Dalama Adventures Tale of two corporate types ditching their jobs and traveling the world for 14 months... check out all photos, blogs & interesting tid bits at http://www.dalama.net

We saved the most majestic site for last... The grand Shwedagon Paya in Yangon.  From afar, you'd think you might be near Disney's magic kingdom.  This glittering golden monument rises 98 meters and can be seen throughout the city.  It's over 2500 years old, and is claimed to house 8 hairs of Buddha, build during the 6th and 10th centuries.  This is one of the most sacred sites for Burmese Buddhists, and we were fortunate to meet a monk along the walk to the Paya that latched onto us, and shared the history, rituals, and lesser known view spots with us during our 5 mesmerizing hours at the site.

Our monk friend was from a monastery 30 minutes drive from the Paya.  His monastery was very small with only a few monks living there.  He was now 37 years old, and had been a monk since he was 4 years old.  His brother and sister had fled Myanmar during the student uprising years ago, and he remained to stay in the monastery.  With his parents no longer living, he was somewhat alone, except for the few monks he lived with, and enjoyed the company of his western English teacher friend who was currently away for several months on holiday in Europe.  He was keen to show us all the special features of this beautiful Paya.  The site is not just one big paya, but a collection of stunning temples, statues, shrines, zedi, tiny hidden buddhas, etc.  It's a visual overload, and requires hours to explore and take it all in.  The very top of the stupa is a bell and inverted bowl on top of the bell, which is further topped with a lotus petal structure and banana bud - all in gold, with the additional bling of 13,153 plates of gold, various hanging bells of gold, silver and jewelry items.  There's a weather vane type structure at the very top, with a flag that, as the weather vane suggests, shifts with the wind direction.  This vane is covered with gold and silver, and has 11,000 diamonds totaling 1,800 carats, and at the very tip of the orb, there's a 76 carat diamond - which at the right light from the setting sun, glows the colors of the rainbow spectrum.  Our monk led us to individual tiles in the flooring surrounding the paya, where when we stood, the diamond would shine a piercing light of indigo, stepping back, it turned to red, then orange, yellow, green, blue... All needing to be viewed at the perfect angle, and at the right time of the evening.  Not having our Monk with us, we would never had seen this amazingly beautiful and magical aspect of this paya.

He also introduced us to what our astrological planet and animal sign was, based upon the day of the week of our birth.  I was garuda (dragon) and Darrin is a tiger.  He took us to the specific figurines for each of us, and through the water pouring ritual which we excitedly partook in.  We left our wonderful monk with a donation which he did not want to take.  But we insisted that he take it, and use it to replenish his betel-nut supply over the next weeks, and he smiled and graciously accepted our cash.  He finally left us after 5 hours of hanging out and practicing English, to perform his evening meditation with other monks in the meditation pavilion.

We me up with a Canadian guy we had met on our long bus ride who had the enviable experience of being asked by a random Monk off the street to speak to an English learners class.  For an hour he stood with a microphone in front of 150 young, eager students, who were so curious about if he had a girlfriend and what it was like... Hilariously, he counseled them that if they want to get girlfriends, they should not chew betel-nut, that in the west, red-stained broken teeth would kill their chance at getting the woman of their dreams. He also only admitted to ever having two girlfriends, as these guys maybe date one person, and he didn't know how to explain in limited English, the acceptable practice and societal norms in the western world around dating multiple people over years until you finally meet the right person for you.

We ended in Yangon, where we started, the 50th Street Bar, for a bowl of pasta.  A western bit was critical, after we destroyed our guts eating at a local tea shop earlier today - Tea shops are the heart and soul of the Burmese social culture and they offer a great opportunity to meet and talk to locals.  The one we were at had no English speakers, but afforded a chance for me to match up the symbols of Burmese language to the symbols on the wall with prices, and use that as our only means to communicate with the young shop worker.  Despite picking what we thought would be relatively safe choices- as they were all deep fried, Darrin got sick off the mutton palata, and I off the coconut puffs.  So after that earlier experience, we opted for spaghetti with meat sauce, and ginger-ale to calm our stomaches.