Sulamani, Dhammayangyi and Thatbyinnyu @ Bagan Myanmar Day 3

Woke up to a cool morning, took a shower and then got ready to go to the coffeehouse  for breakfast ( the room charges of USD25 were inclusive of breakfast) .Took our seats and waiter asked us how would we like our eggs, I would like an omelet , please..

A plate of fruits consisting of a banana, slices of watermelon plus pineapple were delivered to our table, plus tea + coffee and then a plate of something, err..this is a weird looking omelet..it tasted good though, must be the Myanmar style omelet.

After a few minutes …two slices of toast and the omelet were delivered to our table..err..so the earlier ‘something’ was actually  a pancake..Omelet ?? what a clever Malaysian i am ..tsk tsk tsk…

After breakfast, we stepped into the cool morning sun and Osaka was already waiting for us, and Mr Driver proudly showed us his ‘I love Malaysia’ t-shirt under his leather jacket . This was a gift from his brother who worked in KL .

Our first destination for the day- Sulamani temple..we drove through dirt roads…

Then we drove through beautifully landscaped tarmac roads..

Then we arrived at Sulamani temple. Sulamani was built in 1181 by Narapatisithu The name means ‘Crowning Jewel’ or ‘Small Ruby.

A ‘face’ plus glazed plaques at the temple

A devotee is seen applying gold leaf to the Buddha Image.

We saw interesting frescoes on the interior walls of the temple

These frescoes are said to be from the Konbaung period

A more colourful mural, this looked newer than the ones shown above..

There were four Buddha images on the ground floor, this is one of the statues .Remains of the mural behind the statue is still visible

This Buddha image has a little roof above- we saw some bird poo on the ‘robe’ on the Buddha image, the roof might be a protective layer for the Buddha’s head..bad birdie.. i wonder will the birds reap bad karma from acts like these…

The head of this image was gilded but the torso was not.  We walked quietly as not to disturbed  the meditating monk. I was curious why a monk would place bank notes by his meditating mat. Then he opened his eyes and pointed at the bank notes..i think he was asking for some money. Hey, how can like that one !!  I think this misguided monk might suffer worse fate than the poo poo birdies..

We couldn’t go up to any of the floors, so we continue our exploration outside the compound of the temple. Sulamani was damaged during the 1975 earthquake and rebuilt in 1994

Pilasters in the form of stupa at the corners.

Intricate ornamental work around the temple

Arches and frescoes

The beautiful red brick temple against the blue blue sky..

Earlier I wrote  that from the way he whipped and scold Osaka, Mr Driver was a cruel master , but on the other hand, Osaka seemed to be a lazy horse too ( or maybe we were too heavy) , he/she ( I was going to find out but I forgot to ‘inspect’) will often slow down and not trot in a straight line without constant whipping . I am not joking when I tell you that Osaka is probably one of the slowest horse in Bagan.. we were overtaken by other horse cart countless times. We later found out that Osaka is four years old and Chunny’s horse was eleven years old—maybe Osaka was just young and still learning the ways of horse carting… Aiyaaa alllaaa hooyaa mama…

Our next destination – Dhammayangyi Temple.

From http://www.orientalarchitecture.com/myanmar/bagan/dhamma.php  The Dhammayangyi (or Dhamma-yan-gyi) Pahto, extending approximately 255 feet on each of its four sides, is Bagan’s most massive shrine. There is considerable controversy over the identity of the builder and the construction of the building itself. It probably was built by King Narathu (1167-1170) over a three year period to atone for his wicked rule. Yet some have attributed it to Narathu’s father and predecessor, Sithu I, who also built Thatbyinnyu. Legend suggests that Narathu met his end in a series of morbid events shortly after acceding to the throne. He had smothered his father and, shortly thereafter, his brother. After he had one of his wives (a former Indian princess and one of the wives of his father) executed for her Hindu hygienic rituals, he was assassinated by eight men, disguised as Brahmin priests, sent by the princess’s father. Others, however, have suggested that his death came at the hands of a Ceylonese mission that not only killed the king but sacked the city and introduced Ceylonese influence into the architectural spirit of Bagan.

