9 September - Mandalay (Myanmar/Burma)

I did not have to get up so early this morning for the flight to Mandalay, just at 0530 hours, for a twenty-five minute flight, (something like six hours by road). Mandalay has an ‘international’ airport as it has one international flight a week from Kunming, the only international flight to the airport. The airport is new and about 27 miles from the city, connected to it by a dual carriageway. Because the airport is in a dry area the only crops that can grow in the area are beans, sugar cane and bananas. Yangon is 430 miles away and it takes eight hours to travel there by car. Whereas Yangon has Sunday as the day of rest, religious or otherwise, in Mandalay the day is determined by the phases of the moon.

The first visit was to the wooden U BeIn Bridge which has 1086 pillars, is 4000 feet long and was built in 1849. The bridge connect both sides of the Taung Thaman Lake.

   

A young girl on the bridge

From the bridge

   


Kuthodaw Pagoda (shown below) is known as the worlds greatest book. There are 729 stone inscripted caves each containing a marble slab inscribed on both sides with a page of text from the Tipitaka, the entire writings of Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism. All have to learn the writings to become monks or nuns. If the marble slabs were to be all put together then they would be the worlds biggest book.

One slab with writing on both sides

There is one slab in each of 729 caves shown above


Views of the Kuthodaw Pagoda

The entrance  to the pagoda

            
       
The making of gold leaf is still done manually, the mechanical methods producing an inferior type of gold leaf I was told. A very small piece of gold is placed between bamboo paper then both inside a piece of deer skin before being hammered for 30 minutes. The resulting gold sheet is then cut into six pieces and each piece hammered for 5 hours. The final thickness is 0.00003 inch with the sheet of gold being cut into pieces 1 inch to 1 1/2 inches square as required.and packed five pieces to a pack and costing about $2 (£1.30) per pack. A lot of the Buddha's and other items are covered with these small, real gold, pieces which makes the item quite valuable. The gold leaf will come off if the item covered is in the weather or in an area where it is touched or rubbed in passing.

Hammering the gold in the deer skin

Gold leaf being cut to size

Gilding a buddha

     
The Mahagandayon Monastery was not far away, this being a well known Buddhist learning centre housing 1000 monks and novices. They all get up at 0400 hours each day, meditate for an hour and then have breakfast. The next and last meal of the day is at 1015 hours when they all line up, in silence and in two rows to receive a bowl of rice before going into the different dining rooms where other parts of the meal had already been laid out on the tables. The monks are allowed to take any food left over back to their rooms but cannot eat anything after midday and then until the following morning. They are allowed to drink water and juice during the non-eating time.

Donors names on the slabs

The lunch room

Tables set for lunch

The monks waiting for lunch

Novice monks waiting for food

Rice being served

The food is prepared in the kitchen in large cooking pans. The rice cost £800 per meal and all this is donated in money or kind. That is without the vegetables, spices and firewood that have to be donated as well. I will not mention the steam boiler that was in use there for cooking the rice except to mention that I am glad that I am not the boiler inspector here, if there is one at all.

The boiler

Boiler safety valve

Rice being cooked

Cooking chick peas

Cooking chutneys

The monastery has over one hundred buildings and covered 25 acres having been built in 1945. Few of the buildings were remarkable and it was not possible to take any usable photographs.

The Golden Palace Monastery, or Shwenandaw Monastery, (shown below) is an old wooden building that was removed from the palace and rebuilt in the present position due to the possibility of it catching fire during the war. It does have some fantastic carvings and the inside parts were covered in gold leaf except where parts had been worn off over the years.

The building supports

The gilded wall and door

The gilded roof

The inside of the temple

The day finished with a visit to Mandalay Hill to view the sunset, only there was none to speak of as it was cloudy and rain could be seen in the distance.