Vesak's Day Pilgrimage

We were in Myanmar for Vesak's Day, also known as Buddha's Birthday! I'm sure it is celebrated in many different ways across the world, but from what we saw, people celebrated by going to pray and give offerings at the temples, spreading out picnics, and spending time with family. Sounds good!

Myo Chit agreed to drive us again, this time to Yele Pagoda, a floating temple in Kyauktan. The drive there took much longer than usual because there was heavy traffic - turns out, everyone wanted to go there! As we neared the temple, the roads were just streaming with people, dressed in their Vesak's Day best and carrying flowers and other offerings. We finally got near enough to the ferry point and Myo Chit helped us through the crush of people to buy the foreigner's boat tickets. Foreigners are not allowed on the smaller boats - apparently they are too dangerous - and must pay a little more for the (purportedly) less dangerous boats. Fortunately, this meant we got to avoid the thickest parts of the crowd at the waters edge.

Once aboard the marginally safer boat, and after Jacob and I located the nearest life jackets that we could grab in an emergency, we set off for the short trip across to the island. Fortunately, it was uneventful!


Once on the island, the view of the coast was pretty cool - so many people!

One of the popular things to do is buy little packets of puffed rice to feed the hungry catfish. By this time in the morning, however, all the catfish seemed to have gorged themselves and were probably floating several feet lower than usual, ignoring all subsequent offers of food. Unfortunately, people still seemed to think that throwing the plastic bags in the water was a good idea - yuck!

The temple was composed of several smaller shrines, golden payas, and public areas where people were enjoying leisurely picnics.

Tradition and modernity!

Beautiful lotus flowers.

More rainbow chaos trying to get boats back to the shore!

View from atop of tower in the park

After this, we drove through the town of Thanlyin, stopping at another large seated Buddha (or two?) before Myo Chit took us to the National Races Village. The large park included reconstructed examples of traditional houses from the different groups that make up Myanmar. Inside, you could see tools and furniture, and in some cases you could dress up in traditional dress - a popular activity for the bands of teenagers. The park was quiet crowded and I'll be honest: much of the time, we felt like the attraction, as we were pretty much the only white people there. Lots of people took not-so-surreptitious photos of us. Which is probably fair, but felt a bit strange! 

Dress up time!

Egg person!?

Love this sign.

We headed back to Yangon and ate at 999 Shan Noodles for lunch - yum. Get the Shan Tofu - yumy deep-fried tofu.

Sometimes traveling feels like we just go on one date after another! After lunch, we decided to stop for coffee and donuts. It is very common to serve tea with any order there - food or drink. We thought it was pretty funny to be given tea with our coffee though!
We cooled off and napped back at the hotel, then headed out to see the small night market nearby. It mostly offered food, and while the veggies looks great, the meat was worrisome. Food safety actually is a major issue in Myanmar - understandably so!

No thanks. Seeing this fairly common sight made it a bit harder to eat chicken at our meals.

Someone was SICK and TIRED
of having people dent their car!

We took a long walk through the city, to a street known for vendors selling grilled meet and veg.

After seeing the food market, we were not sure about these places, but we gave it a shot. We selected the most identifiable skewers and handed them off to the cook.

And then we received this delightful plate of food! We went back for seconds. After dinner, we attempted to take a cab ride to a bar with live music - only to find that the bar had moved (or closed completely? Not sure). Two cab rides later, we aborted our mission and returned to the hotel to play cards and watch Batman (the George Clooney one with Arnold & Uma - I think I've seen this on 3 trips now!)

Chicken AND duck bike!

Next morning we took the ferry across the river to Dalah, an area the becomes very rural despite being so close to Yangon. On the boat ride over, we were approached by JoJo, a teenager offering to be our tour guide. We were non-committal and tried to brush him off, attempting to figure out what we wanted to do on our own - before realizing that we really didn't have a plan. So we agreed to have him show us around via pedicab. It ended up being one of the best parts of our trip - at once beautiful, informative, and challenging.

We stopped by a local temple - temples were clearly
the theme on this trip!

Some kiddos playing at the temple were pretty eager
to get their picture taken with Jacob :)

The main source of employment is fishing, but during low tide and the heat of the day, most people are sleeping - they'll go out in the evening.
JoJo told us about some of the difficulties people face - like what happens when their boats need repairs, or when a bad typhoon swept through several years ago and flattened the area. They are still recovering.

(L to R) JoJo our tour guide, Jacob, and Tani, our driver.
Our cab even had flowers!

What really struck me was when he pointed out a house, similar to this one, and said, 'Oh the people there are very rich. These are such nice houses.' When I look, I see a rickety, run-down home - but he points out that it is made of wood, not just bamboo, and that it has a tin roof, not thatch. He said when it rains where he lives, they always get wet. It was staggering to realize just how rich we are in comparison. 
JoJo also told us about how he started out - before he was a tour guide, he left school a 9 years old and sold cigarettes and postcards in Yangon, moving up to working on the ferry boats. This kid was clearly smart and hard-working, and it is sad that he has not had the chance to finish school. Given the chance, who knows where he could go? 
We also stopped briefly at a snack stand, and suddenly a line of kids appeared. JoJo said that sometimes tourists buy a packs of snacks to give to the kids - we took the hint, and bought a pack of animal cracker snacks (for all of $3). It was uncomfortable, though, feeling like we could just roll in and act like beneficent do-gooders, giving biscuits to half-clothed children. We declined to pose in pictures with them - it felt sort of coercive or voyeuristic. BUT at the same time, there is no denying that the kids could use those snacks. Tourism is an important and growing part of the economy there, and the local people should benefit in some way from tourists like us getting to look at and enjoy (and photograph) their country and way of life. We were really glad we had the chance to see Dalah and meet JoJo and Tani. Even after we had paid them, Tani insisted on buying us some fruits for the ferry ride and refreshing moist towelettes - just to be nice, to be generous. I think it would be hard to feel as if you could never give to others, never extend hospitality because you didn't have much - but you can see that people here still find ways to give. Everyone we met was unfailingly friendly and generous, which was pretty incredible.
We ferried back to Yangon, checked out a craft market, and then bid goodbye to our lovely hotel and headed to the airport. A fantastic final trip - we hope we get to go back to Myanmar someday!