I tried to play with some of the piglets, but they just ran away from me.

The homes were very simple.  Just a room or two, with a mat for a bed, and not much else.  I got to peek inside one.  This was the kitchen area.  There was a cat keeping warm by a pot on the stove.

Indoor plumbing?  No way.  Running water? Nah… you send your daughter to the well to bring some back.

We got to the schoolhouse and saw these cute girls, obviously best of friends.  I asked if I could take their photo.  They didn’t mind at all.

Myint introduced us to the teacher.  She said there was one teacher for 63 students.

They had blackboards, posters, desks… a cute little classroom.  The kids were remarkably well behaved.

I indicated that I would like to

take their photos.  They loved the idea.  They ate it up.  After taking the photo, I would show them the image on the camera display.  They were enthralled.

After this very illuminating side trip, we hit the road again and headed for Mount Popa.  There it is in the distance.  Pretty amazing.    Popa Taung Kalat, more commonly referred to as Mount Popa, is the most popular day trip from Bagan.  For those intrigued by the practice of nat worship in Myanmar, Mt. Popa is the place to be, as it’s the most revered place in the country for this fascinating, millennium-old form of spirit worship.  Before we talk about this incredible site, we should talk a little about nats.

Before climbing Mount Popa, we made sure to visit the quirky Nat Temple (also called The Shrine of the Mother Spirit of Popa Nat) just opposite the main stairway.

Freaky looking almost life-size mannequins of assorted nats can be found here, standing along the back wall of the shrine in a glassed-in corridor. A few have banknotes stuffed into their hands.

You can’t miss the eye-catching Drunken Nat on a horse, decorated with rum bottles and packets of cheroots in honor of his wild life spend drinking, cockfighting and hunting. He’s probably the most popular nat.  He was born on Mt Popa and is famously claimed to have said, “If you don’t like me, avoid me. I admit I’m a drunkard.”  He’s the guardian of gamblers and drunks. Note all the bottles of booze hanging from the horse’s neck, and the dollars stuffed in his hands and on the horse’s neck.

Nats figure into several legends involving Mount Popa.  The first legend concerns Maung Tinde, (also known as “Mr. Handsome”) and his sister Shwemyethna (aka “Golden Face”). That’s them on the left. According to the tale, the King of Tagaung, fearful of Maung Tinde’s supernatural powers, i.e. the ability to snap the tusks of an elephant with his bare hands, married his sister Shwemyethna in order to lure her brother to the palace, where he was promptly tied to a tree and burnt to death, only for his sister to leap into the flames with him.  Brother and sister later reappeared as malevolent spirits, haunting the tree where they had died, until the king ordered the tree cut down and tossed into the Ayeyarwady river.  The tree floated down the river to Bagan.  The two spirits then appeared in a dream to the king of Bagan asking him for a place t dwell, and offering in return to guard the city.  The king had the remains of the tree carried to Mount Popa, where the spirits of Maung Tinde and Shwemyethna are said still to reside, while shrines to the nats were erected at the Tharaba Gate, where they remain to this day.  My previous post showed a picture of the Tharaba Gate, and the shrine containing Mr. Handsome.

The second legend of Mount Popa relates to Mai Wunna, the Queen Mother of Popa (also called Miss Gold), who is said to rule over Mount Popa, on which her spirit dwells.  Mai Wunna was a flower-eating ogress who became enamored of Byatta, an Indian Muslim with supernatural powers who had been ordered by King Anawrahta to collect flowers ten times daily from the mountain.  Byatta was enthralled with Mai Wunna and he neglected his duty, which resulted in him being executed by the king, but not before she had produced two sons Min Gyi and Min Lay.   That’s her, in green, flanked by her sons.  Mai Wunna is said to have died of a broken heart.  Her sons were taken away by the king, and were later themselves executed for dereliction of duty while in his service, becoming nats instead.  They have their own shrine near Mandalay, and it’s the site of one of Burma’s biggest spirit festivals. 

 

We left the nat temple, crossed the street, and walked through the pair of large white elephants and up the main steps, to start our climb.

 The covered stairway (zaungdan) is crowned with a seven-tiered ceremonial roof tower. There are 777 covered steps to the top.   As you can see, monkeys line the steps in and around Mt. Popa.

The lower third is lined with numerous souvenir  shops, and  people selling food.

 Then you come to a footwear stall where we had to leave our shoes.  We put ours in box 29. I wasn’t too thrilled with leaving our shoes, because the monkeys urinate and defecate all over the steps.  Going up with shoes on, past this point on Mount Popa, is not an option, though.

