Myanmar Travelogue: An Aquintance With Budhism

I visited Myanmar for the first time in last July 2010 and will visit it again next week. When speaking about Myanmar or previously known as Burma I associates it with a beautiful heroine Aung San Su Kyi. She has won an election in the country in 1990, but lately was declared illegal by its military government. Since then the Military took over the government and maintains its military dictatorship. Thus Myanmar is the only country in the region which is still under military dictatorship to this day. In November election this year, Aung Sang Su Kyi was not allowed to compete in the election, and unsurprisingly the millitary backed parties won landslide about 80 percent of the vote. Well at least with the election, there would be hope for a democratic seed since the military regime promissed to implement the new constitution.

The feeling of anxiety had already on the air weeks before my departure. The country seem like not really welcoming vistors. This athmosphere was apparent during my visa application. Visa processing in Myanmar embassy was not so easy, we need to go directly to the embassy to get the form. Filling the application form we need to write an avidavit that we wont involve in any political activism in the country. They also asked for an introduction letter from our employer, which is a bit strange for me because they asume that everyone applying must be working. How about housewife or unemployed persons? Were they not allowed to apply even for tourist visa? As I intended to apply as an independent researcher and would like to have tourist visa, I refused to send the introduction letter. Well it was why until the day of my departure, a week later, my visa had not been granted :))

Fortunately at that time we can apply for visa on arrival by online application, one thing that has been dropped since september this year (for country which has embassy office have to apply directly to the embassy). I did online application and one travel company, apparently have a working connection with Tourist department, contacted me offering its help. Its pretty easy, we just departed and the travel agent would taking care of our visa upon our arrival and charged us with USD 50 (which is twice time more expensive than the normal processing). At this latest visit I followed what they want, including an introduction from the office, and in four days they gave me a visa.

After arrivinng in Yangon, I could see that people of this country was surprisingly the opposite to that of the government closeness. Myanmarese people were very friendly and open to the visitors. As a friend of mine Kyi Kyi comforted me when I was complaining about the visa difficulty : don't worry Tatak, they may dont want to host tourists but the people would happy to host you. I know this is trully correct. This beautiful friend of mine, Kyi Kyi Sein, was very nice. And so do many other Myanmarese people I met. I did notify that they are wonderfully friendly, religious, and willing to help others. I can not imagine how people who live under such long time military authoritarian regime could stay calm and happy. My other friend told me: we can do nothing anyway, so we love to have laugh to release our stress. Well may be thats indeed a good idea :))

cleaning service girls at swedagon pagoda working early in the morning

people are praying in front of Budha statute in bronze pagoda, budhist doesn't consider budha gautama as God as they actually have no god 



young people meditated at bronze pagoda



morning meditation in front of the pagoda

 As Myanmar considered as unfavoarable country due to its military regime dictatorship. The country faced embargo from many counties in the world and him self tightly close his door from outside influence. This has made the country economic less developed: old buildings with broken paint, dirty markets, a few malls or department stores, old cars on the streets and crowded public transport. As usual the poor people suffer the most. I saw many poor people around Yangon, but surprisingly beggars were not so many.

a monk want to ride a crowded public transport

normal sight of public transport in yangon

child workers

a little girl working at a fishing port

Among those old buildings there are some nice hotels. I stayed in Park View hotel, a nice hotel close to the centuries old Swedagon Pagoda. The hotel is clean and beautiful with reasonable price. The most important is it has very strategic location, which only less than 1 km away feom the Pagoda. So in the morning we can do jogging exercise around the serene garden of the pagoda, climb up to the pagoda to meditate or admire the beautiful golden budha. I do jogging every morning during my three days stayed and bought some roses for my self.

Parkview Hotel from a distance in one foggy morning

people did excercise around swedagon pagoda at every morning

guardian lions at the west gate of swedagon pagoda

tens of golden pillars guided us to the top of swedagon pagoda

a small meditation place at the swedagon pagoda garden

Oh yeah if you were in Yangon you would see many people sell various kind of flowers: rossess, jasmines, daisies, lilacs, and many other more. Myanmarese are mostly devout budhist and they love to buy flowers, not to beautify their houses but to give it as offering at the pagoda. At every pagoda you will see many people do meditation in front of budha statute. Some others poured waters to different kind of statutes. Kyi Kyi told me that in their belief system they believe that person born with different characters. People born on sunday would be having different character with they whom born on monday and so on. Some characters are goods while the others considered as destructive.

