RaT in SEA: Mrauk U

Day 22 - 9/12/2015
On the bus from Mrauk U to Mandalay - West Myanmar

Long gone are white sand beaches and memories of dodgy room in Sittwe.

The time has come to see some history !

Kohtaung Pagoda

For last 3 days we chilled in the past capital of Arakan kingdom and wandered through vast area of pagodas, temples and monasteries surrounded by slowly going life of Arakan country side.

On the way to Mrauk U

Not everyone is running on diesel these days

It’s hard to imagine how beautiful this place had to be in the times of its highest glory (cca 1500 - 1700). Arakan state has been independent powerful kingdom till the mid 18 th century and was conquered as last of territories currently forming Myanmar. Rivalry is still hanging in the air. It was not NLD who won last elections in this region but Arakan National Party. Arakan army is hiding in deep forests of the mountains and spontaneous fights with Myanmar army are common.

On busy day you meet just few foreign tourists

Shittaung Pagoda - 80 000 images of Lord Buddha are hidden inside

"Portuguese fortress like" Pagoda

Locals have very strong opinion about Rohingya case and if you wear long beard one of the first question will be either indirect “What is your religion ? ” or super direct “Are you muslim ? ”

Something fishy in da town

These days Mrauk U township is located around main market and disperse further to country side with small surrounding villages. Life goes slowly by. In a way it reminded me of Hampi in Indian Karnataka state, just the boulder filled landscape is replaced by the view of pagodas all around.

Sunset over ancient Mrauk U

Except the core area north of the town, most of the pagodas are bearing visible, record of the damage caused by different factors. Either neglected, eroded or damaged by earthquakes.

Around Kohtaung Pagoda

Not as easy to access as famous Bagan and on much smaller scale, but very rewarding and peaceful spot. Quiet ruins provide perfect setup for long photography and drawing sessions.

Buddha's imagery is present everywhere !

Kids on their way to school

Pagodas are hiding thousands of statues

Since our arrival we’re being pushed to a package tour trip to Chin villages up the stream of Lay Mro (Lemro) river from different sides. We read about theses villages where last surviving women with tattoed faces of various Chin tribes ( Chin state is further north on the same river approx. 7 h ride on small boat ) are still to be found.

Chin tribes women used to tattoo their faces to protect their beauty against Arakan kings

The LP guide and Rough Guide mentions price of 80 000 Ks for group of 4 people for a day trip. Pretty steep given the costs of other stuff in Myanmar. After few talks with the locals we became confident that it should be doable DIY way.

"I did it my way" !

Second day morning we started with climbing sunrise hill around 6 am and enjoyed misty/smoky views of pagoda filled dawn. It was also a meeting point of our group formed of us and 7 other travellers, we met last night in a beer station and had same plan.

Dawn from sunrise hill looking directly east

Before dawn overlooking main pagoda valley

Sunrise catchers in action

After an hour of bike ride through golden rice fields and quiet villages, we got to the spot, managed to meet the owner of one boat and after few minutes of haggling we got a deal of 80 000 Ks for the whole group. In theory it should be possible to get it even cheaper, but at the end it was reasonable for all of us.

Lost in the rice fields

By 10 am we’re cruising up the river.

Ahoy Captain !

To see the life of the ordinary people along the river was as interesting as visiting Chin villages themselves.

The river banks act as mass vegetable farms, stretching for kilometers and every square meter is used to produce some kind of veg.

Bamboo from thick forests further up the stream is transported down the river to Mrauk U to be traded for different goods.

Bamboo load parked in Mrak U

But most surprising was to see how many people are mining (collecting) river stones (huge pebbles) and piling them up on the banks to be further loaded and carried down the stream for building purposes.

During our 2 h cruise upstream we saw couple of boats half sunk under the heavy underestimated loads of theses stones, people diving to collect bigger stones from the muddy bottom and different techniques of cleaning the mud of smaller pebbles buried by flood mud on the banks.

Life in Chin villages seems to be pretty simple. Thatched wooden houses with metal roofs, all built on pylons to survive floods.

Agriculture of simple veg and rice is happening on the fields further out of the villages.

Women are hand weaving cotton shawls which serve these days mainly as tourist attraction ( in the past it might have been different ).

Basic size shawl hand work

Each swine has at least 5 piglets, each bitch has many puppies and more are visibly due soon, each family has plenty of kids. More kids are playing between the houses with stones and wood than sitting in a school slowly learning basic subjects.

Turning math lesson to English basic numbers lesson :)

Pre school kids of the village streets

Tattooed women ?? Yes they are there, it’s few of them and it’s not as such attraction as the touts are making out of it.

Getting to know local legendary women

You feel quite odd staring at those poor old women through the camera lens so pressing the shutter button needs some dose of courage.

Universal language dictionary - Point It !

We brought them some coffee, tea, chillies and limes. Others brought candies for kids and similar basic food commodities which are scarce if you live far away from the shops.

In 2nd village we had a chat for good hour. sat in a circle on plastic chairs and luckily local English teacher was present and did all translations. Without him we wouldn’t be able to get any answers to our questions.

Thanks to Pedro we had last Polaroids to give them a small present :)

So we found out that the most needed help from outside world would be health care and medicine. Being at least 8 hours away from nearest city ( Mrauk U is just bigger village) makes dealing with diseases very hard. Malaria is very common during rainy season and awareness of mosquito transmitted diseases almost equal to zero.

Apart of health topics we discussed topics of love and marriage, travelling, dressing style and history / future of face tattoos.

Return journey down stream went little bit faster and most of the crew fell asleep during afternoon heat.