Foot and Fire

Atop any temple in Old Bagan, I can easily spot you because you are the gigantic one among the silent sacred standing brick stones. Dhammayan, as you are popularly called,  is your being the biggest a blessing by chance?”  Your red bricks were layered  by the subjects of King Narathu who ordered to brick up your interior  so no one can enter you, and perhaps,  so no one can understand his intentions. One more, you were patterned  to the prettiest temple of Ananda -- the most welcoming of all temples -- so why close you up inside  and open only the four porches  and the vast corridors  to your faithful Buddhists  and this visitor? I know the reasons of your being the biggest  and your being secretive inside died with your king  who was said to have died in assassination, the very means he used to seize the power  from his father and elder brother.  Perhaps your g...

I cannot content myself in admiring you from afar and down here. You are speaking to me and I have to listen. I have to leave my sandals as I leave my inhibitions behind. With my bare feet and bare hands and open mind, I have to climb your steep and rail-less beauty. Over a millenium ago, your still beauty was built with both red bricks and Buddhist foundations: these are enough to captivate me. (I do not know your story: scholars consider you a minor one and I content myself in approaching you with complete ignorance so I can surrender to your beauty.) So I almost reached your stuppa and breathed in your stillness. Sitting on that spot atop you, I can see Dhammayangyi, Ananda, Htilominlo, and Sulamani all set against Bagan's vast reddish-yellow dessert soils dotted with sporadic green heads. As my eyes revel to your major fellows, I am illuminated by Old Bagan's waking sun which slowly grows into a ...

Here I am sitting on top of a temple in Bagan during my April 2014 vacation. 1. No Visa anymore for Filipinos to travel in Myanmar; No Exit Fee of crisp ten dollars. 2. There are banks and money changers in Myanmar but they accept crisp dollar bills only. As far as I can recall, the money changer at the airport only accepts Singapore Dollars and another currency aside from US Dollars for exchange to kyat. There are atm machines too. 3. There are budget hotels that can cater to backpackers with rates of about $10/person but they have no websites. Big hotels are the ones which can maintain websites. (I will post the top ten budget hotels in Yangon, Bagan and Mandalay which I got from the local maps in the next post). 4. Myanmar trip is one for culture exploration. You will be heady with temples after days if you are not prepared yourself. No beach as Myanmar is landlocked and has lakes and rivers only. No classy malls too. Look at me who can explore a temple like a mall. ...

A pose with a teacup from a premier lacquerware factory in Bagan. The array of products, from teapots to jars and closets, are all handmade. The lacquer taken from a sap of a local tree is applied 8 to 16 times so that they do not fade easily. Aside from this painstaking coating of lacquer (consisting of one coat a day and then sun-dried before the next coat is applied again and the process goes on until the desired number of coating is reached).   The lacquer. *** From a plain bamboo cup to fully coated cup. *** Each cup or piece is then etched with desired design and  then a color is applied on each of the etched design. *** The gracious owner shows a sample of an etched big water glass. ***  A cabinet is painstakingly being etched by this lady. This explains the expensive pricing of the house. *** Another lady doing her piece. *** Pretty engravings. *** Sample of outstandin...

             After fininshing the 900 plus steps, the first 300 with shoes and the rest is the way to the temple consisitng of 777 steps in barefoot, I realised that it is not the grandeur of the golden temple atop the hill formation that should be the goal. There is nothing spectacular in the temple perched on top of this formation. I decided that the goal should be feeling one's feet on the ground with all the dirtiness in it, breathing in the warm crisp air, enjoying the view from the top and observing the Myanmarese doing their religious ritual on various temples stationed along the way.  ***                   Southwest of Mount Popa is Taung Kalat (pedestal hill), sheer-sided volcanic plug, which rises 737 metres (2,417 ft) above the sea level. A Buddhist monastery is located at the summit of Taung Kalat. At one time, the Buddhist hermit U Khandi maintained the stairway of 777 ste...

This is the Bule Thi (pronounced as Buledi) Temple. If one is staying in the Wetkyi-inn village in the Old Bagan area, this pretty red temple is just a small-distance hike away. This is not a major temple that is why no information on this temple is indicated in the wikipedia and it is not even in the suggested temple to visit in the tourist map of Bagan. The first three photos in this post was taken before the sunset and the next five is taken when we had a sunrise on same spot. I cannot pinpoint which of the two adjacent temple is Bule Thi but I must say that during our visit in April 2014, the sunset is good in this first photo while in the fifth photo, the adjacent and smaller temple from this one, the sunrise is pretty. ***     This is my walkmate and climbmate.  We had a great time posing in the stupas around the Bule Thi temple. *** I cannot help but mention here that this Myanmarese is the sand-painter of the painting we bought in Bagan...