Htan Yie Taw Village

Khin picked me up from my hotel at 5:00 this morning and we headed off on his brother's motorbike to watch the sunrise from the top of one of the nearby temples. The temple we visited, called Tayoke Pyi, was massive enough that it could have been used as a fortress, and with it's three-tierd facade it looked like something out of Mario Brothers. Khin and I climbed the ancient interior stairways to the top and waited for the show. Unfortunately clouds covered the horizon again this morning and the sky slowly grew lighter without a hint of red or orange rays. Even though I missed out on a sunrise it was still worthwhile to visit Bagan early in the morning. As I looked into the distance in every direction I saw the tops of hundreds of temples poking through the mists that had settled overnight. Khin relaxed at one end of the temple as I snapped picutres and listened to the calls of wild birds in the distance.
After an hour or two on the top of the temple I headed back to the bottom and observed the ancient carvings covering the exterior. Tayoke Pyi is covered in ancient intricate designs and fierce-looking demons who, Khin told me, were carved to scare off evil spirits. I asked Khin about a creature that I've seen in the stone at several of the different temples and he told me it was the manuthiha, or, the human lion. The manuthiha is a mythical creature that has two bodies of a lion and one human head. I noticed that the animal usually is carved onto the corners of the different temples with each body facing a different direction and the mean-faced head in the center.

While traveling I like my experiences with the local culture to be as authentic as possible, and I find that the best way to make that happen is to get away from the big cities and visit the people in rural areas. One thing I've always wanted to do is to travel to an obsure part of an undeveloped country, meet a local who speaks English and make friends with him, and then tell him to take me to a village where no white man has ever been before. Bagan isn't all that obsure, but at the same time, most tourists who come to Bagan are either with package tours that attempt to sterilize the experience as much as possible, or they're travelers who came just to see the temples and have no other objective. While flying in yesterday I noticed hundreds of tiny villages within only twenty or thirty miles of Bagan. I figured that there must be at least one that very few foriegners have visited, if any at all.

I brought the subject up with Khin as tactfully as I knew how. First I asked if he ever takes his clients to visit local villages. Usually while traveling I find that any village I visit is the same one that hundreds of other travelers have been paraded through before, and this was also the case with Khin's clients. Next I asked if he knew of any isolated villages where the locals had never seen a foriegner. Khin said he knew of one that probably fit my description. Then I popped the question. “Can I pay you to take me there?”

Ten dollars and two hours later I clung to the back of the motorbike and enjoyed the landscape as Khin cruised South through the Burmese countryside. Khin planned to take me to two villages. First we would visit Taung Ba, a large village of about 1300 people where a few of Khin's clients had been before. Next we would head a few miles further south to a smaller village named Htan Yie Taw where, hopefully, I would see a corner of Myanmar that no other forienger has seen before.

Even at Taung Ba, where Khin's other clients had been, I felt like I was quite a novelty. Locals stared as I passed by on the wide dirt roads that criss-crossed the village. When I smiled and waved they grinned back at me and waved excitedly. Khin and I took pictures of some of the locals with the two digital cameras I brought. Showing people their own picture on the screen was a big thrill for everyone. Little kids jumped and yelled with excitement and older ladies bursted into laughter and turned to cover their faces. My visit to Taung Ba turned out to be an unexpected introduction to several Burmese cottage industries. One of the major sources of income for the village is palm sugar. I followed Khin into a hut made of palm leaves where a lady was stirring a transparent concoction in a large metal pot over a fire. The liquid had come from coconuts from the village's palm trees and was being refined into the palm sugar. Later the liquid would be allowed to dry, then the sugar would be packaged and sent to Rangoon. Further down the road we visited a group of ladies who were separating seeds from their exterior shells. The women shook the mix of seeds and shells in woven baskets, allowing the seeds to shake through to the ground while the shells stayed in the basket. During a couple of other visits I watched men operate crude machinery to break up the seeds, and took a tour of a small facility used to create bio-diesel fuel.People who live in villages in rural Myanmar and other less-developed countries live such different lives than those in the United States, and of course they don't have nearly the luxuries that we have. There's one thing I've noticed about people that seems to be the same, though, regardless of what part of the world they live in or what language they speak or how lavish their lifestyles are. For the most part everyone likes to be respected by others and everyone enjoys close personal relationships. Also, most people appreciate quick wit and enjoy a good laugh. While visiting the ladies who were separating seeds I couldn't understand a word that was said, yet I still could recognize different personality types; some ladies were subtle and quiet while others were obviously the life of the party. Also, I could tell that the ladies were close with each other and enjoyed joking with each other just like people back home do. It's incredible to me that after flying half way around the world to a country dominated by an oppressive military regime, taking a motorbike to an obsure village where the typical worker makes less than two dollars a day, and visiting with a few locals who have no reason to have anything in common with me, so many elements of human nature are still so recognizable.
Khin took me to lunch at a small roadside restaurant where I had a taste of real Burmese cusine. For some reason I thought that the food I had at the Green Elephant Restaurant in Rangoon was authentic, but I should have known that the real stuff wouldn't be so appealing to a westerner. Fried toads was the first dish of the day. Khin told me that this was a delicacy that is only available during the rainy season. At first I thought that Khin must have been messing with me, but when he ate a toad and did it with a straight face I figured that this was for real. I picked at the Burmese herbal salad, the chicken, and the noodles, and I also ate a whole lot of the only thing that was familiar to me: white rice. Khin and I talked about life in the United States and how it compares to life in Myanmar. I told him about a few things that he never had heard of before: freeways, minimum wage, and McDonald's. As we were about to leave I decided that I might never have a chance to eat a toad again and I went ahead and popped one in my mouth.
A few miles down the road we visited a small Burmese grade school. Khin talked with the instructor and arranged for me to hand out candy to each of the schoolkids. Afterwards, three children guided us to the village behind the school. After walking through a field filled with palm trees and peanut plants and then following a small dirt path, we came to the village of Htan Yie Taw. The village was a smaller version of Taung Ba, with huts made of palm leaves, cows and pigs relaxing in the sun, and a few small cottage industries to support the people. A group of about ten schoolkids followed Khin and I as we wandered through the dirt pathways. As we passed one hut the people inside yelled out to Khin and he told me that I was invited to visit with them. I sat inside the hut and enjoyed the company of a Burmese extended family and the group of schoolkids that had follwed us in. The visit was interesting for me and I'm sure it was exciting for them. Perhaps it's unrealistic to expect to find people so close to a tourist destination who have never seen a white man, but when Khin asked one of the older men if a forienger had ever been to their town, he said that I was the first one.
With the rest of the day Khin took me to a few smaller temples in Bagan. As the sun went down we visited Bulel Thee, a temple known for it's sweeping panoramic views. The sunset was a no-go again because of the clouds, but it was fun just to hang out on the top of the temple as the sky grew darker. I lounged around and took a few pictures of classic Bagan scenery while Khin joked with a few Burmese kids about his college days. I enjoyed spending a few last hours at Bagan hanging around with some locals, knowing that even though we come from completely different worlds, we still have all the most basic things in common.