19th January, 2017

Well happy birthday to me! And my dear brother, James, of course (not my twin, 3 years older, I just happened to be born on his birthday).

And what a wonderful day it was. It started with a fabulous present of a little dark jade Buddha from Val, which will be the perfect reminder of our trip here in Myanmar. We had a lazy morning in our room, catching up with things, including this blog, before being picked up at 2.00pm by Nee and Soe for our half day tour.

Today it was a boat trip to Mingun upriver and on the opposite bank of the Ayeyarwady River. We drove through the bustling and dusty streets of Mandalay, which is a busy city with quite a lot of development going on, but still with a touch of frontier town about it. We arrived at the ferry port, though that is a rather grandiose term for a riverbank with lots of boats. Indeed, it seemed that because the water level is so low they had moved the ‘port’ downriver a bit. We clambered over a few boats moored together and took up residence on our boat for the trip to Mingun. I must confess that I thought we would be on the local ferry, but no, this one was for our exclusive use. As I was obviously on our boat, I couldn’t take a photo of it, but the one below of the green boat will give you an idea of the luxury we were afforded.

Now, our destination was Mingun. In 1790, King Bodawpaya decided to build a pagoda. This was not to be just any old pagoda, but a huge one. It was to be 150 metres tall, built largely by slave labour and prisoners of war. This may be the reason why, after 29 years of building, only one third was completed. It is hard to imagine what the finished article would have looked like, though there is a rather sweet and decidedly small model to give you an idea. My sources at Wikipedia advise me that it would have been 3 times the height of Nelson’s Column, just to give you a sense of what we are talking about here.

Before we got to view the monolith, we disembarked and walked up to the local village, distaining the local ‘taxi’ (see bullocks below). The photo of what looks like the back end of an elephant is actually the back end of what remains of one of two enormous lions who were to guard the stupa. I thought you might also appreciate a photo or two of the birthday boy! (No comments, please, about the back end of an elephant!).

So what is there to see? Well, certainly the world’s largest pile of bricks. It is incredible, even unfinished and I regret that my wide-angled lens makes it look a lot shorter than it really is. I tried standing beside it to give some sense of proportion so I hope you will get the picture. Unfortunately it suffered badly in earthquakes in 1819 and 2012 so you can no longer climb it, though the jagged fissures that resulted do give it a dramatic effect.

The King was obviously having a bit of a crisis regarding size as he also decided to build the world’s largest bell! According to my guide book, it is, in fact, the second largest working bell (the largest is in the Kremlin) and at a weighty 55,555 viss (about 90 tonnes) is an impressive piece of work. A viss is a local measurement and I rather liked the 55555 part of it. However, a quick check of Wikipedia suggests that the Tsar Bell weighing in at a mighty 196 tonnes in Russia is broken and can only claim the title of the largest bell. The largest functioning bell is the Bell of Good Fortune at the Foquan Monastery in China, weighing some 116 tonnes. Mingun is next. Anyway, I digress somewhat! Have a look…. the tree was fantastic too.

Apart from a very nice walk around the village reminding both Val and me of kampungs in Malaysia, our last stop at Mingun was the wedding-cake-like pagoda of Hsinbyume Paya. Great views from the top!

It was then time to head back to Mandalay, so we walked back to the spot where our boat was berthed and boarded. We had missed the sunset (is that a cry of ‘thank goodness’ I hear?) but we did get an impressive afterglow. I took a couple of photos of the lovely umbrellas you get here as well as the model of the pagoda.

Val arranged for us to have dinner at a riverside restaurant and we were joined by Nee and Soe, which was really nice and we all sang along to the 1950s hits coming over the PA. Nee and Soe were very naughty and bought me presents of a lovely picture and a puppet as well as organising a cake with candles. I was truly blessed.

And the day was not over, either, as, on our return to the hotel, Val went to the desk at Reception, whispered something and told me we had to take the lift, which was odd as we were only on the first floor. I dutifully obliged and was met, on the doors opening, by ANOTHER cake, baked by the hotel. I blew out the candles (I half expected the sprinklers to come on), we entered our room, relit the candles to take a photo and had a slice each, donating the rest to the staff as there was no way we could eat it! A fantastic day – and special thanks to my lovely Val for making it a birthday to remember.

Well, that’s all, folks. More tomorrow from our new destination, Bagan.