Friday, February 10, 2017

Myanmar Motorcycle Epic 7: Here We Go to Shwebo

We're all subject to routines, to patterns. Even when doing something as unconventional as motorcycle touring, you begin to develop a rhythm. Get up before dawn, ready to leave before the free hotel breakfast buffet has even opened, drive half the day to the next stop on the journey and experience your destination. Have dinner. Upload some photos or a video. Next day, repeat.


By this leg of the journey, Monywa to Shwebo, I had been on the road for seven days, and I was starting to get used to the pattern described above. On this occasion, however, I didn't have very far to go, and the roads were likely to smooth and easy. So I had plenty of time to strike out and look at or for sights off the main road. 

The first of the these was the ancient village of Lezin, which I learned about in a little tourist brochure about Monywa given to me by the nice folks at the tar-smelling hotel.
Impressive looking ancient monuments from the picture anyways. Thing was, the tourist map was very vague as to the place's location, anf Google maps didn't accurately portray these village dirt roads. 

Consequently, it was time to stop and ask some locals for directions. 

Even though I was most definitely in the village that held these ruins, the locals looked at this picture as if they'd never seen the place before. Seemingly, the longer they looked at, the more it would come to the were it was. 
Yeah, it's over there.


No, it's over THERE

They took their time in coming to a concensus, and when they did, one guy stepped up and decided to lead me there. I was very grateful. He didn't ask for any money or anything. Just being helpful to the wandering tourist. 

I'm not really sure the place I ended up was the place described in the brochure, but it might have been. 

About 25 miles east of Monywa, there's a pagoda called Shwekuni. I hadn't planned to visit it, but seeing all the activity around it, I stopped to see what all the hubbub was about. 


I saw this. This is a Buddha image, or at least it was at one point. Watch the video to learn what happened to it. 




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