11/17: Yangon: Harrowing Truck Ride to See a Gold Rock!

Months ago I had made arrangements with a Myanmar travel agency to have a driver pick us up at our hotel in Yangon today and drive us to the town of Kingpun in Mon state about 130 miles from Yangon so we could see the precarious balanced Golden Rock. Since it would take us more than 4 hours to get there, we were then going to spend the night in Kingpun and have the driver pick us up the next morning and drive us to the Yangon airport after seeing some pagodas in Bago, a city on the way.

I am sure you must be wondering why on earth we’d want to go so far out of our way and spend some serious money to see a golden rock, albeit a balancing one, right? I think Steven is still ambivalent about it 2 weeks later! I’ll try and describe the lure later in this post.

As the travel guide says, ‘Floating in atmospheric clouds high above the coastal plains and, it seems, almost within touching distance of the heavens is the prayer and wish drenched balancing stupa of Golden Rock which is also known as Kyaiktiyo. This magical monument is a major pilgrimage site for Burmese Buddhists and its image adorns many a local’s car and home and every good Buddhist dreams of the day they finally set eyes on this holiest of shrines.’ Wouldn't YOU want to go to after reading this?

Unusual seeing such an incongruously tiny figure atop a large monument on a major roundabout in Yangon.

On the way north out of town, we drove past the University of Yangon where student anti government demonstrations took place many years ago. We saw the dike above that the students had walked on before they were shoved into Inya Lake and shot at and killed by the military. 

I have been amazed how many unfamiliar Toyota car brands we’ve seen in Myanmar: Fielder, Ipsum, Prado, Hilux, Probox, Crown, Hiace, Kluger and Ractis to name a few. The traffic in Myanmar is among the worst we’ve ever seen - it seemed to take us forever to get out of the city. The steering wheel is on the right so it’s very hard to drive here – imagine driving on the right side of the road and trying to pass on the left but not being able to see oncoming traffic. We were surprised we'd seen no motorcycles in Yangon but the driver explained that only the police are allowed to have them in the capital.

The buses we saw in Yangon were among the most dilapidated, overcrowded and smelly of any we've seen. I wondered why there was what looked like a wooden paddle beside the man in the door.

People selling flowers, newspapers, etc were a common sight at traffic lights or in a traffic jam.

Great finally getting out into the countryside after driving for about an hour. Above, a footbridge. 

Unlike Vietnam and, to a lesser state, Laos, we’ve seen almost no national flags. We were traveling northeast to Golden Rock located in Mon state, one of 14 states in Myanmar. Above was one of the many toll booths we encountered along the AH 1 Highway.

We passed a ¼ mile long procession going to the local monastery, our driver told us, but he didn’t know where the monastery was located though.

Women wearing traditional Myanmar garb, i.e. longyi.

The umbrellas were not to protect against rain but against the blistering hot sun. Seeing people use umbrellas was the norm, we discovered, in Myanmar. If I could have found a way to hold one, my camera, my pen, a piece of notepaper, our plastic sheet containing our day's travel guide AND had been able to write notes of what we were seeing, I would have used one too!

This was the only elephant I can recall that we saw in Asia this trip.

There seemed to be a wat aka a temple or pagoda in every village we drove past..

Just as I mentioned in the first Yangon post, it was common again seeing trucks with mega speakers blasting away.

Attractive directional and 'Welcome to our city' signs.

We drove through Bago, a big city, but we didn’t stop there as we would be stopping there the next day on our way back to the airport in Yangon. We finally arrived at our hotel in Kyaitktiyo at 12:45; we checked in and then left right away so the driver could drop us off at the truck depot station for the 40 minute drive straight up the mountain.

It was an ‘interesting’ experience getting on the truck: we had to climb up a mammoth step stool type thing that had a small platform on top. From that, we climbed into the truck parked just beside the platform. The open truck had about 7 rows of very narrow wooden slats for benches with at least 6 people crammed on each one. We had to wait to leave til the truck was completely packed to the brim.

Two thirds of those on the truck were locals as it was the beginning of the pilgrimage season for locals to Golden Rock. 

