I planned to go to the huge city market that is just down the road from my hotel - the Bogyoke Aung San Market, and from there to explore some parts of the city that I had not yet been to.
First of all I was looking forward to having a bit of a lie in, as this would be the first day that I wouldn't really need to get up very early. I knew that I would wake up quite early, thanks to my body clock not having adjusted yet, but it would be great to try to go back to sleep.
I slept until about 6:30, and after breakfast I headed off for the market, around 8:30. Apparently the market doesn't open until 9:30 or 10, so when I arrived there wasn't anyone else there. I decided to just walk around the city some. I stumbled upon a Hindu temple, so spent some time there and then just walked with no destination in mind.
I have felt so safe in Yangon. Not once have I felt in danger or compromised - I wasn't expecting that! People look, but mostly because I look so foreign, not in any kind of malicious way. By the time I walked back to the hotel on Sunday night, I felt almost the same as I would walking in any other city, possibly even safer. The only problem that I encountered was the heat! By about 10:30, the temp had risen to 38 degrees, which is the equivalent of about 101 Farenheit. Add the humidity in, and it's absolutely murderous being outside during the high point of the day. I decided to return to my hotel for a while to cool off. At about 12:00 I decided to go back out, as I only had until 2:00 before I was meeting Grace, my guide from Monday, again.
I walked to the Botataung Pagoda, which was probably about a mile and a half from my hotel. Not far in distance, but soooooo hot and humid to be walking! I also had to cross some fairly busy roads that didn't have crosswalks, so that was kind of exciting! It was well worth it once I arrived. The pagoda itself was beautiful, and I was excited to learn that I could actually go into the stupa and see the relics within. In this case, they were hairs of Buddha. This is very rare to be able to do - I've probably been to 6-8 pagodas so far and this was the first one that the public were allowed to enter the stupa. I walked into the reliquary room and was amazed! All of the walls were covered entirely in gold leaf, and with the lights shining on them the room seemed to be glowing. I spent a bit of time walking around the inside, then headed out to see the temples around the pagoda.
This happened to be right by the jetty where a lot of local ferries were coming and going, so I walked down to the edge and enjoyed the cool breeze blowing off the river. After this I was going to take a taxi back to the main downtown area, but there weren't any around. So, I began hoofing it back to the hotel.
I stopped in for a quick bite of lunch at a Japanese restaurant, then finished the walk back to the hotel.
Grace and I met up at 2:00, and headed out on our Traditions and Culture tour. Grace is 20 years old and speaks amazing English! She took such good care of Dan and me on Monday's tour, and I was really looking forward to learning more from her.
First we went to the Bogyoke Aung San Museum, which is the house that General Aung San and his family lived in when he was assassinated in 1947. After being closed by the military government for many years, it re-opened in 2011 and I was really glad to be able to go there. If you don't know much about what Burma has been through in the last 100 years, you should really read up on it. The country was colonized by the British in the late 1800's, and General Aung San was working on an agreement with the British crown to grant Burma independence right before he was killed. With his death there was no clear leader of the people, and once independence was granted the country was plunged in chaos, with different military factions grappling for control.
I will try to post a link to a good site that talks about the history of Burma in a little while, right now the internet is very dodgy and I can't upload webpages. So stay tuned for more information.
The museum was very interesting, I felt that I learned a lot about who the General was and the principles that he stood for. Grace and I agreed that it is very sad that so many good leaders are killed before they can reach their full potential. Our prime example other than the General was President Lincoln.
After this I asked Grace if we could drive by Aung San Suu Kyi's house (known as "The Lady"). She is the daughter of the General and has been heavily involved in politics in Burma. She was such a threat to the Military Regime that they had her under house arrest for 14 years. She is revered by the Burmese and much of the world, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. She is now able to be part of parliament, but when the regime wrote the current constitution they included a section that banned her from ever being able to become president. This is terrible, because she is really the best thing that could happen to the country. Right now she is working, along with her party - The National Leauge for Democracy - to amend the constitution and calling on the military leaders to step down even more than they have. The election is in 2015 - we'll see what happens. I highly recommend that you all read her books, especially "Freedom From Fear."
Grace and the driver kindly drove me past both her office and the entrance to her house, which I felt very honored to see.
Our next stop was the Shwedagon Pagoda. This is the pagoda that I posted pictures of on my first night, I could see the illuminated spires from my hotel room. It is huge! Shwedagon contains relics from all four Buddha's. The staff of Kakusanda Buddha, the water filter of Kawnagamana Buddha, the nether robe of Kassapa Buddha, and eight hairs of Gautama Buddha. Shwedagon translates as "the reliquary of the four." The pagoda was initially built in 600 BC. It is 326 feet high and has a 76 carat diamond at the top of the main spire. The number of gold and jewels on this stupa is just staggering!
The Diamond Orb is 22 inches high and has 4, 351 diamonds with a total carat weight of 1,800. This is where the 76 carat diamond is. The Umbrella is 43 feet high and has a 1/2 TON (that's right, TON) of gold! It has 83,850 jewellery items and 4, 016 small gold bells. Amazing!
The temple compound is huge, and we spent a long time walking around soaking it all in. Grace filled me in on lots of history and details about the pagoda, then we sat on the base of one of the smaller temples and watched the world go by. It was really relaxing and nice to cool off in the shade!
After this we headed back to my hotel, as I was meeting my tour group at 6:00 pm. I was excited to meet everyone! There are only 7 of us, as well as our great guide, Joseph. Sanjay is from England, Marilyn is from Australia (and my roomie), Tom is originally from Scotland but has lived in Australia for 10 years, Barbara is from Belgium, Eleonore is from Switzerland, and Phil is from Florida. Phil said that I am the first other American that he has ever met on an Intrepid trip, and he has been on quite a few! We all went to dinner at a traditional Burmese noodle house near our hotel, then headed back to turn in as we had an early day on Wednesday.
The Hindu Temple
Entrance to the Botataung Reliquary
Botataung Pagoda
Locals playing a game on the jetty
Bogyoke Aung San Museum
Grace showing me the grounds of the Museum
Aung San Suu Kyi's Office (Above) and house entrance (below)
I took pictures of Shwedagon, but they didn't turn out very well. We went back on Wednesday, so I'll put some of those up on my post about Wednesday!