Burma

Author: By William Ecenbarger, Globe Correspondent

Date: SUNDAY, March 22, 1998

Page: M13

Section: Travel

Bagan was the center of a kingdom that contained more than 13,000 temples -- each built by royalty, warriors, or wealthy individuals -- all of them Buddhists seeking the best possible deal in the next life. It was conquered by Kubla Khan in 1287, and 12 years later Marco Polo dropped by and wrote: ``The temples form one of the finest sights in the world; so exquisitely finished are they, so splendid and costly. And when they are lighted up by the sun they shine most brilliantly and are visible from a vast distance.''

Today, Bagan is the centerpiece of Burmese tourism, which is emerging from a 40-year, self-imposed isolation. The military rulers of Burma, or, as they prefer to call it, Myanmar, have opened the doors to international tourism. Visas are readily available, without bothersome restrictions on time and place, and the moment is ripe to explore this country of ancient charm that is still largely unaffected by Western values.

Conventional travelers (as opposed to backpackers, kayakers, and other rugged types) will best see Burma by using the Road to Mandalay, a refitted Rhine River cruise ship, as a base of operations. The RTM has a shallow draft, powerful engines, and state-of-the art navigation equipment -- all requisites to taming the fickle, sand-barred Irrawaddy River. Using the ship also surmounts the problems wrought by shortages in Burma's infrastructure -- a lack of decent hotels, restaurants with safe-to-eat food, and good roads.

Warning No. 1: Burma is governed by a military dictatorship that has a human rights record every bit as bad as China's. One should go there with the eternal beauty of the place in mind rather than the immediate political circumstance. Besides, the economy desperately needs the foreign exchange that tourists can provide.

Warning No. 2: There is great confusion about place names. In 1989, the military dictators decreed that henceforth the nation would be called Myanmar. Other changes quickly followed -- Rangoon became Yangon, Bagan became Pagan, and the Irrawaddy became the Ayeyarwady. Many believe the names will change back when the generals depart.

My journey began in Rangoon, a city of poverty and faded colonial grandeur whose buildings are stained black with the mildew of a hundred monsoon seasons. As a Westerner, I am a curiosity to most of the four million residents. As I walk down the wide boulevards and tree-lined streets, people stare and point from impossibly crowded buses and from homes and shops concealed by beaded curtains. The streets are athrob with World War II-type jeeps, and trucks laden with huge teak logs, some of them three feet in diameter, that have been pulled out of the forest by elephants and floated down the Irrawaddy. Rangoon's public transit consists of ancient buses, and the people swarm all over them as bees to a hive. The monks either sit on the roof or hang off the back to avoid forbidden physical contact with females.

It's impossible to escape the politics of the place. Signs and slogans are everywhere. ``People's Desire; Oppose Those Relying on External Elements, Acting as Stooges, Holding Negative Views,'' shouts one near the center of town. I ask a cab driver to take me past the home of Aung San Suu Kyi, but he says he'll only take me to within a few blocks. The road is blocked and the house is surrounded by khakied soldiers.

Suu Kyi is the leader of the government opposition who won 80 percent of the vote in a 1990 presidential election and was promptly placed under house arrest by the generals. She has been released and is allowed to make weekly speeches, but the government strongly discourages foreigners from seeing her home. Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.

So instead I head for Burma's most famous attraction, the 300-foot-high Shwedagon Pagoda, one of Buddhism's holiest precincts. Layered with 60 tons of gold leaf, decorated with thousands of rubies and sapphires, and topped by a 76-carat diamond, it was built 2,500 years ago to preserve eight hairs of the Buddha himself. Rudyard Kipling called the Shwedagon a ``winking wonder,'' and Somerset Maugham saw it jutting skyward ``like a sudden hope in the dark night of the soul.'' But there is no cathedral-like reverent hush to this holy site. It is a colorful, workaday place.

