Southern Myanmar, hanging out at a monastery
Trip Start
Dec 16, 2007
1
21
65
Trip End
Feb 2009
Mawlamyine, Myanmar
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Mawlamyine is the 3rd largest city in Burma, yet it was devoid of tourists and Westerners. Walking around town we were constantly gawked at and greeted with "Halllloooooo"..and, "How are you", and "where do you come from." It will probably be the closest I will come to feeling famous in my life.
It was tough to find food, even in a city this size. We settled on some soup and some noodles. Cheap about $5 dollars for 4 people to eat a small meal. We were constantly on guard because people told us we would get sick in Burma. Fortunately, only a little case of the runs at the monastery, and that was all the herbs they were feeding me to "help the stomach".
Thiri took Amy, Chotima (a nice architectural professor from Bangkok specializing in Burmese colonial architecture), and myself to an old monastery near the largest pagoda in town. It was built well over 100 years ago, with beautiful detail, but was slowly going into disrepair, like the rest of the country. Walking up the steps we were greeted by a bunch of feral barking dogs. It's the only place in town that they sense they won't end up on someones dinner plate that evening.
We walked around admiring the old place, young monks laying about studying Pali texts and smiling at us we walked by. It was hot in there. Thiri asked where the abbot was, he was chanting in an ante chamber in the center of the building. A few minutes passed and a small man, yoda like came out, and shouted in great surprise and slightly gruff voice, "OHHHHH, blah blah blah ",(the blah being Burmese that I didn't understand). Thiri turned to me and said, "He's asking where the hell I've been this past year and why the heck didn't I write."
Immediately we liked him. He was about 80, thin, with thick glasses. His ears, which were losing their hearing, grew tufts of hair, and his red robes gave him a yoda like appearance. He spoke loud with grandfatherly direction. Whenever he was not chanting, praying or napping he was puffing on a cheroot. Immediately he offered us a bamboo mat and tea, sweets, and my favorite, preserved green tea leaves with dried nuts similar to a soy nut. We had our tea, and the abbot had his protege, a younger monk in his late 30's, show us around. The younger monk was always smiling had looked like he had lipstick on from constant chewing of betel nut. We walked around the pagoda, which sat on top of a hill and had beautiful views of the area. An hour later we came down and they served us a great lunch. Pork, beef, dried fish vegetable dishes, and rice. Up to this point, the best meal we had in Burma. After lunch, the abbot brought pillows out and told us to sleep. It's hot here in April at noon. Maybe 100 to 105 degrees. We drifted off into a peaceful rest.
When we stirred from our nap the abbot brought us more sweets and tea and dried shrimp. Ants had gotten into the shrimp, and although he didn't notice at first, he recognized it and with a big "uhhhhh," he carefully got the ants off in Buddhist fashion by tapping the dish with a metal spoon and scaring them away without killing a single one.
Our rock star like status continued in Southern Myanmar. We wanted to give the monks photo's that we took of them and ourselves, so we walked into town with the younger monk. The family at the photography shop were shocked and overjoyed to see us, and took a family portrait with Amy and I in the middle. I stopped at a betel nut stand and bought the abbot some cheroots and our Buddhist monk escort some betel nut. The kids at the stand were giddy that we strange western folk were there. The monk had some words and laughed. He couldn't speak but a few words of English so when we returned to the monastery he explained to Thiri that the kids thought that we were some kind of movie stars from Hollywood. It don't take much in these parts.
