seinbu,<\/em>\u00a0which resembles an umbrella and is made
up of a mosaic of 5,448 diamonds and 2,317 rubies and sapphires at its tip.
\u00a0At night, a glow hangs over the city as spotlights send refracted beams
of yellowish illumination into the sky.\u00a0 In the shadow of hundreds of
smaller spires encircling\u00a0it, I thought of the candles on the cake I
wasn\u2019t having and wished silently that I didn\u2019t have to leave for Bagan the
following morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the early hours, my taxi careened through nearly empty streets.\u00a0 As we pulled
curbside at a nondescript building, the headlights exposed a mob of
people.\u00a0 There were men in uniform.\u00a0 Some carried guns.\u00a0 Others
just milled about in no apparent order.\u00a0 It was a mass of people pushing
and shoving and shouting words of a language I could not understand.\u00a0
Somewhere on the other side of this apparent domestic disturbance was my petite
airplane waiting to take me to the interior.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As I threaded my way through the crowd it felt like being in the middle of a train
station, a bus station and a car wreck all in one.\u00a0 Even though there were
more people inside, at least they were all in one line or another.\u00a0 I
immediately secured a place in a column that snaked toward a counter with an
\u201cAir Mandalay\u201d sign posted over it.\u00a0 I was not going anywhere fast as
there were queues of equal or greater lengths for Immigration, Customs and
Security.\u00a0 I expected to have another birthday just waiting in line.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/span>The boarding area, which was already jammed with too many people, had barely enough
seats for half the number of persons waiting around. \u00a0I stood for a while
and then was thankful for the luck I bought at the\u00a0Sule Pagoda<\/em>.\u00a0
It wasn\u2019t much but it was a seat.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/span>As my eyes wandered about, I spotted a flight board in the distance. \u00a0I read
the brief list of pending departures\u2026twice.\u00a0 I was particularly concerned
that\u00a0my<\/em>\u00a0flight<\/em>\u00a0was not listed.\u00a0 In fact,
the name of\u00a0my airline\u00a0<\/em>wasn\u2019t posted anywhere.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>I
saw \u201cYangon Airways.\u201d\u00a0 And \u201cMyanmar Airways.\u201d\u00a0 But no \u201cAir
Mandalay.\u201dWhen you are in a foreign country, especially when you don\u2019t
understand the language, your insecurity causes you to doubt yourself in ways
you would never do otherwise; \u201cWhen I crossed the international dateline, did I
forget to change the date so now I am one day late?\u201d \u00a0Or \u201cDid I reset my
watch to the right hour?\u201d \u00a0Or \u201cIs that announcement saying my flight is
canceled?\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/span>Finally I walked over to an official looking guy in uniform who didn\u2019t have a gun and
said; \u201cExcuse me but I don\u2019t see my flight listed on that board over
there.\u201d\u00a0 I remember him peering in the direction of my finger and then
turning toward me.\u00a0 In the sincerest tone of voice you have ever heard, he
offered; \u201cBut Sir, it is a small board.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/span>And that it was.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/span>I didn\u2019t respond.\u00a0 I just went back to my seat to contemplate my recent
humiliation as porters ran by with luggage carts, crates of vegetables, a
tricycle, an igloo playmate, a bag of golf clubs, and what looked to be car
parts.\u00a0 I sat quietly resolved to refrain from asking any more questions.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/span>A short time later a young man in uniform walked by carrying a little placard
with two tiny, brass bells attached to the lower right and left hand
corners.\u00a0 He was proof that in a poor country like Burma, every task is
someone\u2019s job.\u00a0 The board he carried had a flight name and number written
on it.\u00a0 As he wound through the congregation, he repeated its
contents.\u00a0 The bells clinked like champagne glasses at a dinner party as
he made his way.\u00a0 The repetition of his voice resounded like a Buddhist
mantra \u201c401, 401, 401, 401.\u201d\u00a0 Later it became \u201c807, 807, 807, 807.\u201d\u00a0
And always a delicate clink, clink, clink could be heard in the background.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/span>As the hatch to my twin-engine plane closed with a dull \u2018thud\u2019, I began to realize
how quickly time was moving forward.\u00a0 I had always dreamed of spending a
birthday in Rangoon and now it had come.\u00a0 The engines coughed themselves
into a spinning blur as we turned for the runway.\u00a0 I thought of the New
Year and the adventures ahead of me.\u00a0 I also wondered if this country
required maintenance of their planes regularly or only after one of them fell
out of the sky.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/span>I don\u2019t normally peer through other people\u2019s windows.\u00a0 But this time, I
couldn\u2019t help myself.\u00a0 As we banked slightly left on the approach,
thousands of domes and spires of Buddhist temples, pagodas,\u00a0stupas<\/em>,
monasteries, and other religious monuments filled the entire horizon.\u00a0
They stretched from the Chin Mountains to the west to what appeared to be the
ends of the earth.\u00a0 Tibet may lay claim as the soul of the Buddhist
world.\u00a0 But Bagan, on the plains of central Myanmar, may very well be its heart.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Once the capital of the First Burmese Empire, 800 years ago Bagan fell into the hands of
the invading army of Emperor Kublai Khan.\u00a0 He and his soldiers trudged
through nearly 13,000 Buddhist structures wedged onto and near the banks of the\u00a0Ayeyarwady<\/em>\u00a0River.
