You say Yangon, I say Rangoon

Getting through immigration was a breeze and I met up with the tour guide quickly after arriving. I checked into my hotel and then it was off to a day of sightseeing. I was hopeful that the frenetic pace might keep me awake, having gotten six disrupted hours of sleep last “night.”

We started with a walk through the numerous markets in downtown Yangon. I think my favorite item was the instant karma. We walked by a man who had about 50 finches stuffed into a cage. I asked why he was selling them and the guide said that you can purchase them to purposely liberate them, creating good karma for you. Sounded like a good idea but then it occurred to me what bad karma it must be to trap and sell them in the first place.

We continued on past the Sule Pagoda, which has been standing for 2500 years. All the other areas of town are described by their distance from this point. Across the street on one side of the pagoda is a mosque, and on the other side is a church. They are fairly tolerant of religions here, or so the guide noted. We later drove out to the Chauk Htat Gyi Pagoda, to experience an enormous reclining Buddha. I thought I had seen a large reclining Buddha, when I was in Thailand, but this one was gigantic. He is several stories high and proportionally long. At present he is covered with scaffolding, as they repaint him; but behind the bamboo, you could see striking blue eyes and pink fingernail polish. He is stark white, with brown robes and a sash of gold leaf.

We finished our day at Shwedagon Pagoda. This isn’t just a pagoda, it’s an entire complex of them. Every turn and each step reveals a new Buddha statue or pagoda. The complex is large and the ornate woodwork is beautiful.

Tomorrow we head to Bagan for more pagodas and temples.Read more