MYANMAR ⸨A Travelogue⸩ ~ limwhow & SereneXMM

[limwhow]

Been a while since we've posted.
Just got back from a lovely trip to Myanmar.
Would love to share some photos of our trip to this beautiful land...

MYANMAR

A Simple Travelogue
8-14 January 2011

It's been a hiatus since our last trip with all our good friends with SgTrekker.
And knowing how eager all of us were towards this trip, it came as no surprise
to find our group all readied and heavily prepared, equipment-wise, for this
once in a life time trip.

Here, I have simply put up our photos in order of travel with some anecdotes.
As per my personal aim always, to remember the trip by.

To viewers who may have seen these photos before elsewhere do bear with us as we would like to share with the viewers of this forum.
Thank you all in advance for viewing.

Limwhow & SereneXMM

[limwhow]

Here is a map of our route of travel to Myanmar.. the various cities and towns...

[limwhow]

T R A V E L O G U E

Myanmar - A small Inroduction

A lovely country, steep in history and culture.
Like a beautiful maiden just awakened from a long beauty sleep but with her eyes half-open, and both arms stretched out in a long yawn.
Many of us have only heard of Myanmar, but a couple of fortunate ones amongst us have actually previously set foot on this land.
In fact, many still refers to her with her old name, Burma. Historically, I personally think there is nothing wrong in doing so. In fact, the name Burma conjures a romantic notion of nostalgia, much like calling the Indian city Bombay instead of Mumbai.
And for some strange reasons, after only 7 days in this lovely country, I find myself uttering the name Burma a tad more than Myanmar… haha… must be the magic of the old days casting its spell on me.

[limwhow]

Geography
Myanmar is bordered by 5 countries.

• On the western border: Bangladesh (a small stretch) & India
• On the north and north-eastern border: Yunnan of China
• On the eastern border: Laos (again, a small stretch)
• On the southern-eastern border: Thailand

I have personally (emphasize: personally) always viewed Myanmar as the crossroad between India, China and Indochina, very much like how Turkey during the Ottoman Empire between Europe and the Middle East was.
And close scrutiny of Myanmar's unique geographical position would give one an understanding of its unique cultural heritage.

History
I know no more history of Myanmar than my fellow travel mates. And I certainly cannot claim otherwise.
During this trip, I am most happy to meet up with one or two members of our team who are avid historians and who are very well versed in the historical and philosophical developments of this country.

But still, here goes a little bit of basic histories.

Early history - 11th Century
In 3rd century BC, the Mons came from eastern India to Burma. They were most likely the first civilization in Myanmar to have embraced Theravada Buddhism. The Mons built their kingdom in Thaton, and inhabited the lower Burma along the Irrawady River (now known as Ayeryawaddy River).
About 200 years later, the Pyu came from the Tibeto-Burman plateau and they inhabited parts of central Burma. But their empire were under siege from marauders from China up north, and declined in time.
In the 8th century, the Burmans (Bamar) arrived from the eastern parts of the Himalaya. They founded their Kingdom in Bagan in 849AD and after that came centuries of war with the Mons down south.
In the 11th century, the Burman King Anawrahta took over the rule of the empire and as a fiery ruler, invaded the Mon Kingdom of Thaton in Lower Burma, after being spurned by the Mon King Manuha.
Despite his aggressive nature, King Anawrahta was a strong follower of Buddhism and during his rule, he did much to spread the religion to his people and the land around. It was during this Golden Period of Bagan's history when many temples were being build around the plains.

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Our itinerary

As we travelled to four destinations for this trip of ours.
It became obvious right from the beginning that it would require long hours on the roads had we travelled this way. Thus domestic flights from city to city became the only viable means of transport for this team of photography enthusiasts, otherwise we would spend more time sleeping on the coach instead of in hotel rooms.
We travelled to four destination cities in 7 days. In fact, Lonely Planet Burma called this route the Classic Route.

Day 1 - Yangon (Rangoon)
Botataung Pagoda
Shwedagon Pagoda (The Golden Pagoda)

Day 2 - Bagan
Horse Cart ride to Nyang U market
Cruise on the Ayeryawaddy River
Visit to the fishing village

Day 3 - Bagan
Sunrise at Myengon Pahto (Temple)
Shwezigon Pagoda
Ananda Temple
Htilominlo Pagoda
Manuha Temple
Sunset at Okaung (Brick Monastery - a ruin now no longer in use)

Day 4 - Mandalay
Mahagondayon Monastery - the monastery with a thousand monks- for a view into the lives of novice monks.
Sagaing Hill with the Caves of Buddhas
Sunset at U Bein Bridge

Day 5 - Heho, the gateway town to Inle Lake and from there to Inle.
Jetty from Heho across Inle Lake to Inle Resort.
Jumping Cat Monastery
Long neck tribe
Sunset shoot of Leg-rowers at Inle Lake

Day 6 & 7 - Yangon
Arrive at Yangon - model shoot at People Square And People Park

[limwhow]

Day 1 - Singapore to Yangon

limwhow #01
Early in the morning of 8th Jan 2011, we gathered at Terminal 2 of Changi Airport at 6am.
Funnily, the counter lady started giving our team members a little bit of trouble right from the start.
I personally call this Murphy's Law in action!
Haha....!