You can imagine their faces as they gaped at the splendorous result of 300
years of religious construction.\u00a0 The nearly 3,000 structures that remain
standing only whisper what the image of spires into an endless horizon must
have looked like.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/span>The Burmese have worked out a kind of balance between reverence and need.\u00a0 You
cannot, after all, live on the words of prayers alone.\u00a0 Thus, constrained
by the scattered ruins and collapsing foundations, fields planted with cotton,
beans, and other vegetables take on the hapless shapes of trapezoids,
pentagrams, and rectangles.\u00a0 Cattle dung and goat droppings attest to the
aimless meanderings of farm animals between the\u00a0stupas<\/em>\u00a0and
temples and decaying monasteries.\u00a0 The drawn shadows cast upon the soil by
the domes and spires at the days end, reach out like the long fingers of Buddha
to bless those who toiled under the merciless and dusty heat of the day.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Bagan wakes up slowly.\u00a0 Before there is enough light to see the thousands of
spires piercing the acacia umbrella, there is a night sky beset with
stars.\u00a0 The same one whose constellations may have encouraged\u00a0King
Anawratha<\/em>\u00a0in the year 1,000 to initiate a plan of religious
construction that would last for three centuries.\u00a0 While the Normans were
relishing their conquest of England in 1044, the First Burmese Empire was
turning Buddhist.\u00a0 By the end of the 13th<\/sup>\u00a0century, so
resplendent was Bagan that it was known as the \u201cCity of Four Million Pagodas.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 At high noon, the heat is enough to beat the perception out of you.\u00a0 Unmarked dirt
paths cross each other randomly in open fields and in thickets.\u00a0 It is a
Buddhist lesson.\u00a0 Choose wisely; the path you take may not lead you to
where you wish to go.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In\u00a0Moenhatkone<\/em> village south of Bagan, life continues as it has\u00a0always notwithstanding an
ever-changing array of conquerors, rebel forces and governments.\u00a0 Women
transport exaggerated loads of wood, vegetables, and rice balanced upon their
heads.\u00a0 Bullock carts drag inconceivably heavy barrels of water from the
central well to thatch-roofed homes oftentimes located several kilometers
away.\u00a0 Young boys and girls ride their bicycles to and from school.\u00a0
Women stroll about in clothing the colors of which could only have been created
by a Crayola scientist gone mad.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Then a woman\u2019s scream breaks into the parched,\u00a0dry air filled with dust,
birdcalls and barking dogs.\u00a0\u00a0I ran over with\u00a0one of the guides
to see what\u2019s going on.\u00a0 Several men stood over a pile of thatch being
used to replace a roof.\u00a0 They beat repeatedly at the mound leaves with
wooden poles.\u00a0 A viper slithers out heading toward the barefooted
villagers.\u00a0 A single bite means certain death.\u00a0 On lookers and
children run in every direction.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/span>A woman grabs one of the kids and shrieks again in words which must have meant \u201cThere
it is!\u00a0 Kill it!\u201d or worse.\u00a0 A man clubs it and then lifts the
lifeless body draped over his stick to assure everyone it is safe again.\u00a0
We leave shaking our heads, happy that all ended well.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/span>I think I\u00a0<\/em>will remember this Birthday for a long time.\u00a0
Rangoon made it an event.\u00a0 Its opulence.\u00a0 It’s romance.\u00a0 Its
reverence.\u00a0 But the villages on the central plains of Myanmar reminded me
that living through each day was cause enough for celebration.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\n
Children wearing Burmese thanaka, which is a paste made from bark and applied to skin for protection from the harsh sunlight.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Burmese monks find peace and solace in constant prayer during turbulent political times.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Myanmar (fka Burma) is the Land of Four Million Pagodas I woke up in Rangoon on my birthday.\u00a0 I had promised myself some timeago that I was going to be here for just this occasion.\u00a0 At my age,birthdays have become private affairs.\u00a0 Although I have no problem injoining in on the revelry to celebrate someone…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/guysibilla.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/guysibilla.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/guysibilla.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/guysibilla.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/guysibilla.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=895"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/guysibilla.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":908,"href":"http:\/\/guysibilla.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895\/revisions\/908"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/guysibilla.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/guysibilla.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/guysibilla.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/guysibilla.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}