january-2012

Right: Mandalay Hill is an
old Buddhist pilgrimage site and
gives the city its name.
Below: a master carver turns
out another image of the Buddha
Shwe Kyet Yet means ‘the Golden Rooster Lands’, and
legend has it that the Buddha in one of his incarnations fl ew
here. It’s a delightful settlement full of temples and busy boat
traders, and the ideal place to disembark for Mandalay. After
lunch I took a bus that weaved through villages and along
causeways to the last royal capital. On the way to Mandalay we
paused at Th ein Nyo, a silk workshop where women still work
on 18th-century looms, and got out to wander down Kyauk
Sittan, or ‘Marble Carving Street’.
King Mindon, who made Mandalay his capital in 1857,
decreed at the same time that Kyauk Sittan should be where all
the statues of Buddha in his kingdom would be carved and all
these years later this is still the case. About 40 families have
workshops along this narrow busy road and, as only the master
carver from each workshop can carve the face of Buddha, the
street is lined with nearly fi nished statues with just a rough-hewn
marble block for a face, each waiting their turn for completion.
Modern Mandalay is the commercial capital of Upper
Burma, but the moated walls of its massive palace remain, as
does the Shwenandaw Monastery, a beautiful teak building
covered in carvings in which King Mindon died. At Mahamuni
Temple we saw a carving of the Buddha that is specially
venerated because it is supposed to have been carved in his
lifetime and therefore a good likeness. Over the years pilgrims
have applied so much gold leaf to the statue that he appears to
be covered in gold feathers. Th ere was a festival of the full
moon being celebrated at the Kyauk Taw Gyi Pagoda and the
PRIVATTRAVEL
streets were full of stalls selling sizzling food.
Music played from speakers and a woman with
a basket full of birds on her head tried to sell
me one for luck. I broke away from the crowds
and strolled through an old fairground that had
been constructed next to the Kuthodaw Pagoda
complex. Th is golden structure contains the
entire canon of Th eravada Buddhism on 729
marble slabs. For this reason the Burmese refer
to it as the World’s Largest Book. It was here at
the end of my trip that I caught sight of the
moon rising as pink thunder clouds loomed
over the golden pagoda. It was an eerie,
beautiful sight that seemed to belong not just
to another country, but another world. My own
personal Road to Mandalay had shown me
sights beyond anything I’d imagined all those
years ago listening to family recitals of Rudyard
Kipling’s famous poem. As I refl ected on
Mandalay, I couldn’t help but agree. Burma is
really quite unlike any land you know.
Seventy-Six
RUDYARD
KIPLING’S
MANDALAY
THEFIRSTSTANZA
By the old Moulmein
Pagoda, lookin’
eastward to the sea,
There’s a Burma girl
a-se in’, and I know she
thinks o’ me;
For the wind is in the
palm-trees, and the
temple-bells they say:
‘Come you back, you
British soldier; come
you back to Mandalay!’
Come you back to
Mandalay,
Where the old
Flotilla lay:
Can’t you ’ear their
paddles chunkin’ from
Rangoon to Mandalay?
On the road to
Mandalay,
Where the fl yin’fi
shes play,
An’ the dawn comes up
like thunder outer
China ’crost the Bay!
IMAGES©AXIOM