As everyone must in all temples (there are absolutely no exceptions), I remove my shoes and socks outside, and when I enter, my bare feet are cooled by the marble floor. Astrologers and souvenir peddlers mingle with monks in brown and burgundy robes and nuns in pink. Other faithful carry bouquets of bright flowers as offerings, careful not to smell them, for to enjoy them in any way would diminish their value as offerings. Old women smoke long cheroots and feed the resident pigeons, thereby earning merit for the next life. Men prostrate themselves in front of Buddha images. Women and girls have their cheeks covered with the yellowish powder of sandalwood bark to protect their skins from the fierce sun. Every smile, male or female, reveals teeth blackened by the chewing of betel nuts. In the morning, as I leave Rangoon to board the Road to Mandalay, the monks with their freshly shaved heads are out in the streets with the alms bowls begging for their breakfasts. Those who oblige are earning next-life worthiness -- so its seems like a good deal all around.

Kipling first called the Irrawaddy River the ``Road to Mandalay,'' and the words of his poem are familiar to most of us: ``On the road to Mandalay, where the flyin' fishes play'' and ``where the dawn comes up like thunder out of China 'cross the bay.'' It conjures up incredibly romantic images for the traveler. Alas, Kipling not only never made it to Mandalay, he never set foot in Burma. That explains the curious business of the nonexistent flyin' fishes, not to mention the nonexistent bay.

I discovered all this in the library of the Road to Mandalay, where I also learned that the Irrawaddy on which I now floated runs for some 1,100 miles down the eastern Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal and is the main thoroughfare to the Burmese interior. Just now the river is about 20 feet above normal from unseasonable rains, and treetops and rooftops peek just above the brown water's surface.

From the deck of the RTM, I watch a heterogeneous and resurgent stream of river traffic that includes rust-bucket ferries which seem on the verge of sinking, bamboo rafts with small huts on the deck, freight barges going at about one-quarter our speed, and tiny fishing boats. Men stand waist-deep sawing teak logs, which are then hauled out of the water by buffalo and carried to a waiting cart. Women pound their laundry on rocks and weave straw mats. Children splash playfully and wave to me. The most striking features of the Burmese landscape are the golden spires of the temples and monasteries.

Bagan sits on the Irrawaddy Plain, some 90 miles southwest of Mandalay, which is one of the driest areas for thousands of miles around. Of the original 13,000 temples, about 2,200 survive, strung like jewels across the plain. There are also 2,000 ruined temples, some of which are now being renovated by the government.

The biggest and holiest temple at Bagan is the Ananda Pahto, built around 1105. Outside, there is a 30-foot Buddha whose face looks sad from one angle, happy from another. There are 25-foot teak doors leading inside the temple, where there are astonishingly well-preserved murals depicting the former lives of Buddha and the story of creation. Like most murals in Bagan, they have been protected from bleaching by windows that allow only very dim light to enter the temple.

Religion in Burma is a way of walking rather than a way of talking. About 85 percent of the population follows the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama Buddha, a royal prince who lived some 2,500 years ago in India. Today every Burmese child is expected to become a monk or a nun for at least part of their lives, and adults regularly enter monasteries and convents for short periods. In Rangoon, my guide was Khin Thida, a 33-year-old college graduate who showed me photos of her husband and two children -- a typical nuclear family portrait. But then she showed me pictures, taken just a month earlier, of herself as a nun wearing a pink robe with her head shaved. She said her husband planned to enter a monastery this year for a month.

Near Bagan is the modern town of Nyaung-U, where the market is open every day except when the moon is full or there is no moon. These days are holy, and commerce would not be appropriate. The Burmese are serious about these things, and it would be unthinkable to undertake any important business without consulting their horoscopes or an astrologer to determine the most auspicious occasion.