[limwhow]

limwhow #02
This time round, Melvin was our Tour Leader.
And a piece of well-intentioned warning about the 'Think Tank touting gang members' in the team from Adrian to Melvin... Not unwarranted at all.
[Haha... just speech and thought bubbles injected with some humour... all my own doing, all my own doing...]

[limwhow]

limwhow #03
As always, LowLights and I will try our best to out-do each other when it comes to the weight of our hand (or perhaps we should term it - biceps) carried luggage.
This time round he won over me by half a kg. Big deal!



The names of the individual members are as per Nick on the other forum. But for convenience, they will remain as such.

[limwhow]

limwhow #04
These fellows ah... they simply cannot fathom the difficult life of a record-photographer.
Shoot also not correct, don't shoot also cannot.
Shoot at inappropriate time also kena scolding, forgot to shoot at the important moment also kena hum-tum.
When shooting the head, cannot shoot from the front, the sides and the top. Must shoot from the back to keep identities secret. wah lau...
What a tough life for us record photographers...

[limwhow]

limwhow #05
As always, a trip with SgTrekker must start with a healthy breakfast at the ariport.

[limwhow]

limwhow #06
Hmmm... only our good Ang Moh friend, the Giant Scotsman is as understanding towards me as can be, when it comes to record photography.
But still, I just can't help but make fun of him a little bit here. I am sure he and our good friend Daoyin won't mind.. Haha...


Names of the individual members are as per Nick in the other forum. But for convenience, they shall remain as it is.

[limwhow]

limwhow #07
Touched down finally at Yangon International Airport.
First thing that struck all of us as the plane was landing was big droplets of rain on the window!
The SgTrekker Rain-Curse has begun even before we have landed! And the rest of the first day was wet and gloomy. Hehe... what a start to our trip...

[limwhow]

limwhow #08
Actually the story is damn funny here.
Cecil was sitting somewhere at the back of the plane, but he left his heavy camera bag in front somewhere near LowLights'g seat.
So how? Ended up LowLights had to carry his camera bag out of the aircraft for Cecil.
Kao Beh Kao Boo... he! Hahaha...

[limwhow]

limwhow #09
I can't remember which one of our team member actually noticed it. But he cleverly observed that although the vehicles are driving on the right side of the roads (as opposed to us back home here in Singapore where we drive on the left), the motor vehicles in Myanmar come with both right-hand drive and left-hand drive models!
My, how confusing it must be to the drivers who may be driving on the right side in one car, only to be driving on the left side in another car.
We reckoned that these may have been because there were quite a sizable number of re-sale cars from other countries in Myanmar.
Here is a good example - our coach. It must have been from Japan as it's chasis was full of Japanese words.

[limwhow]

imwhow #10
En Route to our hotel, Melvin took us to the Summit Parkview Hotel in Yangon to exchange our US$ for the Myanmar Kyat.

"If we change our Kyat here in Yangon, we would get the best deal US$1 = 820 Kyat. The further we move up north, the lousier the exchange rates, as lousy at US$1 to 750 Kyat," advised Melvin.

But little did he know that at the end of the day, he would be tricked into changing money for ALL 23 of us - it must have been the nightmare of his lifetime...
Again, damn funny here.
Initially, to safe us trouble, he said - there will be five of us as representative to change money for all of us. But after that Cecil and LowLights sort of cajoled him into helping all of us change money.
Melvin 乖乖 obliged... haha... what a mistake yah!!!
Holding stacks and stacks of Myanmar Kyat notes, walking gingerly back to the coach.


limwhow #11
And just to prove that Melvin did his job well, here is a GPS-tagged Google Earth location indicating the exact spot at the Summit ParkView Hotel where Melvin was, changing the money for us.


As an aside, it is not impossible not to miscount when you have a whole stack of money on hand.
And miscount he did, this Melvin... and we all laughed until Peng!
But I gave him back the extra 2000 Kyat he gave me... hahaha...!

