28. July 2001 10:46
by Rene Pallesen
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Schwedagon was a holy place with extremely large and beautiful temples.
To get to Schwedagon, you had to travel up very long escalators. I took this photo because these escalators were the only escalators I had seen during my whole trip in Burma. As Schwedagon is a very religious place for the locals, I guess to travel up these escalators give the sense of travelling to a higher and holier place.
The temples at Schwedagon were really impressive.
I was told that collectively, these temples were built with 39 tonnes of pure gold.
At the end of the day, the locals all contributed in cleaning the place. They clean all the tiles and are very organised.
Here is the 'Big Stuba'. All that gold...
Up close, the temples are a glorious sight. Especially at night!
Can you see those lights at the base of the Big Stuba? Each is a 'mini temple', illuminating a Buddha.
You can really see the magnificence of these temples!
There are lots of rules or procedures about the way one prays to the Buddhas - very complicated to an outsider!
I saw a couple of the buddhists pour water onto the statue of the Buddha. Depending on the day of the week a buddhist is born, the individual would pour the respective number of bowls for the day of the week. A buddhist believes that by doing this, it would bring them luck.
At Schwedagon, I noticed there were hardly any tourists, mostly locals paying homage.
Can you see how intricate the carvings are in the foreground?
The monks rung this bell to announce prayer times.
It brought luck to ring the bell.
For example, if you were born on the 1st day of the week, you rung it once to bring good luck. If you were born on the 6th day of the week, you rung it 6 times etc.
28. July 2001 10:45
by Rene Pallesen
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Burma/Myanmar surprised me in many ways. I would have liked to see more of Burma than I did, but due to military restrictions, I only had access to certain parts of Burma and was not able to see any of the indigenous people along the border as I had initially planned.Burma is a very poor country. It was difficult to travel... travelling 100 kilometres could sometimes take up to 6 hours.
One of the most beautiful places in Burma, I thought, was Bagan.
I took many photos in Burma, and tried to order them in the following pages:
- I spent some days in Yangon, which had a heavy colonial influence.
- Schwedagon was another place full of temples, a place laden with pure gold.
- Whilst travelling, I could not help notice how influenced the people were by religion, and Burma's politics is one thing an outsider should not get involved in.
- I was fascinated by what the Burmese used for medicine. They also had some rather interesting local fruit.
- Mandalay also had an interesting colonial battle history. Whilst there, I watched the “Mandalay Marionettes”.
- With the restrictions up north, I did not get to see much. But you would not believe how the Burmese play volleyball!
- Finally, at Mt Popa, I went there to see a local monastry, and saw a lot of wild monkeys there.
Yangon ( Rangoon ) . . .
This is the city-centre of Rangoon. Rangoon is the capital city of Burma.
It is actually a pretty big city if you compare it with other parts of Burma on a map.
Most of the buildings are from the old colonial period when the British occupied Burma. Unfortunately they have not been very well-maintained.
Can you see the green bits on the clocktower?
If you are thinking it is vegetation growing on it, you are right! There is quite a bit growing on most of the buildings in the city.
There were so many pigeons!
I managed to catch a pictures of a pigeon flying mid-air - can you see the blurred grey thing near the tree in the middle of the photo?
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Created: 22 Sept 2001