Burma in a different light

As the glossy pictures already featured in the travel brochures show, Burma
has plenty to offer. But at the moment its infrastructure is pretty poor.
There are few major highways: visitors must depend on local flights to get
around. From the air I looked down on a huge road-building project striking
its way through an untouched landscape. Other than on major international
routes, existing roads are virtually empty.

Outside the crowded city of Yangon – formerly Rangoon - there seems to be very
much less traffic than we're used to in Europe. Hire a car to take you out
and about and you have the roads virtually to yourself – how soothing is
that? My guide was happy enough to stop off at wayside villages, so that I
could wander round the small huts and see the daily round: the oxen plodding
in a circle, grinding the peanut oil into a pot, a couple of locals smoking
huge rolls of local tobacco, and preparations going ahead for the next day's
initiation ceremony of small boys into the ranks of the monks.

Ah, yes, the Buddhist monks. They are everywhere, their crimson robes evident
wherever you go. I am told that boys are expected to spend up to a year as a
monk, moving into a monastery, having their heads shaved and donning the
appropriate robes and sandals. Then later on, in their mature years, they
are expected to serve again, this time maybe only for a few weeks. Girls
enrol, too, shaving their heads and wearing pink robes. The nearest
comparison is with our National Service of the 1940s and '50s, a time when
young men left home for a couple of years and enrolled in the service of the
state. The monks aren't the state, exactly, but there are a great many of
them. "Do they work?" I asked, imagining what an economic burden such a
cohort could be. I was assured they were not idle.

Burma is unequivocally a Buddhist country: 80 per cent of its people are
Buddhist, paying homage at numerous pagodas, not worshipping a God, they
insist, but paying respect to the ideas of the Buddha. At the same time they
pay parallel homage to the nats: a whole gallery of animist spirits, less
solemn than the stately Buddha and inhabiting the natural world and finding
an easy acceptance everywhere. Their shrines often sit alongside Buddhist
temples. It is the great variety and beauty of the many shrines and temples
that are Burma's great cultural heritage. It is where the tourists go.
Everyone takes off his or her shoes at the entrance. It makes flip-flops the
footwear of choice.

The most imposing of all pagodas is the Shwedagon in Yangon, its glittering
gold surface visible from almost any point in the city. The great golden
dome rises 300ft from the base, a platform on which clusters a whole array
of shrines, images, fountains, temples, huge bells and, everywhere, images
of sitting and standing Buddhas. Not far away the Chauktatgyi Buddha is
reclining, the soles of his feet etched with enigmatic hieroglyphs.
Mandalay, too, has its landmark shrines: at the Mahamuni pagoda, believed by
some to be 2,000 years old, the tradition of coating the Buddha with slivers
of gold (only men may do so) has left the lower limbs of the statue entirely
obscured. Outside the precinct, the stone carvers are at work in a street of
artisan workshops where more and more Buddhas are being chipped and
polished. It certainly feels like a living religion.

But the most extraordinary place of all is Bagan, one of the most impressive
archaeological sites in the world, and just a 30-minute flight from
Mandalay. Here, between the 11th and 13th centuries, the kings of Burma
built more than 1,000 temples in an area of 14 square miles: temple after
temple, many with wall paintings and carvings. You climb the tallest to get
a panoramic view; you visit others for their Buddhas; yet another for its
view over the waters of the Irrawaddy River.

Tourism to this place is served by some excellent hotels, hidden unobtrusively
below the level of the palm trees. Planning limits their height to 30ft. The
vivid life of old Bagan goes on nearby; a daily market offers a colourful
spread of fruits, vegetables, spices and meats. There is a bank, even a cash
machine – a rare blessing, for Burma is basically a cash economy. Best to
arrive with a wodge of American dollars and pay as you go.

This is a lovely land of broad horizons, lush forests, wide plains and great
winding rivers. I travelled by air and by hire car, but friends have gone
trekking there; others plan to take a cruise down the Irrawaddy. The people
are smiling and polite, keen to practise their English and be in touch with
the outside world. The political direction of the country is reassuring for
the traveller as much as for the Burmese. Global travel spreads enlightened
ideas around the world: the time has come for Burma to enjoy such freedoms.

Joan Bakewell travelled at the invitation of the Irrawaddy Literary
Festival on a tour arranged by Trailfinders (020 7368 1500; trailfinders.com).
Trailfinders offers a 10-day private "Classic Burma" tour, taking in Yangon,
Bagan and Mandalay and including car and driver plus private guides but not
interational air travel, from £1,348 per person (based on two sharing).

Burma
river cruise: sailing back into history

A luxury trip down the Chindwin River, writes Nigel Tisdall, is the
stress-free way to see the remoter parts of a country now emerging from
decades of isolation.

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