Someone poured water or gave flower offering to his sysmbol statute to remind them to be able to maintain the good side of their character and control the bad side of them. Pouring water means they hope that their mind would be as cool as the water. By giving flower offering they hope that their character would be as beautiful and having good scent as the flower.

selling jasmine

these people pour water to the head of budha statute to remind their mind to be cool

Well I know religious ritual could be various but the most important is how it could be sincerely practice. When we are practicing it we need to internalize the value within our own self, by doing so we would be able to tame our destructive emotions in our mind and soul. I just read Dalai Lama great book "being enlighten", its about budhist teaching I know and I do feel it very useful as it have many commonality with my Islamic belief actually.

these are different budhas from different ages, the eight budha was believed to reincarnate to the last Budha Sidharta Gautama 

On destructive emotions part the Dalai Lama said that it may emerge from something pleasant, with the name of lust. Yet it can also raise from something unpleasant wich we can call it as hatred. Both emotions are equally dangerous and may threaten our true happiness. By maintaining lust we tend to adore someone beyond his original quality, our perception to be 80-90 percent subjective. So do when we hate someone, our perception tend to be exagerated beyond his trully situation. Adoring or loving someone, which was triggered by lust, would ended in suffering as we tend to hope that he response as we do. Otherwise we will angry and suffer. So do hatred works in our mind and soul. When we hate someone we tend to be inconvient and disturbed even by his present only. Therefore the best way for us to get true everlasting happiness is by loving, caring people sincerely. Without hoping for equal feedback from the person.

a monk reciting scripture next to budha statutes at swedagon pagoda early morning

full concentration with the scripture

a monk feed the birds around swedagon pagoda

Well I do think that people of Myanmar is practicing budhist sincerely, and take it as their way of life. We can easily find monks around Yangon. It is said that in the country 2 percent of its population was monks. Monasteries are everywhere. Even lay people they also sometime do short time ascetism excercise, by wearing brown robes and frequently chanting budhist scripture. Kyi Kyi my friend was once time shave her hair and practicing for being a nun for two months.

two nuns at the swedagon pagoda one morning

Comparing to their budhist neighbouring countries as Cambodia or Thailand, definitely Myanmar people is more religious. I did sense that it is not only Budhist whom are practicing religion in their life  Muslims and the Christians that have significant number of followers in this country were also very religious. One evening I did pass by a mosque at one street of Yangon. I stop there to do my magrib prayer as well to get to know the people there. I saw many people went out from the mosque after praying. Many Muslims in the country have different look than their fellows Myanmarese. May be because most of the Muslims come from the state that share borders with Bangladesh.

a Myanmarese moslem

a mosque in front of scott market

I was lucky to have nice friend like Kyi Kyi in Yangon. She brought me around the city with her car. Buying a car in Myanmar was extremely expensive, as the government taxed it a lot. So absolutely only the rich can afford to buy car there in the country. Kyi Kyi was used to be tourist guide in her university days, so I was really really lucky to have her accompany me and tour me around the best part of the city.

We visited many pagodas and temples: silver pagoda, sule pagoda, reclining budha temple. We visited replica of royal ship in the middle of lake in the city. All of them are gracefully beautiful and lively of good spirit. I do love Yangon a lot.

this is imitation of the royal ship at the lake in the middle of Yangon, the sight at night

Myanmarese traditional costume displayed by two models

There is always good side of everything I believe. And for Myanmar I think, there is one good thing of being a close country for long time: the Myanmarese are getting more religious to escape from pressure. Secondly they are able to maintain their traditional culture due to their limit interaction to international community. You can find people walk around the city with their traditional sarong, women put white powder in their cheeks, ladies put beautiful flowers in their hair. Everything is lovely there, this is I think one of the best city in the region.

this lady wore tanaka, a white powder, at her cheeks to beauty her face

look at beautiful flower in her hair

this man chew bettel leaf to keep his teeth healthy

selling traditional hats in the market

When it comes for shopping, Scott market is like heaven. You can by many goodthings with cheap price: beautiful gems, jade, art works, silk, paintings and so on. There in the market you can even find Batik Keris imported from Indonesia.

traditional music instrument

beautiful paper umbrella available at scott market

gems with rationable price

imported batik keris from Indonesia

British colonial in Myanmar could be traced around the old city of yangon. There you can see city hall, sule pagoda, and some beautiful colonial buildings. British colonized Burma since 1886, and a brief Japanese occupation in mid 1940s gave a space for the Myanmarese to grab her independence in 1948. Sadly the true independence for the Myanmarese people live very shortly as the military regime soon took over the government.

colonial building

Kyi Kyi and me in the corner of old city of yangon

It only the food that I enjoyed the least. They were curry like foods: oily and fried stuffs. However there were some good restaurants and Kyi Kyi got me into one good chinese restaurant there that had very wonderful foods. I forgot the name but will soon find it later.

we look at the foods that not so appealing. look at the girl at the right side, she restlessly kept us cool by waving her fan



some wording similarity with Indonesian bahasa words (from the bottom: talo goreing dodo, daging rencia, talo gereing, ikan goreing, u dang goreing etc)

 
Well we can get delicious foods anywhere in the world easily, but you would never got food for your soul if you don't really looking it within your own self. So it is not food that I was looking for in Yangon. I considered it as my spiritual journey to get aquintance with Budhism, and thats the most important for me. I will learn every good teaching whomever taught that, and I will practice them to beautify my mind and soul. Hope we keep looking for this spiritual foods through our other journeys, and may peace and happiness be  always with us.

me taking picture with budha statute at strand hotel