Once we stepped into the temple, we were approached by five young ladies carrying baskets of souvenir items like postcards and lacquer wares. It was hard to shake them off and two of them start to tag along with us – speaking to us in English and then when they heard us speaking mandarin , they uttered a few words of mandarin too. After walking with us for a while and getting the cold shoulder, there was only one of them left and she continue to tell us about the temple and well, we listened and started to ask her questions too…

Our tour guide’s name is Aye-Aye and she is a college student , during the weekends, she hang out at the temple to earn some extra pocket money to support the family, her ambition is to study at a University in Mandalay majoring in history so that she can become a tour guide.

While we were walking with Aye-Aye thought the passages, she showed us the inner ambulatory passages that were sealed – one of the theory behind this was that the construction workers sealed the passages to King Narathu. I wonder what treasures are behind these sealed walls..

We saw more Buddha images along our walk..

This particular statue is re-constructed, but I can’t remember whether the head or the torso was the original.

At  the western gate we saw the images of the historical ( Gotama) and future ( Maitreya) Buddha sitting side by side

At the back of the two images was a statue of the reclining Buddha, we were told that this was made by King Narathu to seek forgiveness from his wife after he killed her father

The brickwork at Dhammayangyi is said to be the finest in Bagan, Narathu is said to do thorough QC checked of the brickwork, and Narathu would execute the masons if he could stick a pin between the bricks

After completing our tour, we asked Aye-Aye to show us the postcards that she was selling and also the George Orwell book Burmese days … her asking price for the postcards were 3000K for a set of 10, this was higher then the regular price of 1000K but we agree that the quality was a bit better and we do have to pay for her tour-guide services- but we are still Malaysians, so we had to bargain. The final price was 2,000K but I think she was rather disappointed with us for bargaining. The picture below is Aye Aye in a happier mood.( before the bargaining exercise)

After saying goodbye to Dhammayangyi, we head towards Thatbyinnyu- which was very noticeable and different from the other temple as it was in white . Thatbyinnyu was built in the mid 12th century by King Alaungsithu , this is said to be one of the earliest double-storey temples

There were many souvenirs stalls at the entrance of the temple and there were also many peddlers too, mostly young children, we were bombared with questions like  ‘where are you from?’ and some of them greeted us with ‘Ni hau ‘ , ‘Sawadee ka’  ‘are you from china ?’- and after hearing us talking in Mandarin – immediately, the prices of the souveniers were quote in Renminbi equivalent . I replied ‘ from Thailand’ to one of them and immediately, the prices were quoted in singsong Thai .. haha, these kids are clever

We entered the temple through the eastern door and were greeted by two colourful door guardians who were guarding the stairways.

Access to the stairways is now forbidden and we can only explore the ground floors.  

From the tiled floor- the temple looked like it has been restored but probably not in a proper manner as we saw modern looking  tiles of different colours lining the floors and some part of the walls were whitewashed.

From afar , this temple looked very grand and stood out amongst the other temple- but now that we were at the temple- it wasn’t as grand or intimidating  – I guess this is also due to that we could only walk around the ground floor. Or maybe I was just hungry…

For lunch, we decided to have the Myanmar buffet ( again) – at another branch of the Golden Myanmar ( the restaurant that we had lunch the day before)- fried fish/fried chicken, stew fatty pork, curry chicken and mutton

This was followed by more dishes to fill our table , the additions were mostly vegetables and the various sauces and condiments plus a large plate of raw vegetable..

Minochantha , Ananda Paya @ Bagan Myanmar Day 2

The sound of a horse trotting on tarmac is like somebody running with their high heels, clop-clop-clop clop. Our driver can speak minimal English and we cannot speak any Burmese,  so our conversation with the driver is minimal and the conversation will involve a lot of hand gestures and expressions. We asked our driver what is the name of his horse and he said ‘Osaka’, we then asked why he named his horse after a Japanese city but I think this was too complicated to be conveyed by body movements and English, so he just shook his head and smiled. But after some pondering – I think what he was trying to say was ‘horse cart’ and we jumped to the conclusion that he was saying Osaka.

Our driver seemed to be a cruel master, he whipped Osaka  ever so often and  scold it  every other second, the scolding sound like this..’aiyaaa alaaa hooya..mama’ then something that sounded like a whine, then give the horse a whip on the side then repeat ‘ aiyaaa alllaaa hooyaa mama…’

After many rounds of ‘aaiyaa allaaa hooya mamaaa’..we arrived at Minochantha Stupa group . The whitewashed stupas were different from the temples that we visited earlier. 