[limwhow]

I still remember that morning we arrived at Yangon.
It wasn't as hot as we thought it would have been.
And the Burmese Guide U Ko Ko Aye, a 30+ year old quite good looking man, took the microphone while we were on the coach.
And I was personally surprised at his command of the English language.
In restrospect, I shouldn't have... Burma was a British colony for some time, very similar to what Singapore was.

Anyway, about one hour later, we arrived at our hotel, the Traders Hotel.
A very interesting, now I must say this, quite a good 5 Star hotel of fantastic standard.
There was even a United Nation counter at the reception.
I am not sure if that was for whatever political purpose, but it certainly made the hotel look important.
So here we were...

limwhow #12
... at Traders Hotel, awaiting our room allocation... but the rooms were not ready.
So we all were just getting ready to leave for lunch...


Here are two videos of all of us waiting to leave the hotel for lunch.

[limwhow]

No lunch yet?
So where did we go for lunch?
Well, our destination was at this Western Park Royal Hotel by the side of Royal Kandawgyi Lake.
But as Murphy Law has it, cock ups will cock up and the Guide Ko Ko Aye did cock up... Hahaha..
He brought us all to another hotel next to the lake, we all dismounted, all lined up and entered the nice restaurant, hungry and ready to eat.
Then he realised that it was the wrong restaurant and hustled all of us up the coach and off we set again... this time finally to the correct hotel..

I told SereneXMM way before our Burma trip this: "Listen to me and remember this, SereneXMM... for our Myanmar trip.. whatever that can cock up will cock up.."
Little did I realise that I was proven correct so early on the trip... hahahaha...!

limwhow #13
What better time to distribute the hard-changed Myanmar Kyat notes than during lunch time, after a sumptuous meal?


Those not privy to the situation (e.g. the Myanmar waiters and waitresses) may be wondering if Melvin was the Loan Shark dealing with his customers... __________________

[limwhow]

Day 1 - Yangon: Botataung Pagoda

limwhow #14
After lunch, our first stop was the famous Botataung Pagoda, the first of the good number of temples that we will visit.
The story behind Botataung is that about 2000 years ago, the King received 8 strands of Buddha's hair and two Buddha's body relics from India.
And as the relics arrived, there were 1000 military officers all lined up along the bank of the Yangon River to escort the relics.
Thus the name Bo (Military Officers) Tataung (one thousand).
Botataung was completely destroyed on the 8th November 1943 when a bomb from the Allied Air Force landed directly on it.
It was subsequently rebuilt.
What was so good about the Botataung was, although it is no where as grand as the Shwedagon, it was down-to-earth, and much less crowded, offering the visitors a chance to roam around and come close to the locals in its premises.

This is a record shot of the chamber just as we passed the entrance of the Botataung.

[limwhow]

limwhow #15
Another record shot of the main Stupa within Botataung. Not for anything but merely to show that it was rainy and gloomy and dark.
Sheeewww... what a start to our photography trip! Shooting rain and dark clouds!

[limwhow]

Actually, this Botataung Pagoda was really not big.
In fact, it was a little smaller than I had expected. Certainly being small had its advantages like I mentioned in my previous post.
But honestly, this being our first destination upon arrival we all haven't warmed up yet. So how? Stupid stupid walk around first lor...
SereneXMM kept telling me:

"Eh, I don't know what to shoot leh.. How ah? No 灵感 (inspiration)..."

Yah.. I know.. Same here. But no choice, right?
Just walk around, don't stay too long at one angle, and keep moving lor.
That's the problem with my SereneXMM. She is a lingerer.. whenever we go overseas shooting, she would linger and linger at one place and shoot and shoot until everyone has finished the whole place and we would still be stuck at one site.
So i got to keep pushing her... in as gentle and as subtle a manner as i could..
A tough job I have there...

limwhow #16

[limwhow]

Now this part is interesting.
I have been wanting to put up my thoughts but somehow on the other side, where it is a communal thread, I cannot say too many things for fear of monopolising the thread.
Here, thanks to Poseidon's and Zeus's encouragement, I am able to pen down a lot of my own opinion with little fear of being hum-tumed.. haha..
Anyway back to the main issues.
Here, once we arrived at Botataung, we were instructed by Melvin to take off our shoes and either leave them on the bus or hang around us in plastic bags.
Both SereneXMM and I did just that - hung them in plastic bags on our belts.
It was a strange feeling... walking around bare-feet.
How often had we done that - outside of home back in Singapore?
I don't remember doing that for a long time. And yet, right from the beginning in Myanmar, we were trudging carefully on cement floor, tiled floor and gravel floor bare-feet..!
What a funny feeling hahaha...!


limwhow #17
Where's everybody? Oh, they are outside the Botataung discussing their catch of the day.

