Hi its 8.30am I'm in the hotel in Yangon. Its taken me 15 of my 60 mins to log on. so I will ignore typos.
Today we are part of 800 wedding guests and based on yesterday it would be impossible for me to be overdressed. Its going to be amazing, and that's just he day time part not tonight as well. Then tomorrow we have a 4.15m wake up and we fly to Bagan. I think its one night tere then fly to Mandalay.
how you all, Please write comments/ Missy got any more birds - her a Bad Buddhist for killing. I have a pohoto for Eddy of the Golden Balls.
We had the amazing ceremony yeterday with all the sitting then lunch for 200 guests and 200 more monks.
LAter Shein's (who has changed his name on marriage and is now Ko Shei) driver took some of us to Bogyoke market in the central area i guess. Now I am fully dressed local with my $9 longhi (Nana will explain) it is beautufl and I and slowely trying to walk Burmese style ie slowly with small steps as feel y ankles are noosed together. it is purple, or sometmes red, and when its purple it matches the top Bimade me, perfectly, and when its red, it screams at the top. I
In the mrket many things that I rememer of Nana's just likes tha tables at the temples yesterday, so much Frankton stuff is here and its fascinating what I remember - I saw an item and I knew it opens, one of tho black lacquer multi-bowls, its for mons to carry their food i, I dont recall nana telling us that but I knew it opens and how to open it. also the chairs at the chotel are teak they are ipossible to lift almost. So I took photoes of these familiar things in the market.
Also the beggars but they are not hassling us. Yu-an had soe of his american money regjected t the bank its wasn't even folded it just had a little stain on the note. We get wads of cash - example for all of us at dinner last night it was $30 each and for 18 of us the total stash of cash was 7cm thick. So for $US5 o which I paid for $NZ65, I get 40,000 kyats, that's 40 x 1000 notes.
I think Kathy would love it here, so would have your Grandad.
After the mrket, back here to get dressed for the incredible Shwe Dagon experience - Nana will explain. Wel I just can't,. It is truly one of the wondrs of the world of all time and to be here with Pipi explaining, just the very basics, just amazing. The main pagoda is 2600 yers old and it is huge and mean the whole scale of this complex is mindboggling so I won't even start I have only 30 mins left.
It was special to be here and think that Nana and Grandad would have been at the Pagoda complex and seen just the same as me, because here in many mnay ways the world has NOT changed in 50 years.
there are hundreds of pagodas there and must be tens of thousands of Buddhas. And rather a few humans.
I constany feel I am living inside Discovery channel, or is it history channel. The Shwe Dagon is just somethng outside my comprehension, huge, vast, beautiful, full of people ( I saw another whitey) and timeless. Shein and Pipi after all this time are obcviously having a very spiritual time in the start of their marriage and for all of us to be there at the centre of their religin with them, we are all on a high - los of laughs, and bear in mind our group is all so differet.
Example in what we know and don't know - I showed someone how to crack a boiled egg yet I've had 4 cold showers cos I did't know wthe swtich is outside the bathroom. And we speak variously Burmese, Chinese and English so we are in and out of conversations. Amanda from 2003 flew in from China yesterday, she is now a PhD - from Canterbury - that wee shy girl - so at the Shwe Dagon we had n our group devout beleivers, casual Buddhists, other religions, total sceptics and we all get on amazingly. We did a 'UniHall photo" - who would have thought in 2002-2004 that we six in 2012 would be meeting in Burma!!! at the Pagoda.
So yeah pretty incredible.
as we climbed up and up and up and up the steps into the main airea we were offered flwers and incense to buy - on the way dow out of the heat the same ladies offer to sell colddrinks!\
We wanted to stay till dusk to see the bats leaving the pagodas but our 'cultural dance and dinner buffet' had started. This is in a huge creation on a lake - i will have to find the names, it was immense and golden but my camera had lready died of overwork at the Pagodas. (it charged overnight)
The eperience was full of photo opporutunities, with 'the guards' - ' the wedding couple' - ' the regal couple' very beautifl young people smiling solidly. The waiting staff were all in varius enthnic costume and the dancing was beautiful - and the kai.
You know Chinese Lion Dances - well an Elephant Dance is hilarious. You couldn never believe two people could do such actions in a huge elephant get-up, crikey we laughed.
We detoured home via Aung San Suu Kyi's house - not able to stop - she arrived back in Myanmar yesterday , how amazing is that. Then we had a fast ride home. Ko Shei has a SUV prado 4 litre, 5km/litre: outside cameras, movies, the works, this is in a city where most vehicles are very old and tired if not delapidated - did I say we've seen horses pullin g carts. We are well aware the cost of that buffet would have fed 95% of this city for long time more than one meal.
Don't know when I can get onto this blog again, its not easy to connect and our time with the wedding party is fairly busy and i hve no idea what we are going to in Bagan, but Ko Shei is certainly lookig after us. So the next place may well have internet. A very ancient man has just come shuffling in, leaning on a slightly younger woman.
Anyway we are having amazing experiences and although it is not happy around us all the time, I am with a special group of people, and as Ko Shei says "welcome to my world".
Plese commnet so I know this has b posted successfully, and sorry for the typos but I'm going afast on a crazy keyboard.
Thought of the day yesterday ws Mum's comment about when I returned from Otago to Invercargill each holiday and had to put myself back in my box and shut the lid, cos noone really comprehended my university education experience - how much more solid must have been the lid of Nana and Grandad's box on their return to Invercargill? Their lid would have been of teak. They must have lived so much here , that could not be shared.
best, Meanieb
