Botataung Pagoda and the Yangon river

The Botataung Pagoda is near the ferry docks on the Yangon river in southeastern Yangon.  It was bombed in 1943 and rebuilt as a hollow structure that you can walk inside.  We spent some time here and then took a ship to watch the Yangon sunset.  However it was cloudy and the sunset was not spectacular.  But it was a pleasant evening, nice to be away from the hustle of the city.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Botataung Pagoda

Inside the pagoda

Nun praying inside pagoda

Buddhas hair relic enshrined in pagoda

Bronze Buddha

Commuters from other side

Busy river

Fishing nets

 

Twantay Pottery

Pottery sheds

A practised team 42 years in the making!

The kiln..imagine the fire hazard!

Young women apply redder wash to dry pots while taxi driver watches

We visited the pottery making in Twantay across the river, southwest of Yangon.  The pottery has been made here like this for over a thousand years.  In the grass walled "factory" worked a potter and his wife who turned the wheel by hand as well as young women, likely daughters who applied a red clay wash to the dried pots.  They ran the kiln every 10 days with a full load of new pots.  The pots are used by nurseries to plant shrubs and flowers and are often seen around Yangon.

final crimping to the planter

Potter explains how rings are used between pots in the kiln

Pits of wet clay mixture sit over night.  Potting wheel at back right

Our first apartment

Our first apartment where Cuso staff still live was in a townhouse on a side street off a busy business street called Insein St.  Quite appropriately named as the traffic is always "insane".  It was new and everything worked.  The landlords were a couple of returned Myanmar Americans who had fixed it up for themselves and then found that a house came with his job.  One of the Cuso staff lives in the apartment across the street and in the picture of that building you may be able to see strings going from balconies to ground level.  These are doorbells rigged up somehow as there are none in the "lobby".  Actually there is no lobby.  They are also the newspaper etc delivery system as there are no elevators and it would be a long walk down and back up just for a newspaper or such.  The item just gets tied on and is pulled up.  Efficient.

Hindu temple on Insein Street

  .

The building across the street.. look for the strings!

Our first street of houses and mini markets

Kitchen, one of two!

From the inside just heading out to work

Andy in front of our first place

The living /dining room with teak furniture.  Our stuff is ready to move!

Dhamma Seminars Part 2

Its filling up!

Early picnicers

Straw matsat the back

Final carpets

The monk arrives

Dhamma Seminars, Part 1

Down come the carpets!

On with the market!

All set!

View from our balcony

Baking soda to keep down odours

Hard work!

Street washing

Our street has been very exciting this week!  On Saturday/Sunday the street was hosed down, dusted with baking soda and the market stalls were pulled back and covered.  Each evening for a week we have carpets laid down and a procession of monks walk up the carpet through the seated public.  Then from a red and gold stage at the front different monks each night deliver a 2 hour lecture on various aspects of Buddhism and how to live your life with inner peace.  All is in Burmese so I have to go on what I've been told.  At various intervals there are chants and at the end of the evening, about 9.30, the religious group leaves, the mats are rolled up, the toadstool lights are taken away and all is ready for the busy market the next day.

Hosing the street

More Bago

At the Chinese pagoda

The python and his money!

Shwemahdaw Pagoda

Shwemawdaw Pagoda

Entrance to Shwemahdaw Pagoda the tallest in Myanmar

Mahazeti Pagoda

In the victory ground at Mahzeti Pagoda

I love the feet

Picnicers at the Shwethalyaung Buddha

I couldn't upload any more on the last post so I started again to continue the Bago photos1

A Trip to Bago

Shwethalyaung reclining Buddha teachings on side

Shwethalyaung reclining Buddha .. Andy and a monk who wanted his photo taken with him.  He had quite a following!

Us aMya Tha Lyaung reclining Buddha

Shwethalyaung reclining Buddha

Mya tha Lyaung reclining Buddha

Mya tha Lyaung reclining Buddha

Kyaikpun Pagoda

Kyaikpun pagoda

Once the capital of the Mon kings, Bago is about an hour and a half driving time NE of Yangon.  We were lucky that there were no traffic jams en route to slow us down.  We visited an
allied Second World War cemetery just beside the highway and then arrived in Bago.  We saw Kyaikpun pagoda, built in the 15th century.  This is 4 seated Buddhas around the base of a large pillar.  Then we saw the  Mya Tha Lyaung reclining Buddha.  The soles of the feet are incredibly painted as are the fingernails!  The Shwethalyaung reclining Buddha is the second largest in the world measuring 55 metres long and built in 994AD.  It was lost after a battle in 1757 but rediscovered during British rule in 1880.  It had been completely overgrown with jungle. The mosaic pillows were added in 1930.  We saw the Shwemawdaw Pagoda  built by 2 merchants 1000 years ago.  It is the tallest in Mysanmar and parts were destroyed by a 1917 earthquake  but have been restored.  The Mahazeti Pagoda was built in 1560 to enshrine a tooth of Buddha but it was later proved to be a fake and was removed.  It has been destroyed and rebuilt after wars and earthquakes.  this one is climbable almost to the top but in the heat we didn't do that, spending more time in a small victory ground pagoda nearby.  We visited the snake pagoda, supposedly the reincarnation of a famous monk.  The 6 metre long Burmese python was just lying under a long table and people put money on it for good luck.  The Kanbawzathadi palace where some Mon kings lived and were crowned was reconstructed in 1990 - 1992 having burnt down in 1599.  It was only built in 1556 but certainly showed the opulence of the mon dynasty.   On the way back to Yangon we stopped briefly at a Chinese pagodaquite different from the Mon ones we had been seeing,

War cemetery 1939-45

War cemetery 1939 - 45