Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Myawaddy 5 - Taungoo the Fifth!


I said goodbye to my girlfriend, got on a late night train and ended up in Taungoo. What is it about Taungoo? This was my fifth time visiting this small city, by far the most frequent visitation spot outside Yangon.

Well, on this instance, my purpose was clear: I wanted to visit my motorbike. As much as I enjoyed Myawaddy, I was frustrated by having to rely on taxis and such. I wanted to go where MY Kenbo 125 was located. I say my, but I’ve somewhat sold it to Barbara, a fellow teacher in Yangon who makes a couple visits a month to Taungoo, 175 km north of Yangon, as a volunteer English teacher to students at the Taungoo Education College. I’ve agreed to sell it to her, but we’ve never agreed on a price or anything, so it’s still mine. 

Again, this was my FIFTH time in Taungoo, but the first time I’d be spending more than one night there. This meant I could dig into themes I hadn’t before. Namely, I wanted to see the walls of ancient Taungoo. See, for a while, from about 1700 to 1780, Taungoo was the Rome of Southeast Asia. The  biggest of many Burmese empires over the centuries was the Taungoo Empire, reigning over all of Thailand and parts of India, Malaysia and Laos, and Taungoo was the capital. This little getaway from Yangon had an old history… 

Along with the old city walls, I also wanted to look for a new lake up in the Bago Hills. This lake is not on Google Maps, but it is on Google Earth… I wanted to go find it. Gosh… I found it. But the lake deserves its own blog and video…   


No comments:

Post a Comment

Ten Years in Myanmar

 I couldn't remember the exact date of my arrival in Yangon. I thought the ten-year anniversary was going to be some day next week, so t...