9th January 2015 Mandalay to Monywa ,MYANMAR (BURMA)

9th January 2015  Mandalay to Monya ,MYANMAR (BURMA)

Off on our travels again today saying goodbye to Mandalay which we have really enjoyed.  Although all of the books said we would not like Mandalay and expect to use it as a base only, we actually liked it a lot.

Leaving Mandalay gave us an insight into the huge variety of living standards and once again, the clear evidence that the Buddhist movement was powerful and the only real provider of education to the people.

It also gave us further insight into the warmth of the people

Today we travel to Monywa on the banks of the Chindwin River a large tributary of the Irrawaddy. This is our base for exploring this afternoon and tomorrow morning and was a 3 hour drive from Mandalay through some pretty scenery but completely different even to Inle Lake and Kalaw which were extremely lush vegetation, this area is very hot very dry and dusty so has completely different crops and not a rice paddy in sight !  Bamboo screen houses, ox carts and subsistence farming are the order of the day in this area but as always in Myanmar the people were so friendly.

   

   

Downtwon Mandalay - a mix of modern and ancient

(Above) The Intense teak logging industry and the beauty of the Pagodas at Mandalay

 (above 4 pictures) The extremes of Mandalay as we left

The Silver Bullion used to make silverware and silver plate

Hand crafted bowel would cost around $5000 when finished and take nearly 3 months to complete

(Above) As a customer or potential customer, its quite normal to walk around factories amongst the workers and they love the visitors.

Steve had said he liked the silver plated long tail boats as it reminded him of janettes' fear of long tails boats so he bought one - dirty look ensued!!!

A variant of the Tuk Tuk last seen on Laos

(Above) one of the most sought after commodities in the world, Teak now all sold to the Chinese....!

Fishing and logging fleet in the bay

(Above) A wooden bridge that our bus needs to get across - loose planks and missing boards help...

The Government sold all of the copper rights to Chinese company in return for infrastructure.  The company demolished all of the private houses in the area so they could operate and this caused riots that are still ongoing.  The Chinese built a police station the size of 4 football pitches to protect their investment but the local people only got a tiny 6 bed hospital.

Aung San swu kyi who is now in government had the project stopped until the Chinese dealt with their obligations and mining has only just resumed.

Our first visit today was about an hour from Monywa where we went to visit two sets of caves carved out of the rock by hand. One done by the King’s labourers and another by Shwe Ba Taung who was left to guard the original site by the King after it was completed.

We started at Shwe Ba Taung first and it was a most odd but pleasantly Burmese quirky place. The caves all housed large Buddhas but sometime in the 19^th century they had added colonial front fascades to them which along with the large elephants carved into the sides and painted white for luck, gave the place a feel of a folly crossed with a slightly odd run down theme park from the last century, all very odd !(these damn Brits have a lot to answer for…)  

A very surreal experience..these caves were excavated in the 3rd century by one guy and from one mountain created an entire village. In the 19th Century the facades were added in British style as this was the popular style on the country despite there being no British in this area.

To make matters worse - architecture is decidedly 19th century "Truman Show"...

The attention to detail is er....interesting !!

Of course, every cave has a gold Buddha inside.  Our Buddha count must be in to hundreds of thousands now. 

Local requesting cash to fund her cigar habit presumably

Fresh coconut juice for half time refreshment

On then to the original site Po Win Taung to see a series of 500 shallow caves carved by hand out of the rock which contain hand painted murals and over 1000 Buddha statues from the 3^rd century. Archaeologists believe this to be the most extensive collection from this era in Southeast Asia.

It was another stunning and awe inspiring sight and for us, because much of it was stone carving, it was very different to many of the temples and pagodas we had seen. 

To add to the fun, the site is home to a large group of monkeys and some of the local children sell fruit to pilgrims to feed the monkeys which is supposed to be good luck. 

We traipsed round the site with an entire entourage of children, their mothers, troop of monkeys and monks ! It was like a travelling circus had come to town.

The thing that is charming here is that there is no hard sell, the children offer and if you say no they just wander round with you for the fun of staring at westerners and practicing their English (which is taught in schools here). We are running out of candy fast and need to stock up if our Pied Piper days are to continue !

Like many entrances - you have to catch the people awake !!

Buddah count now up 1500

3rd century wall painting and 17th century Buddha images all deep in rocks in the middle of nowhere.

This is all breath taking and remains untouched.  Its hard to think that something so old has not been moved or stolen but everything is in place

There are far too many caves to go in them all but they are all like this

Remnants of Buddha images from the 17th century just laying around in many of the hundreds of caves

 The secrecy and surveillance of the copper mines all Chinese owned by corrupt payments to Burmese Military

In the shadow of the mighty chinese copper conglomerate, these people were digging by hand for copper ore.

Teak being transported down the Awawaddy river and yes ...all going to China

Back to our hotel, a nice lakeside place but as usual, we were all to tired to go out. Janette left and dodgy neighbours 2 doors down.

(Below  Sunset from our balcony) 

 The TV in Myanmar is a bit of a challenge and there is generally no internet