Extracted From http://www.orientalarchitecture.com/myanmar/bagan/mino.php : Minochantha Stupa Group (built c. 1112). The small Minochantha (also Minochanta) group features the stupa erected under orders of King Kyansittha, who had fallen seriously ill around 1112 AD. A Ceylonese king had sent Kyansittha nine relics of the Buddha as a tribute. According to the marker on the site, the king enshrined the relics in a stupa and said “I am quite old enough, with this meritorious deed may I be free from diseases, may I live a longer life. May the sasana [the Buddhist movement] be flourished. Thus this stupa was named as Min-O-Chantha.” Alas, the king died the following year.

We had to climb a few flights of stairs and then came to  an opened area and hey, we were at the same level as a pair of  white stupas…

At this level , we got to enjoy a view of Bagan numerous temples

After Minochanta, it was time for lunch, Mr Driver asked us what would we like to lunch – all of us agreed that we would like to have Myanmar food- and that was how we arrived at ‘Golden Myanmar 2’

We stepped into the cozy restaurant and a waitress told us that for 30,000K ( a bit less than RM11) we get to enjoy the Myanmar buffet. Yes, please- we would like that very muchie. Dishes of food start to appear on the table. The way the Myanmar buffer work is > free refills ! The spread include – deep fried fish and deep fried chicken, curry chicken, stew fatty pork, blanched pumpkin shoots, fried bean sprouts, a guord of some sort, pumpkin plus bean, chili paste, sourish paste. I liked the Myanmar buffet, there are so many choices, and if you don’t like one dish, there are others to choose from. Taste wise was rather nice too. (Chinese)Tea were also provided.

After a few refills of fatty pork, fried fish/chicken, curry and vegetables-  we finally allowed the waitress some rest and then it was dessert time..watermelon, some brown chunks of thingies and a bowl of three compartment were brought to our table-the only familiar thing out of the three was the watermelon ! we asked the waitress to show us how to eat what was in the bowl. She took a small spoon, scoop up the green mushy fibrous looking stuff, then scooped the stringy stuff and the deep fried nuts and sesame. Then she passed me what was on the spoon. I took a bite and Voila ! I likeyy…this dessert is called Laphet – the mushy stuff is pickled tea leaves (I  wouldn’t have guessed !), the stringy bits were ginger shreds. The combination of the tea leaves, ginger and nut was a bit of sour, a bit of spice and then the fragrant and crunch of the fried beans and sesame seeds. The dark brown chunks which looked like blocks of belacan  turned out to be palm sugar- these were not sweet but slightly sourish – tasted like tamarind (asam) sweets and yet rich. W.Hoong made a funny face when he bit into it and keep on saying ‘sour sour sour’ and yet he kept eating chunk after chunk of these palm sugar and even took some with him when we left the restaurant..i think he liked these too much..

Aiyaaa alllaaa hooyaa mama…

The next stop…Ananda Paya…

This is a familiar sign that you will see at the entrance to the temples of Bagan – proper attire for the temples..

We walk through a hallway, past  the water station ..

And then we came to a  magnificent archway, two guardians and a peep of a massive statue..

The arch led us image of the south facing Buddha – Kassapa. We overheard a tour guide telling his charge that the architecture of this image is special because the smile of the Buddha changes from a slight smile to a fuller smile  when you move away from it..

The Buddha’s life were portrayed in the images that can be found in these corridors

Ananda temple has four large Buddha image facing the four directions. The Buddha images are over 9 meter high. and said to be made out of solid teak wood. Below is a picture of the north facing Buddha image –Kakusandha. On the left hand, the Buddha is shown holding something in his left hand. Extract from Wikipedia :  is shown holding, between the thumb and middle finger, a small nutlike sphere – a herb. This herb is said to symbolically represent the Buddha suggesting dhamma ( Buddhist philosophy)  as a cure for misery and distress.

