First checking to ensure that I am not wearing any red or black, I stretch my neck to peer up at Popa Taung Kalat, rising like a lone stalagmite from the flanks of Mount Popa.
More than 2400ft high, this needle of rock – a long-plugged volcano, 250,000 years extinct – protrudes from the forest-canopied hillside. Even in this elevated portion of Mandalay Region, almost at the geographical heart of the country, it is an extraordinary sight. Its almost vertical sides are riven only by a snaking ladder of corrugated metal sheets, which covers the 807 steps to the summit.
Up these steps clamber pilgrim villagers, who have travelled from across Burma to visit the shrine at the top. They are here to make offerings to the nat, the spirits that many Burmese still believe hold dominion over their lives.
Burma might be considered a Buddhist country. Indeed its people would consider themselves fiercely so. But for a millennium they have clung to this pre-Buddhist superstition: the belief that the 37 nat spirits (which include flower-eating ogresses, drunken gamblers and serpent-wielding ladies) can aid or inhibit human endeavour.
And while Buddhism might be considered a relatively non-prescriptive religion – a philosophy based on enlightenment through self-discovery – the nat can be a malevolent bunch. You don’t want to find yourself in their bad books.
‘Not everyone really believes in the nat anymore,’ my guide tells me. ‘But they can only do bad things to you, so it’s best you don’t say anything.’
Two of the things that reputedly displease them are the colours red and black. So it is important that I am dressed correctly. After removing my shoes as a mark of respect, I pass between two elephant statues, and begin my walk to the top.
Political transformation might be threatening to reap a whirlwind across much of Burma, but in rural areas, where religious piety is undimmed, life continues much as ever before.
Few places demonstrate the country’s religious heritage better than Bagan, an ancient city, the former capital of the royal kingdom of Pagan, which reached its height between the 11th and 13th centuries. Reminders of this flourishing period are many – more than 4,000 Buddhist temples and shrines are scattered across a plain that stretches out for just a few square miles.
This vast archaeological site is the consequence of a decision by the 11th century monarch King Anawrahta – a man considered to be the father of the Burmese nation – to convert to Buddhism.
His change of faith sparked a building frenzy. He also persuaded his subjects and his descendants that Buddhist practice could stand alongside their worship of the nat, and the whole kingdom began an epic mission of construction that would last for more than 200 years.
The temples subsequently fell victim to weathering, looting and (eventually) a 1975 earthquake that measured eight on the Richter scale. But since 1995, the authorities have set about restoring the site – although not always with historical accuracy, and not always with respect to the villagers who lived on its sandy soil (many were forcibly relocated away from the temple site to settle in a new town two miles down the road). Today brick and stucco buildings still dot the horizon, all in varying states of repair and ruin, and each with its own unique history.
There is the gigantic Thatbyinnyu Paya, with its 207 feet high sikhara, which gleams in the sun like a golden spear. To the south-east is Dhammayangyi Paya, a 12th century temple built to exacting standards. It was commissioned by King Narathu who demanded the brickwork be so tight than even a pin could not fit between the stones. Builders whose work couldn't meet his demands had their arms chopped off as punishment - and you can still see the grooved chopping block where they were forced to lay their limbs.
Rising early to watch the sunrise from the tiers of Shwesandaw Paya – another vast pagoda that dates to Anawrahta’s architectural spree – is the best way to appreciate the majesty of Bagan.
Out of the darkness loom brick, sandstone and gilded temples, shrouded in thick mist.
And as the sun ascends, so too do a flotilla of hot air balloons (a more modern addition to supplement Bagan’s burgeoning tourism industry) which float effortlessly along the horizon, before descending once more into the trees.
Burma is a country roughly the size of Texas, with a population of 50 to 60 million people (though there has not been a full census since 1915), and it remains (for the most part) a nation of farmers. Most of the country still lives hand-to-mouth, surviving on an income of less than $2 a day. This is in a country wealthy in natural resources, including gas, copper and gemstones.
In the hills around Kalaw, an old colonial hill station in eastern Shan State, these farmers continue their lives generally untouched by the recent political developments that have seen the ligature of military rule (somewhat) loosened.
My tour operator arranges for two guides to take me on a trek along the red dirt paths out of town. The Burmese tourism industry is surprisingly well embedded, but there are still advantages to travelling with a tour group – particularly in dealing with Burma’s officious bureaucracy and in finding increasingly scarce hotel rooms, especially in the cities. Local knowledge provided by guides is also of huge benefit – and up in the eastern farmlands, I am shown a land that time has forgotten.
The road climbs for an hour-and-a-half past, terraced gardens abundant with coriander, cabbage and lettuce. We swerve a herd of cows being guided by an old man, his skin like dark leather – who, like everyone I meet in my two weeks in Burma, is delighted to see a foreign face, say hello and give a wave. We also encounter two tourists walking from Kalaw to the beautiful Inle Lake, four days’ trek away.
We pass Lut Pyin village, a collection of a dozen wooden houses set among a series of gardens where lentils, tomatoes and snow peas grow. A gaggle of villagers is gathered beside a pear tree – members of the Danu hill tribe, one of many ethnic minority tribes carving out an existence in the countryside of Shan State, often without electricity, and with only rudimentary technology.
I have been promised a basic meal. But when I drop into the next village, Ywa Pu, and sit down on a bamboo mat on the porch of a wooden hut, a calf-high table is pulled up and quickly laden with a minor banquet. Tofu crackers follow a cabbage soup, that is then topped off with a main course of chicken noodles, with egg and a spicy coleslaw.
The generosity of the Burmese people proves to be a mark of my two weeks in their country. Always friendly to tourists and ever eager to practise their usually excellent English, each encounter is a joy. I have never felt so welcome in a foreign land.
As word spreads that there are tourists in the area, villagers begin to emerge from their homes.
A young girl of about 15 comes and sits outside her hut with her two young brothers. The eldest, in blue wellingtons and beanie hat, waves and smiles at his unusual visitors.
No-one can be certain what the Burma in which he grows up will be like, or what will happen to his village once the country begins to industrialise. But no-one who has met Burma’s people or gazed on its beautiful sunsets would hope that the future will be anything but bright.
source: DailyMail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2325003/Burma-holidays-Ancient-myths-mischievous-spirits-ancient-Bagan.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
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