maps to the side

sorry everyone have moved the maps to the side to see how it works, the posts are just down a bit further down but the maps actually took a lot of effort, and I wanted everyone to be able to see where we had been!  Thanks for watching (been readin  way tooo much terry pratchett just finished 37)

Last day Yangon - Myanmar

Great Dagon Pagoda and the Golden Pagoda, is a 99 metres (325 ft) 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 strands of hair from Gautama, the historical Buddha. 

The Shwedagon Pagoda has existed for more than 2,600 years, making it the oldest historical pagoda in Burma and the world. According to tradition, two merchant brothers, Taphussa and Bhallika, from the land of Ramanya, met the Lord Gautama Buddha during his lifetime and received eight of the Buddha's hairs in BC 588. The brothers traveled back to their homeland in Burma and, with the help of the local ruler, King Okkalapa of Burma, found Singuttara Hill, where relics of other Buddhas preceding Gautama Buddha had been enshrined. When the king opened the golden casket in which the brothers had carried the hairs, incredible things happened^.   There was a tumult among men and spirits ... rays emitted by the Hairs penetrated up to the heavens above and down to hell ... the blind beheld objects ... the deaf heard sounds ... the dumb spoke distinctly ... the earth quaked ... the winds of the ocean blew ... Mount Meru shook ... lightning flashed ... gems rained down until they were knee deep ... all trees of the Himalayas, though not in season, bore blossoms and fruit”

According to some historians and archaeologists, however, the pagoda was built by the Mon people between the 6th and 10th centuries CE.

The stupa fell into disrepair until the 14th century, when the Mon king Binnya U of Bago had the stupa rebuilt to a height of 18 m (59 ft). It was rebuilt several times and reached its current height of 99 m (325 ft) in the 18th century. A century later, Queen Shinsawbu (1453–72), Dhammazedi's mother-in-law, raised its height to 40 m (131 ft). She terraced the hill on which it stands, paved the top terrace with flagstones, and assigned land and hereditary slaves for its maintenance. She yielded up the throne to Dhammazedi in 1472, retiring to Dagon; during her last illness she had her bed placed so that she could rest her dying eyes upon the gilded dome of the sacred fane. The Mon face of the Shwe Dagon inscription catalogues a list of repairs beginning in 1436 and finishing during Dhammazedi's reign. It mentions Queen Shinsawbu under a Pali name of sixty-six letters. By the beginning of the 16th century the pagoda had become the most famous place of pilgrimage in Burma.^[2]

A series of earthquakes during the next centuries caused damage. The worst damage came from a 1768 earthquake that brought down the top of the stupa, but afterward King Hsinbyushin (lit. Lord of the White Elephant) of Konbaung Dynasty raised it to its current state. A new crown umbrella called was donated by King Mindon Min in 1871 after the annexation of Lower Burma by the British.

                      

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Lake Inle - Myanmar

First picture is of ‘our lady’ (Aung San Suu Kyi) and her father, (General Aung San) on a fan, but they are the most revered people in Myanmar, the fan is not a cheap keepsake, but a reverently lent heirloom. 

First place i went for a coffee, the place next door had a gold stupa on top of a tin roof, in the middle of town.

       

Dad and Hayden, i thought you would love these cars, especially the truck on the third photo, looks like it is powered  by a tractor!  Next to horses, these are the most common vehicles!

              

Views around Lake Inle

                

and a video of a ride down the river from the 'town'

             

So we decided to do a tour around the famous Lake Inle.  Inle Lake  is a freshwater lake located in the Shan State.  It is the second largest lake in Myanmar with an estimated surface area of 44.9 square miles (116 km²), and one of the highest at an altitude of 2,900 feet (880 m). During the dry season, the average water depth is 7 feet (2.1 m), with the deepest point being 12 feet (3.7 m), but during the rainy season this can increase by 5 feet (1.5 m).

The video has a shot of traditional fisherman who row with their legs…..

                   

We saw silver making

    

and floating markets (which are houses and markets on stilts)  

We watched traditional umbrellas  being made with great skill and little resource.  To be honest the rest of the videos are in honour of my Mum, the weaving, silk looming etc is amazing, yet i bet Mum or one of her friends could probably do this......maybe

And we saw ‘long necked women’ famous for their weaving. 

       

These are the ‘floating villages’

          

And then we saw silk making 

watch the feet on the second video at it is pretty amazing how a lady use bamboo levers to change cottons

        

this is how they make Lotus stem weaving, they only make scarves from this, or special Buddhist Monk Robes, but never anything else!

 

And cigar making…..  

    

Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda  -  The pagoda houses five small gilded images of Buddha, which have been covered in gold leaf to the point that their original forms cannot be seen. The gold-leaf application to such excess is relatively recent. Old photographs hanging on the monastery walls show some of the images in a more pristine form. It is reported that some gold has been removed on occasion to reduce its mass. Although the monastery is open to all for veneration, only men are permitted to place gold leaf on the images. Another part of the ritual for pilgrims is to place a small robe or thingan around the images, and to take the robe back to their houses and place it on their own altar as a token of respect for the Buddha and his teachings

Annually, during the Burmese month of Thadingyut (from September to October), an 18-day festival is held, during which four of the Buddha images are placed on a replica of a royal barge designed as a Hamsa bird and taken throughout Inlay Lake. One image always remains at the temple. The elaborately decorated barge is towed by several boats of leg-rowers rowing in unison, and other accompanying boats, making an impressive procession on the water. The barge is towed from village to village along the shores of the lake in clockwise fashion, and the four images reside at the main monastery in each village for the night.  Sometime in the 1960s during a particularly windy day, when the waves were high on the lake, the barge carrying the images capsized, and the images tumbled into the lake. It was said that they could not recover one image, but that when they went back to the monastery, the missing image was miraculously sitting in its place.

                                                           

Ngaphechaung Monastery or Jumping Cats Monastery  which is located in Inle Lake, is an attractive wooden monastery built at the end of the 1850s. This is an exciting destination thanks to not only its collection of Buddhas but also many cats living here, BUT THEY DON’T JUMP ANYMORE!!!  I was so looking forward to this part of the tour and nobody informed me that the cats have not jumped in years, i feel most sorry for the vendors outside the monastery who are trying to sell statues of jumping cats, but all the tourists are so let down, they buy nothing!