The west facing Buddha – Gotama .Extracted from Wikipedia -  the abhaya mudra is displayed – with hands outstretched in the gesture of fearlessness. At the feet of this Buddha two life-size statues made in lacquer representing the crowned figure of King Kyanzittha kneeling piously in prayer, and Shin Arahan, the Mon monk who converted the King into Theravada Buddhism

After enjoying the coolness of the indoors, we venture out into the exterior of Ananda Paya. There is a legend behind the temple- extracted from Wikipedia : The legend associated with building of this temple ended in tragedy to the builders. Eight monks who approached the King Kyanzittha seeking alms gave a graphic description of the Nandamula Cave temple in the Himalayas  where they had meditated. When the king invited them to the palace to hear more details, the monks invoked their meditative psychic skills and vividly explained to the King, the landscape of the place they had lived. The King, pleased with this show of their skills, requested the monks to build a temple in the middle of the Bagan plains creating cool conditions in the temple. After the monks completed the temple construction, the King, in order to retain the uniqueness of the temple, got the architects (monks) killed to ensure that another similar structure was not built by them anywhere else.

 The pinnacle and the five terraces.

The temple has been fully restored following the damage from the 1975 earthquake. In 1990 , to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the contruction of Ananda Paya, the temple spires were gilded

While we were busy taking pictures around the temple grounds, an elderly man was standing a few feet away and waving at us and pointing at the spot that he is standing. We ignored him at first ( well, not sure what he was up to lahh), but finally we gave in, and we started to follow him around the scenic spots. And this is the spot where you can take a picture of the three stone lions…

And this is an original statue with the original paint work as old as the temple

Our communication with our incidental ‘tour guide’ was in English which involved a repetitive of  words like ‘ old, original,  take picture, good, hahahaha ‘ – limited conversation but I think we managed pretty well. After that little tour, we gave Uncle a small token of appreciation ( 1000K) and parted ways. Send Uncle our regards  if you see him at Ananda Paya..

We had strayed from the group and were running a bit late..so it was rush rush to be in time to catch the sunset.

We had a small incident where a bag containing our shawls and sweater fell off  the cart onto the tarmac …luckily there weren’t any horsey  poo-poo on the road and we managed to retrieve the runaway bag..

On the way back to the guest house , the weather was getting kinda chilly and the sky was already dark and it was just a bit over 6 p.m. I had to use my shawl to keep away the cold. When we arrived at the guest house, we paid the driver 150,000K as rental for the day, bid Adieu to Osaka .See ya tomorrow !!

At first, nobody wanted to go for dinner- I guess we were tired and we did have a late lunch and the Myanmar buffet was rather filling…then after further discussion (and the not so attractive option of having bone dry biscuits for dinner), we decided to go for a stroll down the street to look for a place to  have a light dinner. We walked past a few shops and finally settled for Fuji Restaurant. There were a large variety of choices including Japanese food , we later found out that the owner is Japanese, hence the name ( although we were left wondering about the Doreamon sticker on the signboard)

AhPheeng had vermicelli plus egg for 110,000K. I ordered vegetarian noodles for  900K ( less than RM4), the serving was large with lots of vegetable.

W.Hoong ordered fried noodles- a very large heap of noodles to be exact. This was tasty but rather salty and oily.

Chunny ordered omelet for 700K.

After our dinner we walk past a second hand book shop which had books only in Burmese. We need to get some water and stopped an the convenient store, they were priced at 3,000K for a 1.5L bottle- which was the same price at the guest house, but after some negotiation, we paid 2,500K…

Showered and got ready for bed. It felt as if we had been in Myanmar for many days, but this was just our second night here…Night night

Shwezigon , Htilominlo & Upalithein @ Bagan, Myanmar -Day 2

After a hot shower and a bit of unpacking, we were ready to see Bagan..

Before our journey, we bought the  Bagan Acheaology Zone ticket for USD10 from the guest house. This  would enable us to go to all the sites in Bagan

Our first stop was Shwezigon Pagoda. Once our cart arrived at the temple grounds and even before getting down from the cart,  a few ladies came to greet us and asked us ‘ where are you from ?’ and then introduced themselves , I remember the lady  that ‘escorted’ me introduced herself as LaLa, then we were given tiny colourful paper butterflies which were later pinned to our t-shirts and we were told that these were ‘ for lucky’. And when we reached the walkway to the temple, we were told to remove our shoes, and the ladies assured us that our shoes will be safe when we get back. So, we left our sandals on the sand and walked on the walkway. Along the walkway were stalls selling lacquer wares, wood carvings, etc..

