A boat, a Monastery and a village

Whilst in Hsipaw, we took a boat along the river and then walked up to another small monastery.

Now I have a bit of a fear of being under water, which in theory shouldn't be an issue in a boat, but for me, it depends on how safe and stable I think the boat is, and whether I think I am at risk of falling in.

Strangely, after some initial anxiety, I had no worries about sitting on the side of the zodiacs in our polar trips, but these long narrow ones horrify me!  They dip far to low from side to side, especially when we are getting in and out of them, and I am convinced that either I will fall in or the whole boat will overturn.


So you can imagine that I wasn't best pleased when part way there, our engine died.  Our driver paddled over to the edge, but there we were, bobbing around helplessly and, in my head, precariously.  The other boat came back to pick us up, which necessitated an extra round of getting off and on again, and we finally made it to the start of our walk.

Once we got the short uphill bit out of the way, it was a very pleasant walk.  We met a lovely lady in her 60s who lived in a little wooden platform room here in the middle of nowhere.  She was very excited to meet us, telling us all that she had no teeth, and giving us little hugs.

We passed teak trees - which legally can only be planted by the government or monks and you get three year in prison for cutting down.  We also saw pineapple plantations, where we were told that the ones here are the best in Myanmar.

Once we arrived at the monastery, we had the chance to taste the pineapple and it was indeed excellent, very sweet and juicy.

After a brief stop with the monks, we went back to the boats and back down the river, stopping off at a small village called Chin Lone.

The village has no roads to it, so can only be reached either by boat, or on the once a day train.  They collect their water from wells, and some of them have solar panels to supplement the unreliable electricity supply, but these limited amenities didn't stop at least one of the homes from having a satellite dish too.

We watched the locals putting their harvest of corn cobs through a machine to take off the kernels, and we were able to take a look at their lovely homes with the woven bamboo walls.

Hsipaw

The Temple

The Bawgyo Monastery

Having reached our Monastery campsite late the night before, we hadn't really had a chance to explore our surroundings, so we did that the next day. The Bawgyo Monastery itself is a simple affair, home to around thirty Theravada Buddhist monks, and a few cats and dogs that gathered around us when we had meals and the dogs ran around barking at night.


But the temple is another matter. A huge structure of mirrored glass, it looks pretty impressive.  It is apparently the most important religious place in Shan State. There were certainly a lot of offerings left there, mostly selection baskets containing Amongst other things, flowers, coconuts, bags of popcorn and little paper decorations.

Of course, being a female, I was not allowed inside the inner area where the Buddha image sits - apparently letting in women may be too much of a temptation for the celibate monks, which is also why we have to cover up more in the rest of the temple too - but Nic went in and I could watch him on the screens outside.






Do note the chicken like thing on top of the big column, which is in fact a Hamsa, a mythological bird that can fly very long distances. It features strongly in the temples here. The message is that, despite the Hamsa's strength and power, it will still die one day, so it serves as a reminder that every person, no matter their wealth or status, will also die and if they are hoping to move closer to the prized state of enlightenment and Nirvana, then they must live their life well and follow the Buddha teachings.


The monks themselves were generally a little shy of us, but they would normally return a 'mingalabar' (hello), and some would loiter around to watch us.  They were normally happy to have a photo taken too. It wasn't just the monks that found us intriguing though.

A few groups of Burmese people visiting the monastery were fascinated by our presence and some of the women were bold enough to come over and say hello while we were cooking.  They seemed quite interested to see what we were cooking and how we were preparing the food.