But this is a half-moon day, and commerce is everywhere. The market's food section is varnished with the smell of garlic, anise, cloves, turmeric, and fish. Stacked eye-high are whole chickens, ducks split in half, dried fish tied in bundles, huge prawns, bananas, oranges, limes, mangoes, onions, and ginger roots. Food stands offer hingyo, a clear soup, and nganpayay, fermented fish and shrimp paste served over rice. There are Indian curries and Chinese noodles -- the legacy of Burma's position along the ancient China-India Trade Routes.

Outside the market, I am stopped by a hustler who offers me genuine ancient relics unearthed by a local farmer plowing his fields just yesterday. Inside, I run a gantlet of hawkers selling beautiful lacquerware, postcards, aphrodisiacs, opium pipes, fortunes, medicinal herbs, cheroots, flowers, and copies of George Orwell's novel, ``Opium Days,'' which is anti-British and therefore approved for sale by the government (a few days before, in Rangoon, I had purchased a copy of the International Herald Tribune, and it had three holes where government censors had clipped out articles).

Mandalay seems to be going in one era and out the other. There is ceaseless activity along the riverfront. Ferries, rafts, boats of every description, and teak logs almost nudge each other in the crowded water. Although the nearest bridge for vehicles is more than 400 miles away, the highway bridge across the Irrawaddy carries only a trickle of slow-moving trucks and an occasional car. Downtown Mandalay is a rabbit warren of intersecting alleys. Schoolchildren, wearing bright green longyis -- a sarong-type garment that is standard dress for all ages and all sexes -- and white tops are coming home carrying their books in backpacks. A woman nurses her child on a sidewalk bench, pariah dogs sleep in the middle of the road, and copper-brown young women walk toward the market balancing huge baskets on their heads.

The city's most important religious structure is the Mahu Muni Temple, where hundreds of people are buying sheets of gold leaf from vendors to place on a 12-foot Buddha image. For centuries, the Burmese have believed that if they place gold leaf on that part of the Buddha where they have health problems, they will get better. As a result, the figure now has a badly distorted shape, with its most prominent feature a bulging heart.

On the eve of our last day aboard the RTM, I sit among my 30 or so fellow passengers for a briefing on the village of Mingun by Hla Maung, a quiet, intelligent young man who is the ship's expert on Burmese culture. Mingun, which is about five miles up the Irrawaddy from Mandalay, is the site of an unfinished pagoda and a huge bell that was cast to go with it in 1808.

``It is the largest uncracked bell in the world,'' says Hla Maung. ``There is a larger bell in Moscow, but it is cracked. The pagoda is the largest pile of bricks in the world,'' he adds, with a hint of a smile.

At the river bank, we are greeted by hundreds of townspeople, half of them well-dressed children. Two girls, about 10 years old, approach me with smiles you could pour on a waffle. ``Hello, Mr. United States, you are very handsome,'' says one. The other holds a long parasol over my head to shelter me from the sun.

After they solemnly reassure me that they are not missing school, I agree to let them be my guides to Mingun. For the next two hours, they accompany me everywhere. When I go into temples, they carry my shoes -- one each. They fan me when I sit down to rest, open a soft drink I buy from a vendor, and give me anecdotes and historical tidbits about the town. As I'm leaving, I hand them each the equivalent of $5. Their eyes go saucer-wide, and they run off screeching in joy and amazement.

The most memorable part of Burma is the people -- their gentleness and their extreme reluctance to offend anyone or hurt their feelings. Even in the shabbiest sections of Rangoon, one does not feel the threat of physical violence.

There is a standard of behavior called ``bamahsan chin,'' which roughly translated means ``Burmese-ness.'' Bamahsan chin requires knowledge of Buddhist scriptures, respect for elders, an ability to speak idiomatic Burmese, discretion in interactions with the opposite sex, and, in general, a 24-hour way of behaving that favors indirectness and subtlety over the overt and the loud. And one more matter that is important for visitors to follow: Modest dress. The Burmese find shorts and miniskirts offensive and shocking, and women should cover their upper arms.

It is Myanmar that the generals intend outsiders to visit, but you should go to Burma.