Two kids with thanaka painted on their faces..

History of Shwezigon, extracted from http://www.sacred-destinations.com/burma/bagan-shwezigon-paya-pagoda.htm

The Shwezigon Paya was built in the 11th century by King Anawrahta (r. 1044-77), a recent convert to Theravada Buddhism. Anawrahta was Theravada Buddhism’s first major advocate in Myanmar and the first of the great builders of Bagan. The king had completed three terraces of the Paya when he was killed by a wild buffalo in 1077.

The king built Shwezigon to be a massive reliquary to enshrine a collection of relics, including the Buddha’s frontal and collar bones, a copy of the tooth relic at Kandy , Sri Lanka, and an emerald Buddha image from China. Legend has it that the site of Shwezigon was chosen by a white elephant.

The Shwezigon shrine was completed between 1086 and 1090 by King Kyanzittha (r. 1084-1113), Anawrahta’s successor. Kyanzittha was arguably Bagan’s greatest king and certainly one of its greatest builders: it was under him that Bagan became known as the “city of four million pagodas.” The Shwezigon Paya has retained to this day the essential shape it assumed on completion in 1090, which became the architectural prototype for many other stupas across Myanmar.

Like all Bagan monuments, this great pagoda has been damaged by earthquakes and other factors over the centuries. It has often been repaired, most notably by King  Bayinnaung (r. 1551-1581), and the devastating earthquake of 1975 caused extensive damage that necessitated repairs to the top of the dome and the spire.

The Shwezigon Pagoda itself is oriented to the east and is built of solid sandstone blocks. Its graceful golden “bell” reaches a height of 160 feet, supported on a square base 160 feet on a side, an octagonal intermediate base, and three square terraces.

The golden bell is decorated with various designs, encircled by several thick moldings, and is topped with the traditional jeweled hti (umbrella spire) to symbolize sovereignty. It is lit up impressively at night.

The surrounding structures were equally impressive

A Buddha image that was plastered with gold leaves…

I liked the look of this white elephant..it looked like it was sporting  a center parting..

There were a lot of pigeons at the temple grounds and you could almost hear the  flapping of a thousand wings..

A reclining Buddha at the temple

Throughout our walk, we were occasionally approached by ladies wanting to pin ‘lucky butterfly’ on us. A lady who was carrying a child came up to me and wanted to pin another ‘ lucky butterfly’ on me, I declined but she was very insistent, I gave up, and she pinned the butterfly on me  and then started to follow me around and asked for money.. it had reached to a point of irritation- i gave her a packet of biscuit that I had in my bag and asked her to leave. I could hear her cursing under her breath. I removed all the butterflies on my t-shirt. #$%^%$*@#!$#

There was a special area that housed the images of the Nats –free spirits, a total of 37 in all . Extracted from  http://www.sacred-destinations.com/burma/bagan-shwezigon-paya-pagoda.htm    : Probably the most significant aspect of Shwezigon’s history is that it marked the first royal endorsement of the 37 nat (spirits), a central focus of Burmese religion before the arrival of Buddhism.

King Anawrahta placed 37 figures representig the nat on the lower terraces. Eventually the nats were moved from the terraces to a small hall southeast of the platform called “37 Nats.” This can still be visited (when it’s unlocked) and is an important shrine for Burmese pilgrims, but the sculptures are unfortunately not the originals. These were swiped by a collector and are rumored to be somewhere in Italy.

Other figures of Nats, this is a father and son pair.

When we get the chance, we do some eavesdropping –  try to pick up what the tour guides were telling their charges. There was an interesting site at the eastern side of the pagoda, where there was a tiny puddle of water, this was intentional , and the purpose was to allow the Myanmar monarchs to look at the reflection of the top of the pagoda without having to tip their head backwards. We had to adjust our positions and then hey, yes, we saw the reflection of the hti just like the monarchs did a few hundred of years ago.

