january-2012

IMAGE©LIGHTMEDIATION
800 years ago. We followed a local woman who was carrying two
fi ve-litre cans of water on a pole back to her family and came upon Min
Nan Th u Village which had a roadside café made of wood and thatch
and little open-sided houses on stilts. Th e villagers were amused to see
us, sold us beer and let me look around. One old lady even off ered us the
enormous cheroot she was smoking. Its fi lling of woodchips, tobacco,
tamarind and maize smelled fi ne in the night air.
Th at night I ate on the boat and gloried in the air-conditioning. Th e
banks of the Irrawaddy were very dark but the stars above were a riot of
light. Occasionally there would be a distant silent fl ash of lightning on the
horizon, but otherwise it was incredibly peaceful. A balloonist called Lee
came on board to talk about the fl ight we would take the following
morning. We were at the end of the monsoon period so it was all
weather-dependent, but at 5am, an old battered motor coach of the kind I
remember from my childhood picked up the Road to Mandalay party and
chugged to an open fi eld in front of a sandstone pagoda. Here Lee was
preparing two balloons for a fl ight and in the blackness bursts from
helium burners dazzled those of us waiting to clamber on board.
Half an hour later we rose with the sun, the pagodas below us turning
pink as we rose to 700m. On the horizon hammer-headed storm clouds
were forming, but fortunately we drifted away from them and away from
the river too. Th e best moment was the rare fi ve-sided Dhammayazika
Pagoda complex, its crown and vane reaching up to us like a golden rocket.
As we came in to land, children in the villages below abandoned their walk
to school and joyously chased our balloon as we sailed over the peanut fi elds.
PRIVATTRAVEL
Th e best moment of the balloon trip was the
Dhammayazika Pagoda, its crown and vane reaching up
to us like a golden rocket as we sailed over
Seventy-Five
Five-sided
Dhammayazika
Pagoda is unusual
in having four
surrounding temples
to the Buddhas who
have already attained
enlightenment – plus
a fi fth to the future
Buddha, Metteyya
We returned to Th e Road to Mandalay, and the gracious old
ship fi nally lifted anchor and chugged north up the
Irrawaddy. People sat out on the top deck watching Burma
pass slowly by. We are not used to landscapes untouched by modernity,
and the shores of the Irrawaddy that day seemed timeless. Pakokku,
Myingyan and the confl uence with the Chindwin river fl oated by, a
landscape of pagodas, thatched villages and trees. Th e pattern repeated
endlessly. No bridges, no power lines or telegraph cables. Th e occasional
log drifted past and lapwings and wagtails fl ew overhead. Sometimes the
best thing about a journey can be its slowness.
Th at night the boat laid on a special treat for us as we moored in the
darkness. It is a Burmese custom during Th adingyut (the end of Lent) to
light candles. Our ship had arranged for local boats upstream of us to light
2011 candles and release them down the river. We passengers were taken
up to Captain Myo Lwin’s bridge and music played as this carpet of light
came slowly downriver towards us, breaking up into individual clusters
with the current and fi nally passing the ship in little fl oating baskets.
Th e next morning I was awakened by the sound of small motor
boats. Outside my cabin the river was full of families fi shing, working
with nets and poles while tiny overloaded river boats took people
upstream. Further north we encountered our fi rst sight of modern
Burma, a great river bridge constructed of steel and brick by the British.
We were arriving in the village of Shwe Kyet Yet. Th e eastern bank of the
river was lined with a temple complex that rose up dramatically from the
Irrawaddy and culminated in a large golden pagoda.