[limwhow]

Here is a photo by SereneXMM.


SereneXMM #1
All of us was fascinated by the birds flying around the Pagoda. And everyone started shooting at it...

[limwhow]

What is new on this trip is - I have brought along my Garmin Oregon 450 GPS.
It is a very handy GPS that I have recently acquired and brought along for my recent trip to Japan.
Anyway cutting the story short, this GPS has already got worldwide basemap pre-loaded and it is basically very easy for me to get overlays from google map and paste it onto the GPs and I can see the streets and the buildings around which I walk.
I can choose to paste street maps or relief maps from Google.
So it was great that I could do this and synchronise all the timing to the second on all our 6 cameras and be able to sync the GPS coordinates onto most of my photos.
The good thing is - it runs on two AA size batteries and each set of batteries can last 10 hours.

So there we go..

limwhow #19

Just a map of where we stayed at Traders Hotel (in the pink rectangle at the upper left hand corner) to the Botataung Pagoda (the other pink rectangle at the lower right hand corner).
Actually every place is very near to each other... certainly within walking distance.

[limwhow]

SereneXMM #2
Here's my humble shot taken from another angle.

[limwhow]

Here is a shot of the facts of life in Myanmar - no shoes. No shoes. No shoes... Hahaha..

limwhow #20

[limwhow]

Day 1 - Yangon: Shwedagon Zedi Daw - The Golden Pagoda

The Shwedagon Pagoda is the most magnificent pagoda, and certainly the most famous one in Myanmar.
It is a 98-metre stupa and the whole complex is located on the west of Kandawgyi Lake, on Singuttara Hill. It is the most sacred Buddhist pagoda for the Burmese with relics of the past four Buddhas enshrined within:

• the staff of Kakusandha,
• the water filter of Koṇāgamana,
• a piece of the robe of Kassapa and
• eight hairs of Gautama, the historical Buddha

Legend has it that the Shwedagon is 2500 years old. But from Archeological data, *it was determined that The Shwedagon was constructed either 14th ot 15th Century and what we see today is the result of many re-constructions since. Compared to Bagan temples which are older and which started from 1000 AD, Yangon (and thus Shwedagon) came along later as a centre of any significance.

The story goes like this - there were two merchant brothers from India who were fortunate to have received the relics from Sakyamuni Buddha Himself.
The brothers arrived at Burma and were received by the local king, King Okkalapa. With the King's help, the Shwedagon was built on top of Singuttara Hill.
The Shwedagon has a very tumultous history. In 1608, it was plundered by the Portugese explorer Philip de Brito e Nicote who forcefully removed the original Big Golden Bell, the Dammazedi Bell.
And during the First and the Second Ango-Burmese Battle, it was occupied, pilfered and used for military purposes.

Of course, the most recent event was the peaceful protest by the monks in 2008 against the ruling junta. But this is not the platform for discussion of this and it shall be just left at that.

So with this brief introduction of Shwedagon, I post my couple of record shots:


limwhow #21
Here, Melvin was giving us the last instruction before we dispersed into the grand complex of The Shwedagon Pagoda.
As could be seen, we were all footwear-less and I remember SK1968 was the first person to KB KB already... Hahaha...


I still remember very well this scene here.
Stupid Melvin (just in jest only lah huh...) asked all of us to take off our shoes right at the bottom of the tarmac slope.
And we walked aaaalll the way up bare-feet again, against solid, pokey ground..
Wah lau eh... this one really takes the cake ah.. Hahaha...!

[limwhow]

limwhow #22
Of course, classic limwhow style... I can't let go of a chance to record the shoe-less state of everyone of us here.

[limwhow]

Here is a record shot of the entrance to the Shwedagon Pagoda.
Again, we just want to remember it by.
There were rows of shops by the side of the steps up. And many opportunities for portraiture shots.


Another record shot by SereneXMM of our brother LowLights.

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Here is another one of SereneXMM's shot.
Shot just outside the entrance to Shwedagon where all of us were having briefing by Melvin.
The sun was just starting to stream its golden light through an opening in the clouds after a dark, gloomy and rainy day...
And we were all excited because we knew that the golden light is coming...
Quick... run!

[limwhow]

SereneXMM #3
Here is one of the boys who was studying and selling his wares at the same time.
Hard-working wor!