After walking around for a bit, we completed our tour and proceed back to the walkway. Then the ladies came at us again, one girl came to me and said that my shoes were at her stall, I followed her, and true enough, my sandals were neatly arranged in front of her stall…Oh..this was getting sinister and I knew that my other three  traveling companions would be facing the same predicament. I put on  my sandals while looking over her stalls and asking her for the price of some of the items, but I couldn’t see anything that I liked, I apologized and left her stall, she tried to persuade me to get back to her stall but I was firm and  left.  I was hoping to find the rest of the guys at the exit but no sign of them, then I saw AhPhenng coming towards me, her feet bare and said that the other lady did not let her take her shoes, I followed her back to the stall and the lady was there, arms akimbo and she didn’t looked very friendly at all..oh err…we asked for AhPheeenggg shoes and lady said that she knew what we want and we promised to buy something from her stall, we tried to reason with her while AhPheennggg sneakily put on her shoes and then we fled…haha…and yes, we could her some curses thrown at us…

Shwezigon was a beautiful temple, but our visit was marred by the bad experience with the shop ladies..

After Shwezigon..we continue with our journey, next stop – Htilominlo Temple .The picture you see below is taken from our horse cart, in the background is Htilominlo Temple

Htilominlo temple was built in AD1218 by King Nadaungmya, there is an interesting story behind the temple and why it was built , extracted from http://www.ancientbagan.com/htilominlo-temple.htm King Nantaungmya erected the temple on this spot because it was here that he was chosen, from among five brothers, to be the crown prince. Nantaungmya was King Narapati Sithu’s son. The selection of the heir to the throne had a tradition, which was to erect a white umbrella and the future ruler would be chosen when the white umbrella tilts in his position. After the event, it was decided by the state policy’s council.

The temple is three stories tall, with a height of 46 metres (150 feet), the temple was beautiful. The doorways feature nice carved reliefs

Sandstone decoration at the gateway to the temple.

We could only walk around the ground floor as the other floors were off limits. There were four Buddha statues, but I somehow missed one..

A high tech monk with his ipad..

Note the traces of old murals around the Buddha image.

A stall outside the temple selling puppets, wind chimes and other stuff

Across the road from Htilominlo temple was Upali Thein which is also known as Upali Sima, this ordination hall was built by a monk named  Upali in the mid 13th century, during the reign of King Kyazwa

We walked around the Sima , this was one view from the temple

Another view..

I took a peak inside the hall and took a photo of the Buddha image

When we arrived at the entrance, the care taker was there, it seemed that the place is usually kept under lock and key, Mr Caretaker let us into the hall- but no photography. He showed the remaining murals on the walls undamaged by the 1975 earth quake.

Extracted from http://www.photodharma.net/Myanmar/Upali/Upali.htm –  The Sima was renovated during the reign of the Konbaung Dynasty in the late 18th century, which is when the mural paintings date from. They contain scenes of the Going-Forth of many of the previous Buddhas; other famous scenes from the Life of the Buddha, like his son’s Going-Forth and Ajita’s confirmation as the coming Metteyya Buddha; the Rains’ retreats; and the consecration of the Sima.

The building was badly damaged in the 1975 earthquake and has been roughly shored up to prevent collapse, though some of the paintings have been badly affected by the quake.

Another view of the rectangular Sima

After out visit to Upali Thien, W.Hoong made a request to the drivers that we want to visit temples that tourist don’t usually go to.. we pointed to an interesting looking square building and a tall looming wooden structure and said we wanted to visit these. We stopped at the main road and took a short stroll- off the beaten track – well, we couldn’t  see these structure mentioned on the Bagan map..

This looked like an abandon monastery ( our guess anyway)

We guessed that these cracks might have been caused by the fateful 1975 earthquake (?) The inside the building was overgrown with weeds

We walked further down the dirt road , we saw more structures that looked like they have been abandoned

Then we finally came up close to the magnificent wooden tower/house- this structure looked so different from the temples that we have seen ( so far) and was so grand and  outstanding that we couldn’t figure out why it was not marked on the map. Apart from the stone stairs – the rest of the structure was made of wood. What is this unknown building built for ? We were expecting someone to come up to us anytime to chase us off the premise ..but there was not a soul around….

We were mesmerized by the  intricate wood carvings

Hello…anybody home ?

A lady with a child and  a basket- are they out to collect fire wood ?
stay tuned, next stop – Minochantha temple