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A Pilgrimage to Golden Rock

Posted by Stuart at 07:20 PM on September 02, 2006

Before my monk friend left me at my hotel last night to return to his countryside monastery, he promised he would be back to meet me at 7 AM this morning. But since he doesn't own a watch, and lives so far away, I was sure that it would be 8 or 9 before I saw him, if at all.

He was knocking on my door at 7:04.

Before we left the room, we talked a bit about what we would do. The original plan was to make an overnight trip, visiting Bago (Pegu) and Golden Rock. Bego is about 80 KM from Yangon, and Golden Rock is another 120 KM. But of course things didn't go as planned.

If I have learned one thing so far in Myanmar is that independent travel is possible, but only if you are willing to be completely flexible and can handle less-than ideal transportation options. And it helps to be able to negotiate. Luckily my monk friend has handled the latter. It seems like every time there is a transaction, there is a 10 minute conversation about the when, the where and the how much.

It took us a couple of hours to make it to Bego by songthaew truck, and that was after false starts at two other bus stations. But our planned stop in Bego ended up being just a lunch break and truck change. A couple of hours later we changed trucks again at another small village along the way. Finally, we took motorcycle taxis to the village at the foot of the mountain where Golden Rock is found.

All in all, the 200 KM (124 miles) trip took us about 8 hours. The roads were terrible and the songtaews made frequent stops along the way. Needless to say I was quite tired and sore by the time the trip was over. Luckily though, traveling with a monk has it's advantages: we were allowed to sit in the (relatively) more comfortable front seat with the driver. But of course there was no air con, so when it started raining hard (which it did quite frequently) the windows had to come up and we sweltered in the heat. And when the windows were down, there was always a chance that a passing truck would hit a water-filled pothole and send dirty water through the window and into our face. This actually happened twice.

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The first year of living in Bangkok I spent most of my time in a state of pure euphoria. I suppose that being in a completely foreign environment and having all five senses stimulated and magnified all the time made me feel like I was living in a dream. But as the years have gone by, the exotic has become the commonplace, and most of the time I don't feel like I am walking on clouds any more.

But that feeling came back when I arrived in Burma. The sights, sounds, smells were somewhat familar, but at the same time very strange. Yesterday I walked around Yangon led by my monk friend and I was just so happy to observe all that was going on around me.

However, the eight hour trip to Golden Rock knocked most of that feeling out of me. It was truely a trying day, both mentally and physically. I was beginning to wonder if I the trip was worth it or not. But, before collapsing in bed, I walked around the small village a bit. It was now dark and there were not many tourists around, so the villagers were just living their life. Kids were huddled around candles doing their homework. A few satellite TVs drew big crowds to watch football, or kung fu movies, or dramas, and to sip tea and laugh and talk and to spend time together.

And so the euphoria came back to my tired body for a few moments, and I went to sleep happy.