[limwhow]

I have two shots of the Shwedagon, both in Infrared R72.
Here is the first.

limwhow #23

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limwhow #24

Another IR shot with R72.
The lighting was already pretty dark and the colours weren't as rich as it should be had there been more light.
As we all know, IR need as much light as possible.

[limwhow]

SereneXMM says: "Here's my different angle shots of Shwedagon Pagoda."

SereneXMM #4

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SereneXMM #6

[limwhow]

I think despite the poor weather in the daytime on this first day, we were lucky because at 5pm when we started walking into the Shwedagon, the clouds open up and the setting sun sent its streams of rays into the Pagoda complex.
And for the first time since setting foot in Myanmar, we had the Golden Light at Golden Hour with blue sky.


limwhow #25
This one was shot on tripod with GND4 + GND8 filters stacked together. SereneXMM, myself and Melvin all said "Wah!" when the picture came up on the LCD because the GND effectively took away the glare from the bright lights atop the roof.

[limwhow]

limwhow #26
This one, by the time I set the tripod again, took aim and fired, the last light was gone and the blue sky was no longer there.
Of course, also taken into consideration that I was facing the side of the sky opposite to where the sun was setting. Thus no blue sky.

[limwhow]

limwhow #27
Just a record video of our walk around Shwedagon for all of us to remember by...
There happened to be a group of female devotees chanting on our left side.

[limwhow]

limwhow #28
By the time 7pm came around, we were all pretty dead tired already.
"What? First day only and you guys are dead tired liao? Unbelievable! How to last 7 days like this?!"
Well, here we were all sitting at the entrance waiting as our guide U Ko Ko Aye finally succeeded in searching and rescuing Angela from the depth of the complex before we set off for our coach.

[limwhow]

SereneXMM #7

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SereneXMM #8

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Day 1 - Yangon: Dinner at Karaweik Palace Restaurant

Ok, well we all had a fun day. Tiring but fun.
We moved out from Shwedagon Pagoda to our dinner destination at Karaweik Palace Restaurant.

Anyway, Karaweik Palace Restaurant is fashioned after a Royal Barge and it's a 'floating' restaurant on the southern bank of the Royal Kandawgyi Lake in Yangon.
This Kandawgyi Lake is man-made too.
Buffet dinner was good - a great mix of Burmese, Japanese, International food.
The performance could have been better. But in view of the entourage that is (probably) less exposed to international standards, I guess we can't blame them.

limwhow #27
First sight of the Karaweik Palace Restaurant.

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limwhow #28

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limwhow #29

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Anyway, there was dinner dance performance.
I must say that this was an interesting performance being the first time I hear Burmese music.
It sounded Indian-ish at times, the intonation, the tunes... and I was not surprise, understanding the closeness of the Burmese culture to Indian influence, although it has been said that Burmese is more of a Tibeto-Burman language.
Well, here are some shots of the performance.

limwhow #30

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limwhow #33
... and this fellow! Phew... even our Scotsman asked me if 'he' is a man or a woman...!

[limwhow]

Just for memory-sake, I have added in a link to one of our team member's photo.
One which showed all of us lining our cameras on the dining table that night...
Taken by David Low, aka Divinemoment.

http://david-low.smugmug.com/photos/...2_DyL6h-X2.jpg
Courtesy of David Low (Divinemoment)

Following dinner, we all went just outside the restaurant to shoot some night scene.
Here is a record shot of those fellows shooting in the dark.


Here are some of my shots from the bank of the Royal Kandawgyi Lake.

[limwhow]

We all had a nice sleep, nice restful sleep that night in Traders Hotel.
The next morning...


T R A V E L O G U E

Day 2 - Yangon To Bagan

The story goes on like this:

The morning started off real early with all of us dragging our tired bodies to gather at the lobby of Traders Hotel at 4:45am before moving out.
Our domestic flight was scheduled to take off at 6:15am.
Not long into the coach trip, we sensed something wrong because the coach's engine was dragging and the driver had difficulty engaging the gear.
"Something is wrong...," thought those of us seated in the front...


limwhow #34


I could hear Melvin muttering quietly under hie breath to Ko Ko Aye about getting 10 taxis to ferry all of us and the luggage quickly to the airport before we missed our flight.
What a great job, Professor Murphy!

The driver, his assistant, our guide Ko Ko Aye started ding-dong-ing to and fro the front and the back of the coach and uttering in Burmese.
Those of us in front could only hazard our guesses but those right at the back of the coach could see clearly what was wrong...
But it was with an ingenius act of Burmese fire fighting skill that the driver managed to temporarily solve the problem...
He blew at the engine parts to remove some dust particles, or so I heard... Haha...

[limwhow]

limwhow #35