Foot and Fire

 After the Tinagong Dagat trek, 2009 This is how I looked after traversing the Bacolod to Talisay route using the trail via Tinagong Dagat.  No hiking experience, fresh from 8-5 desk job, no gears (not even a raincoat), I ended up like a Vietnamese finding refuge anywhere in the Mekong River paddies. If you can picture that, you know what I meant. Meanwhile, the expert hikers have raincoats, as pictured below. In short, my first travel tip is: Be prepared to look ridiculous!

  In memory of the lost bracelets along the way and  in honor of these surviving ones, I have to write a story for you my dear readers about these finds I got from my travels outside the country. While trinkets abound, one has to look closely and feel affinity with the item before buying the same. Sometimes choices are overwhelming that one ends up not buying anything. It can be a visual overload actually at the flea market aside from the noise of haggling. So here is my stories... These bracelets are made of candle wicks. I can feel the candle texture on each strand actually. I lost one of this, the one with blue-green, green and blue color combination. One can buy stones of value but I found some art and soul in these candle wicker bracelets. It spoke to me like the wind, inaudible yet felt. I bought this in the night market of Siem Reap, Cambodia which is located just a walking distance from where we stayed, a hotel called, No Problem Hotel. From that hotel we woul...

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 ...

Laphet thoke is another symbolic dish of Burma, albeit a snack. It consists of pickled tea leaves soaked in oil eaten with an assortment of fritters including roasted groundnuts, deep fried garlic, sun dried prawns, toasted sesame and deepfried crispy beans. Laphet is served in a traditional 'oat' - a lacquer container with individual compartments for each ingredients. Lahpet was an ancient symbolic peace offering between warring kingdoms in the history of Myanmar, and is exchanged and consumed after settling a dispute.

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. ...

From Left to right: A salty gravy which must be made of fish; roasted beans; fried garlic slices, small dried shrimps, and a dish like laing (made of gabi tubers with salty fish) or this must be the pickled tea leaves, I am not sure. These are complimentary to the orders of Rice and fish/meat, and served as dips for raw and steamed vegetables. ***  The yellowing leaves are tough but they were served steamed, must be tree leaves; the miniature eggplants which were steamed, raw carrots, raw calamansi leaves, and another steamed green leaves, must be the tops of squash or sayote. These are dipped in the condiments and serve as side dish for the main dish of rice and fish/meat. I tried tearing up the calamnsi leaves and mix with my rice, they make my rice fragrant and savory, just like our pandan leaves. Another idea in serving rice! ***  A soup made of potato, sweet potato or squash.  Very thin one so that I cannot really identify. *** Two more saucers of red, which is mild ...

The Oldest Teakwood Monastery found at the foot of Mandalay Hill.  *** Monks line up the street while they head back to the School-Monastery ahead. There are many monastery in Mandalay as this was the capital city  when the education flourished in Myanmar. *** A huge Monastery-School just a walk from the Oldest Teakwood Monastery. *** The Biggest Book in the World is actually a collection of marble tablets  where the holy scriptures were written by scholar-monks in Pali page by page  in a huge effort by the king to preserve Buddhism.  *** I admire this huge door with engravings. Must be teakwood too. ***  Each page consisting of one marble tablet is housed in this small temple/altar. *** A photograph of a marble tablet. The scripture is written in Pali,  an ancient Myanmarese language. *** MANDALAY, MYANMAR. The world's largest book stands upright, set in stone, in the...

The Nuns of Mandalay passed by the oldest and longest teakwood bridge  called U Bein bridge at 1.2km. *** The famous U Bein Bridge. *** Monks passed by the bridge too. *** One of the nearest temples from the bridge. *** The serene Taungthaman Lake. U Bein Bridge is a crossing that spans the Taungthaman Lake near Amarapura in Myanmar. The 1.2-kilometre (0.75 mi) bridge was built around 1850 and is believed to be the oldest and longest teakwood bridge in the world. Construction began when the capital of Ava Kingdom moved to Amarapura, and the bridge is named after the mayor who had it built.[5] It is used as an important passageway for the local people and has also become a tourist attraction and therefore a significant source of income for souvenir sellers. It is particularly busy during July and August when the lake is at its highest. The bridge was built from wood reclaimed from the former royal palace in Inwa. It feature...