Mrauk Ou and Surrounds

Mrauk Ou in the Rakhine State is sometimes referred to as Little Bagan because they also boasts lots and lots of old temples. Unlike Bagan this area has not been designated an national, archeological site so the villagers still live in and amongst the ruins. Cows mingle with Buddhas. And temples sit next to farms. We only visited the four major temples. One is the temple of 80,000 Buddha images. And another is the temple of 90,000 Buddha images which was built by the son of the king that built the 80K version. As the story goes, when it was completed the 90K temple was immediately struck by lightning presumably as a sign from the unhappy and upstaged dead father’s spirit.

Yesterday we followed our 4.5 hour ride in the African Queen with a 4 hour round trip ride in a smaller, even less comfortable version of a boat in the light drizzle/rain in order to head further up river to see the Chin villages. I neglected to mention that getting on and off boats here always entails at least one walking of a plank with or without the meager reassurance one gets from a piece of bamboo held between two very small Burmese guys and offered as a makeshift and temporary handrail. I am pretty sure that if I started to fall they could not hold me up with it let alone hold Michael up. Then we often had to walk across two or three other boats, up and down and across, to get o ours. And all of this after descending some decidedly rickety staircases with steps made of 2 x 4s (just single 2 x 4s). (Here's Michael coming down one...fearless in his "Honey Badger Don't Care" t-shirt)

Anyway, back to the Chin people. Back in the day, Chin girls’ entire faces were tattooed when they were only about 9 years old. As with most such traditions, the reason was presumably to make them unattractive to the advances of the neighboring kings and countrymen (in this case the Rakhine). This practice was, however, outlawed in the 60’s (why this but not the placement of the brass neck rings in the Padaung, I don’t know) so only the older women have the tattoos.  

Other than the temples and the Chin, there is not much in Mrauk-Ou. It is an extremely poor area in a country full of poor areas. People without running water who have to carry water home from filthy rivers and fetid ponds

 amid mounds of trash because they have no sanitation or garbage disposal. It is supremely sad. They are not set up to provide tourist services but need tourism badly.

Currently they only have 4-5,000 visitors a year. This is apparent in the fact that here (as in Keong Tong out far to the east) people asked to take OUR pictures because we were the odd ones. From the little children who pointed and giggled and peaked around corners to see us to this Chin woman who insisted that Michael include me in the photograph with her.

Now we are back in 'civilization' again. It's funny, but now at this end of the trip Yangon feels like Buddhist Nirvana. We leave tomorrow for Chiang Mai. Meanwhile Myanmar continues to gear up for the elections next week. Now that we know these warm and welcoming people, we can only hope that they will soon be on the path to a better future.