As I arrived in Myanmar, I felt like I was in a fairytale. I had never so many gold buildings before!! I decided to go on a field program with Semester at Sea called the City Orientation, because I was in a new country that I had never visited before. However, the night before in PrePort they had told us that in order to get into the town the bus ride could take around an hour to an hour and a half, so we would have to be patient. I stayed on the ship until the evening field program. Then I went on the bus that took us into town. Going into town we walked around seeing what the streets of Myanmar looked like, and then we visited a pagoda followed by dinner. But let me go back to the pagoda because it was beautiful and so BIG!
Before entering the pagoda, we did a tour of the city of Myanmar. This started by walking around the city. Our tour guide took us to a vendor who allowed us to try some different food, get a taste for the Burmese food; however, I did not try the food worried I would upset my stomach. I was too interested in the scenery; how people hung their clothes on clotheslines outside their windows, how they had markets outside, so you could buy fruits and vegetables. All the colors were beautiful! We soon wandered a park, where there were elephant sculptures and young children in the park.
As we arrived at the pagoda, we were given stickers, to put on our clothes, if men were wearing shorter shorts they had to wear a cloth that covered their legs almost looking like a skirt called a longyi. We all had to take off our shoes, leaving them outside the building and then we continued walking further to the pagoda. I personally was worried that someone might steal my shoes like in the movie Slumdog Millionaire and try and sell the shoes, but maybe I was just paranoid.
As I walked in the pagoda with my group, we were told where we should meet back up in two hours. We decided to meet back up by this big tree by the front entrance. I started wandering around the pagoda, and then some local Burmesse people asked for me to be in a picture with them. My first instinct was, what are you going to do with the photo? Are you going to show it to all of your friends? Did they think that I was famous? But as I continued to wander I soon realized that other people from Semester at Sea were getting asked to have their pictures taken with the locals as well.
As I continued to wander, I soon notice how beautifully designed the pagoda was. It was covered in gold practically! As I continued to walk around, I learned that each station was a different month and that the Burmese people visited the one that the related to. I noticed that some of the locals brought flowers, and containers of water to the different stations in order to honor up potentially to their relatives who have passed away. Some of the locals though just sat there and prayed with their heads towards the ground. They kept chanting, and some would bang this gong which was located at different stations.
As I walked around I found it was very interesting how this was just one pagoda, and that there were many more pagodas in Myanmar. In addition, I found it interesting how big the pagoda was. I wondered why it was so big? Did they make it so big so that more people could come to visit it?
I soon headed back to the tree where we were supposed to meet up. Taking lots of photos of the beautiful gold pagodas and scenery. It was an amazing start to a wonderful day! I cannot wait to see more of Myanmar!
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