19feb2011 (Sat) - YGN: Shwedagon Pagoda & Bus to Mandalay

Visited the renowned Shwedagon Pagoda in the center of Yangon in the
morning, guided around by Lily, a woman of 50 or so who has been
giving tours there for the last ten years. In the beginning she just
talked about the Pagoda, but gradually she started reading more and
more about Buddhism and now she can tell you about architecture or
philosophy: as you wish. She charges 5000K for an hour.

As we walked around the pagoda Lello and I were given the opportunity
to ablute (what do you call it when you pour water over a stature?)
the Buddha shrine dedicated to our birth-days. Every Burmese knows
what day of the week they were born on. Lily looked up July 9th 1969
in her reference guide going back about a century, and it turns out I
was born on a Wednesday. Wednesday is the watershed day in the week
and has two shrines -- one for people born in the morning, the other
for people born in the evening. So the week has 8 days, kind-of.

We struck the giant 50-tonne bells with giant mallets, and fanned the
giant 20m Buddha statue by pulling the draw-cord attached to the
overhead fan. We arrived around 9am, and by 10am the flagstones
underfoot were searing our feet.

We stopped on our way down the endless staircase flanked with
statuette vendors to test the sound of various gongs.

We checked out of Yamo Hotel shortly after noon, then took a final
wander down our street towards the market. We took a left on a the
street of Sign Makers, scores of men carving out letters in plastic
with jigsaws.

An Indian gentlemen Lello had met on his first day's wanderings down
this same street pointed us in the direction of New Dehli restaurant,
where we had a feast.

Afterwards we stopped to drink coffee at Carolina's 'shop' (another
new friend of Lello's) and Lello ended up ordering a sign with the
name of his travel business in Italy -- Andiamo! -- from a Sign Maker
who came to drink tea with us. Yellow lettering on a cobalt blue
background, the website in smaller green letters underneath.

At 4pm we picked up our bags at the hotel and caught a taxi for the
30min drive to the bus station. Our driver was of Pakistani decent,
and had spent 3 years working in Malaysia and 2 years in Singapore. He
told us he had been to Paris -- but had not gotten into the airport.
Turns out the Shoe Bomber had just struck, and his flight was turned
around before landing.

It seems strange the the bus terminal is so far out of town, but makes
sense when you see the size of it. Hundreds of buses coming and going.
They would snarl traffic hopelessly if the terminal were any closer to
the center.

Who should claim the seats immediately in front of us on the bus, but
Raf and a new friend of his (a French girl). Raf never did show up on
Friday night at Yamo Hotel as planned; he apologized, saying things
got 'hectic.' He's planning to catch the train way up north (it takes
25hrs), do some trekking, and then catch a boat down to Mandalay
again.

10hrs, 2 1/2 stops, too much A/C. We left punctually at 6pm, had a
half hour dinner break at a custom-made highway food pavilion around
8.40pm, took a stop I miraculously slept through, and stopped once or
twice for a mass pee-by-the-side-of-the-road break. The comfort level
was like being on a cramped flight. The road was straight and for the
most part well-paved, with two or three toll booths along the way.
Traffic was light.