Having docked at 1430hrs I was soon on my way for my first taste of - in every sense of the word, as you will see – Yangon its architecture, people and cuisine; in short a tour comprising ‘Dinner & Cultural Show.’ A convoy of three coaches set off with impressive police outriders dressed in smart white shirts and seated on shining white and blue motorcycles for the 40km journey to the centre of Yangon. If the locals weren’t already aware from the curious white faces and poised cameras that there was something different about this convoy they pretty soon took the hint when the police outriders speeded past lights and sirens blaring and once they got the message the smiling and waving began!
Our first destination this evening was to visit the Shwedagon Pagoda, a centre of religious pilgrimage for over 2,500 years. Every Pagoda is made up of a number of elements: a stupa, or chedi (Structures of solid brick and stone) monument towering some 95 metres (302 feet) above the city and containing relics of four Buddhas (See next posting); a series of pavilions and other buildings of all shapes and sizes dedicated to the eight planetary posts - that act as the guardians of a ‘mans’ fate – about which more later, and a Ban-Yan tree as mentioned in my posting from Colombo.
The Shwedagon Pagoda platform covers an area of some 14 acres and is really a small village of buildings dedicated to various aspects of Buddhism and combined in Myanmar at least with aspects of astrology. The connection with astrology was a surprise to me but clearly from our visit this evening very important to the Burmese people.
The Buddhist monks that can be seen all over Myanmar spend years studying the origins and teaching of Buddha and his disciples even taking degrees or doctorates in specialised aspects of this religion or ‘way of life’ – a way of describing Buddhism makes more sense to me. In the space of a couple of relatively short postings I’m not going to be able to do more than scratch the surface but I will attempt to explain as best I can some of the main features.
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