Lars is up early this morning to get up and see the sunrise at the Golden Rock. But he snoozed a bit, so was running late. It was a quick walk up the steep path to the Golden Rock, but fortunately it was cool in the fresh morning air. It took just 25 minutes to reach the Golden Rock. Coming and seeing it in the early morning was magical and quite different than at sunset. The place is still filled with people - seems like there are worshippers here 24 hours a day. Some even seemed to have slept on the complex surrounding the rock.
The sky is clearer - some of the haze seems to have vanished over night. It is a wonderful sight to see how the rock changes in the glow of the rising sun, as the backdrop goes from the black of night to dark blue to orange and then light powder blue. The rock glowed bright much more so than during sunset.
Some time was spent wandering around the complex taking in all the sights, sounds and smells. Bells and gongs were being rung. There was the general background chatter of the crowds. The smell of the many burning offerings was almost over bearing at times. A huge group of worshippers had set up below the rock and had set out a whole series of candles in some form of message.
After wandering around the rock from all directions, a quick check was made on what the pilgrims camp looked like in the morning light. Smoke was rising from the many fires that were preparing the early morning tea and breakfast.
On the way out, a stop was made at one of the look out points over looking the rock from a distance. While taking some pictures, an elderly monk, who was rearranging his robes, starting chatting. He was interested in our home country and wanted to know what the current exchange rate is to the US dollar. There was another interesting encounter on the way out. A small group of ladies stopped, asking for help with their camera. After some confusion, it turned out that they wanted help with changing the film. They thought that they had finished their role of 36 exposures as the counter stood at 36. But the film seemed to not have re-wound. In vain, we tried explaining in English that it was not yet finished. So in the end, we just had them line up and snapped off a few more pictures until the film re-wound. Now they seemed to understand. The role of film was quickly changed and we were glad that they had not ruined their exposed film by opening the back of the camera prematurely.
A quick walk down the mountain back to the hotel to join up with Jacqui and her mom. After a quick shower and wash, we had breakfast in the hotel and got ready to head off. As we carried our bags the short distance down to the truck stop, we were once again pestered by the many porters - but the walk is just too short and it is downhill.
Once down at the truck, we have our same headache as yesterday in getting on the truck and heading off. They really want to make sure that the truck is full and cannot take any more people. And they stuff them in. But we can take this opportunity to wander around the grounds to see what is happening. We watch with some amusement as a couple of kids are carried down the mountain from the Golden Rock in the baskets used by the porters to carry the bags. Glad that they made it safely.
After they have finished stuffing all the people in that they can (and they fit in a few extra rows that we were not expecting), we started down the winding road. What a ride - we just hoped that the breaks did not fail. But despite the exciting ride, the passenger sitting behind Lars seemed to fall asleep and rested his head on Lars' leg. What to do .... Just before we reach the base camp, the truck pulls into a shelter where there are people asking for donations - great location.
We get to the base camp just after 10 AM. Now that we are at lower elevation, the temperature has risen. Boy, was it nice up on the mountain. We will miss that cool air. Well, we are glad to see that our driver is waiting for us. We load up the car and head off to our next destination. We are going south to Mawlamyine. As we head further south, the roads slowly start to deteriorate.
This is despite the many road crews that we see working on the roads. There are large groups of people, men, women and children, working on a short stretch of road at a time. It is all done manually. They have piles of lose rocks that they sort and then spread evenly on the road surface. After this is leveled, they bring the melted tar to seal the road. The tar is melted in oil drums heated up by burning wood. It is hot, dusty, sticky work. And for this, we are told, they are paid Kyat 500 per day. Bear in mind that we have been getting over Kyat 1,000 per US dollar when we exchange it, so they must really need this extra income.
We have a quick lunch break at one of the food shops in Thaton - the food is not bad, but it is a bit hard to avoid looking at the kitchen on the way to the toilet. Best to have eaten first.
About half an hour outside Thaton, our driver turns off the road and says that there is an interesting pagoda located here. It is known as Bayin Nyinaungku and is a cave pagoda. We walk through some marsh land to get to the base of a huge limestone pinnacle jutting out of the flat farmland around us. We are greeted at the entrance by some monks and after taking off our shoes, we make our way up some steep stairs to the entrance to a cave. The cave is filled with Buddha images.
But that is not all - you can go past the entrance to the cave, into a dark passageway behind. Here we walked some way down the dark walkway observing a few more Buddha statues, many shrouded in curtains of stalactites that cover the cave walls, before turning back. It is quite an interesting place. Once we leave this cave pagoda, it is a bit over two more hours of driving to get to our destination. Along the way, the road gets very bad in spots and we make slow progress. We have to cross a number of major rivers along the way and the bridges are carefully guarded by soldiers. We often have to stop for checks. There are also lots of toll booths along the way. We cannot quite figure out of these are official toll booths, or just villagers collecting money from whomever passes through.
We arrive in Mawlamyine at 4 PM and find our way to our hotel. The one that we wanted to stay in is full, so we are forced to stay in the government run hotel. It is clear that the government owns and runs it. Pretty basic service and standards. Not well kept. Things not working. We check in and drop off our bags and the guide takes us for some sightseeing.
This city was at one time the capital of British Burma, but not much is left over from that time period. The most interesting sights are the row of pagodas arranged on the spine of a ridge overlooking the city and the river below. So we head up there. Our guide takes us to see a total of four pagodas up there, namely Kyaikthanlan, Mahamuni, U Khanti and U Zina. After some many pagodas, they all seem to blur together and we are glad that we missed a few others scattered up there.
The highlight of the evening's tour was actually very simple - going and watching the sunset over the city and river below from a well located scenic stop. Due to the heavy haze, the sunset was restricted to a large orange ball that slowly made its way down and below the horizon. While this was going on we observed some of the small and large boat traffic making its way up, down and across the wide river below.
Then it was dinner time. We wanted some local food - but this seemed harder to find than expected. Most of the restaurants and food stalls seemed to sell Chinese food. Nice, but not what we wanted in Myanmar. After stopping off at a few places and asking lots of directions, we found a small spot on a dark street. We were the only customers, but we quickly made friends with the owner. He was a lively, funny and friendly man who did not speak too much English, but we had a fun time figuring our what to order and eat. His wife emerged with several dishes and we had a nice, filling meal.
Once dinner was finished, we decided to head back to the hotel. The town seemed dead and dark, so we did not really want to spend much time wandering the streets. Once back in our hotel, we washed up and went to bed early. We have a long day of driving ahead tomorrow.