Photos en route up the mountain:

Basically there was one hairpin turn after another as we ascended the mountain. We were sure glad that neither we OR those in close proximity to us suffered from motion sickness!

The driver stopped twice en route at small villages so that locals could climb on the truck’s sides and beg for money – don’t know for what as they only spoke Burmese. The driver waited long enough til locals on the truck handed over money.

For once the travel book had described it perfectly as it did feel like we were up among the clouds.

Photos from Golden Rock:

Got to the top where the dismount procedure began with the elevated step stool and then a 15 minute walk through an alley of shops to the Ticket Office.

People with accessibility concerns or royal fantasies could be carried up in this chair held aloft by perspiring men! We didn't see any takers though.

I marveled at the strength these men had carrying incredibly heavy loads on their backs.

Golden Rock's Dimensions.

We made sure to remember this as we didn't want to hike down the mountain in the dark with no lights.

No drones allowed!

 No shoes were allowed on the platform area so we had a long shoeless walk ahead of us.

At long last, a view of Golden Rock behind my shoulder on the left.

 Learned that only men again could apply gold leaf to the rock. 

The plaza around Kyaiktiyo was a mixture of religious icons and commercial development. We saw monks and lay people meditating in front of golden Buddha statues while just yards away rosary beads and toy wooden rifles were for sale.

Steven learned the hard way you can't try and remove the gold leaf by hand. You need to apply it directly onto the buddha or another object by placing the paper (that had the gold leaf on top of it) onto the object. Otherwise, it flakes off.

This was an another area of the complex that women were not allowed to enter.

Legend states that the boulder at Mt. Kyaiktiyo maintains its precarious balance due to a precisely placed Buddha hair in the stupa.

It was easy to forget that this is also a pilgrimage site til we saw people praying and lighting incense sticks very close to the rock.

 Lovely sound of the bells ringing in the wind.

After spending quite a bit of time seeing the Rock and walking around the plaza, we discovered this area, still atop the mountain, where there was a thriving market and village.

There were beautiful views of other pagodas on surrounding hills.

This was the only time we saw an anti spitting sign anywhere in Myanmar. How we wished there were more of these signs all over the country as seeing men constantly spit was one of the most disgusting things we experienced in Myanmar.

 Men and women carrying enormous weights on their backs.

We got the truck down the mountain about 4:30 as we didn’t want to take any chances of missing the last one down and then having to walk all the way down in the dark.

Photos as we drove down the mountain:

There were only a couple of spots on the entire road wide enough or safe enough for other trucks to pass each other.

The view if you were sitting in the first row - it looked like being in a prison truck from the movies I've seen.

After getting back to Kingpun at the base of the mountain, we walked through the small village looking for a restaurant for dinner and to see what the village was like. How desperately poor it was just steps away from the touristy center.

Photos from Kingpun:

Thought initially we had seen men wearing dark red lipstick but found out the color came from eating betel nuts which stains their teeth and lips. I have never seen people with teeth as bad as in Myanmar. I am sure that their eating these chewy fruit candies we saw people enjoying all over Myanmar would have to be a major contributing factor to their oral health issues too.

We couldn't figure out what this saffron colored product was.

Disconcerting to see so many wooden guns and swords for sale in the shops.

I loved the look of determination as this boy pulled his brother (?) along the dusty road! Notice he's wearing the thanaka on his face I described in the first post on Yangon.

We didn't see any place that we felt like eating at in Kingpun so we walked back to our hotel which had its own restaurant. 

At the beginning of the post, I talked about the lure of Golden Rock. I remember thinking while we were at Kingpun that I was really glad that we had made the trek to see the Golden Rock - not for the Rock in and of itself, which was spectacular, but because it was part of an experience. It meant seeing a good chunk of the Myanmar countryside in 2 different states, having a thrilling ride up and down Mt. Kyaiktiyo in an open bed truck, having time to walk around Kingpun and seeing a slice of life there. Plus, we still had most of the next day to discover the pagodas at Bago en route to the Yangon airport to look forward to. 

Posted on 11/30 from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.