Locals keep the stairs clean of monkey pee and poop, for which you are incessantly asked donations, which reminded me of being back in New York.  (The incessant asking for money, not the cleaning part.  No one cleans anything in New York City, that’s for sure.)  Here’s a guy wiping down the steps of monkey urine, for which our guide (in purple) gave him a small donation.

An abundant population of Macaque monkeys also call Mt. Popa home. They are quite brazen and some are so well fed that they’re the size of a small child, and more obnoxious.  We’ve been told to keep our belongings safely tucked away in a bag as you climb the 777 steps; despite being fed loads of bananas that hawkers sell to tourists and pilgrims, these monkeys won’t hesitate to snatch your water bottle. I’m an animal lover, but I have to say, these monkeys were pretty creepy.

More nat shrines dot the steps on the way up.  A pretty interesting one is the one just above the footwear stall, signed “Nat Nan”, featuring a parade of nats with helpful English signs.  Examples include (from left to right) Myin Phyu Shin (aka Aung Zawmagyi, the “Lord of the White Horse”), a messenger said to have been executed for delivering an important royal message a bit too slowly, and a family group showing Byatta, plus two images of his wife and sons.

Up and up we went. All 777 steps.

We finally reached the top.  The summit of the rock is covered in a cluster of Buddha and nat shrines crammed together.  The whitewashed and gilded Taung Kalat Buddhist Monastery crowns the summit of Taung Kalat and is an important place of pilgrimage for Buddhist monks and nuns, and lay people all across Burma.

On our flight from Beijing to Yangon, we met a woman named Renee from San Francisco who was well-traveled and very nice.  We told her that we had tried the only Burmese restaurant in New York before coming to Burma, and that it wasn’t very good.  She said that San Francisco had four Burmese restaurants, and that she thought the best was one called Burma Super Star.  I thought of her when we got to the top of Mount Popa and saw this plaque.  The restaurant must have made a donation to get this  plaque installed.

I like gongs, and I hit this one a couple of times.

I saw a cute orange kitty at the top.  I wonder how long it took her to get to the top.  Does she make the 777 step climb daily, or does she just live at the top permanently?  I guess I’ll never know.

Going down was much easier.

The monastery was renovated twice in the 1990’s and the government’s Department of Archaeology runs the site.

There are many interesting artifacts inside.

Close by, the Man Paya Pagoda is home to Shinbin Maha Laba, the largest (20 ft)  lacquer Buddha image in Burma, dating back to the 13^th century.  As the legend goes, the Buddha image was originally located near Monywa and was washed downstream during an 1888 monsoon, all the way to Salay.

I know this Buddha looks like gold, but trust me, it really is made of lacquer.  When you knock on it with your knuckles, you can hear that it’s hollow.  Kinda freaked me out, but in a cool way.

Our last stop was a nearby monastery and meditation center, the Sasanayaunggyi Kyaung.  Standing outside was a very intense little monklet.

Inside we met a super-nice monk who spoke pretty good English.  He showed us this beautiful 19^th century glass armoire with Jataka panels depicting the life of the Buddha.

 Inside the armoire were bundles wrapped in cloth.  Inside each bundle were these strips that looked almost like venetian blind blades. Each blade had small, meticulous inscriptions on them.  We were told that they were 400 years old. 

The monk then took out another document, which was were more holy writings, in Burmese. 

 The monk was really so kind and gracious. He saw my interest in cats and he thought that was nice.  Before we left, we made a donation to the monastery.

As we drove back to our hotel, it started to get dark.  The cars had headlights, but most of the motorbikes on the road did not have any headlights and were difficult for drivers to see.  There were no street lights or road lights.  Mark commented how dangerous this must be.  “That’s Myanmar”, said Myint, with a chuckle.  For all the changes the country is going through, the basics, like headlights and street lamps, are unlikely to change any time soon.

We got closer to the hotel, with dusk heavily descending upon us. Our driver was about to leisurely turn left onto the road that led to our hotel, when he suddenly he hit the brakes and swerved hard, narrowly missing a horse cart that seemingly came out of nowhere. There was no sound from any motor, obviously, and no lights of any kind. We just missed nicking the wheel of the cart.  A woman on the cart yelled out something in our direction.  “I don’t speak Burmese”, said Mark. “But I’m pretty sure I know what she just yelled.”