eyes turned skyward: The Happiest Man in Burma

Now, let me preface this by saying that Burma is a really happy country. Everyone here is so friendly and kind, and people really do seem to be quite happy.

However, no one is as happy as our wonderful guide, Joseph. He has this fabulous laugh, that when you hear it you have to start laughing too! This adds to his already excellent guiding skills. I think a guide can really make or break the experience of a trip - I'm so thankful to have such a good one! I'll try to take a video of him laughing and post it on here. I guarantee that wherever you are, whatever you are doing, it will make you laugh!

Our group met up bright and early for breakfast at 6:30, and then we headed off for our walking tour of Rangoon. We started by going past a cathedral that was built in the late 1800's by the British, as well as seeing the old Secretary Building. This gorgeous building has been crumbling into decay, but was recently purchased and will be turned into a hotel. Fortunately they will not be destroying the old structure, but renovating it. I'm sure that in 5 years it will be THE place to stay in Rangoon. We also saw some apartments across the road, and asked what class of family would be living in them. Joseph told us that they would be considered middle class apartments. They looked rather run down from the outside, but he told us that they were very nice inside.

From this area of town we walked down to the old colonial section by the river. There is a beautiful, 5 star hotel there called The Strand. We walked into the lobby and were all awed! Merilyn said she looked up how much it would be to stay there one night and it was $900! We were all glad to be staying at our much more affordable hotel! We then walked by another jetty and then headed toward the Sule Paya, which is at the center of the colonial area and is actually in a traffic roundabout. We stopped at a cafe for drinks as it was so hot, and while we were there we saw a protest by the lawyers of Rangoon. They are protesting sections of the constitution, including the ones I told you about that The Lady is working on, and especially the section that dictates that 75% of the military presence in Parliament must agree on a law before it can pass. This was such a peaceful protest - they all had big signs in both Burmese and English, and they were marching three by three down the streets. We later saw a protest in front of the park nearby (that I went to on Monday). This was a protest by many landowners from the north of the country who were protesting the sale of their land (by the military) to the Chinese. It was really interesting to see these two protests - both very peaceful. No military presence, no police, no fighting - just people showing how deeply they care about their country and their livelihood.

In the afternooon we had some free time - we all ate lunch (I'm addicted to fresh lime juice now!) and then went back to our hotel for a rest. Once it had cooled off some we met and went to Shwedagon. We were there for sunset and it was amazing! It was much more crowded than when I was there the day before, we learned that there were some visiting dignitaries from other South East Asian countries. We also saw a large group of monks from Thailand. I happened to be standing nearby when they took a group photo - I'll post it below!

The sunset was beautiful. The smell of incense was wafting all around us, and with the ringing of the bells and the chanting of the monks I almost felt as though I was slipping into a trance. It's amazing to feel such peace while in the middle of such a busy place that is crowded full of people.

There is a quote that I love, and I'm not going to get it word perfect here, but it goes something like this:

"Peace does not mean that you are in an empty place with no one around, but to be in a crowded place and feel peace in your heart." I have never truly understood the meaning of that quote (even though I've loved it for a long time) until these temple experiences. I was surrounded by people but in my heart I could have been miles above the clouds sitting in perfect silence.

We headed back to the hotel after this as we were going to have to wake up at 4:00 to catch our flight to Bagan. We ate dinner in the hotel restaurant which ended up being quite the experience! I don't think that the waiters there are used to people coming for dinner - they didn't quite know what to do with us! We ordered drinks and then waiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiited for them to arrive. We ordered 5 beers and instead of setting each beer down in front of the person who ordered it they opened one bottle at a time and poured them into glasses, so we ended up kind of juggling the beer. Then they forgot the food that Tom ordered - when I went to ask them if it was coming they said that they missed it and they could no longer cook anything else. So we all shared some of our food with him! Such a great experience to share together. We soaked up some of the views from the rooftop balcony before going to turn in for our early morning.