3. Myanmar 2001, Literary Haunts in Mandalay

Continuation of 2. Myanmar

First impressions of the former royal capital

We arrived in Mandalay to good accommodation. The hotel had landscaped courtyards and semi detached rooms. As always foreigners paid exorbitantly more. The restaurant served us a good meal.but I wasn't feeling good after the drive and the previous days food so I stayed in the room while the rest went up the temple in Mandalay hill. I probably just missed the fabulous views of Mandalay. 

Gone glory

The following day we walked the streets of Mandalay, the ancient capital. The palace was run down and dilapidated. Constructed entirely of teak wood the buildings were only one storey high. The watch tower, the clock tower and the relic tower stood out. We did get to try the throne. The gardens were poorly maintained. The fort walls surrounding the palace were crumbling. Little remains to show the glorious days of the Burmese royalty. Where was the aura portrayed in The Road to Mandalay* ?

*Rudyard Kipling, author of Jungle Book, and Kim, born in India, can be credited for making Mandalay famous through his poem (set to music in the 20th century). An excerpt:

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea,

There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;

For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:

"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"

The Irrawady can overflow

Some of the surrounding houses were elevated on a structure of sturdy teak wood, with bamboo walls and a thatched roof, that recalled when years later I read The Glass Palace ( by Amitav Gosh), a novel about the exile of the last Burmese King to Calcutta.The old railway station reminded us of the British rule. There was also an important ancestral Hindu temple of which only the spear remains and a base stone with a date, the rest of the temple having given way to high rises on all sides.

Vestiges of British presence

Even though trains were not running at the time we visited, the railway station built by the British with traces of Burmese architecture did have a grandeur about it.

Where once George Orwell^ walked the streets 

We drove a little further north to Maymyo (named after a British General), a popular hill station of the colonial days. Its National Park was said occupy 437 acres, with a lake, forestland and flowers.The park had been built by the British forestry. The lake featured and island with a small stupa that could be reached via a wooden bridge, Swans and ducks had roamed freely . There was supposed to be 10 - storey Tower, for a scenic view of the park. The climate, the pine trees and the surrounding hills gave it a European aura. The best we could do was to take a walk to the waterfall.

^George Orwell, the author of Animal Farm, and 1984, was born in India, and served in the British Police Force in Maymo

Not quite Coleridge's Kubla Khan°

We seemed to be in a hurry and so we simply drove down south to a cave to see a subterranean river along the banks of which was a Buddha surrounded by 100s of Buddhas in silver and gold.. It seemed too dark for a Buddhist temple. Driving further down we drove to an ornate temple dedicated to snakes. The pythons, huge and long, lay comfortably coiled at the base of the Buddha oblivios to the visitors. We could have stroked them, but we didn't fancy ending up with medical attention in a foreign country.

°An excerpt from ST Coleridges Kubla Khan:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

   Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round;

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

To be continued in 4. Myanmar