Burmese Secret Police

Burmese Secret Police

I took a bus from Bagan to Pyay that takes about 10 hours. It was on a single lane public road and drove through some of the most beautiful countryside I’ve seen since entering Myanmar.  Bagan is on east bank of the Irrawaddy River that has its own contour to the ocean. The road on the other hand climbs along the foothills with confluence flash flood beds and living creeks running from east to west. We dropped into a low valley for a bus break just at sunset. The bus needed attention both with water for the cooling and some not so delicate hammering on the linkage. We hung out about an hour. The restaurant owner asked me who I was, where from, where to, how long, etc. etc. I didn’t eat anything just paced around and moved my legs for the second half of the journey and the sun set as I stood in the middle of the road. The road was engulfed in gigantic Tamarind trees and I became surrounded by little old ladies selling their food trays of stuff that had out lived its shelf life.

As I clambered out at the bus station in Pyay there were only two or three hard-sell tuk-tuk drivers about and one spoke fair English. His face and throat were full of beetle-nut, his teeth stumps were half sawn and heavily stained red. Yoshi from Japan, the only other tourist on the bus, and I teamed up for the ride into town, about 5 kms away. Yoshi knew he was staying at the Lucky Dragon and I asked for the cheapest place in the neighborhood. Our driver mentioned the Sri Ksetra Tour that I agreed to if there was more than one person.

The Sri Ksetra tour of the museum and city and palace grounds were well worth it as I wrote in the last blog. The next day after the tour I ventured up and down the quaint little crossroads town, north-south meets east-west. Bagan is to the north, Yangon to the south south-east, Arakine (Rakine) State to the west and the Irrawaddy delta to the east. The tuk-tuk driver drove me by a beer station for a take away and on to Pann Gabar Guest House. 342 Merchant Street, Pyay. Tel. (053) 26543. $7/night with bathroom down the hall and breakfast included. The guesthouse boasts WiFi but not Internet. It does have it but it’s weak. Guests are better off crossing the street to and Internet restaurant with good food but not at midnight.

I had lunch at a sports bar/restaurant and then wandered around for another couple hours before returning for a shower and some writing. I stopped in and watched a board game on a corner for half an hour. I will recreate this game in the future. The game was played on a roughly 3’ by 3’ square raised framed polished wood surface. It can be played by two or four.

Around 8 pm I decided to go back to the Sports Bar/Restaurant to disconnect from my day, to disengage from the manuscript I’m writing, and just to detach, have a beer and watch football (soccer) in a language I have only touched the surface. At the time I had a few days left in Myanmar, a country I have only scratched the surface of and find more intriguing everyday. So I sat there for about an hour enjoying the sport and cold beer when an Indian-Burmese man moved in and sat at my table without invite. My skin crawled. I knew who he was before he and his sulky companion sat down and grilled me. My night was shot. One man watched with narrow eyes as the other pounded questions who, what, where, when, why and wanted passport number, email address, and I watched as the staff coward away from my table and kept their heads lower than his as they passed. I handed him my book card that has two websites and an email address on it. He looked it over then asked me for another email address, a gmail.com address. I told him that my email address is on the card. He wanted it anyway and I denied him. He followed up with wanting a meeting tomorrow and where was I staying? I of course followed up with the Lucky Dragon and why would a secret police officer want to hang out with a tourist. I had plans and he wasn’t part of it. I said sure, meet at 10 tomorrow. The two officers got up and went back to their old table and broke out their smart phones with out paying.

I paid my bill and left in the direction of the Lucky Dragon. Soon into the shadows I sprinted down a couple crooked streets grabbed my stuff, hopped a tuk-tuk and boarded a night bus for Yangon. Before the bus arrived at the Yangon bus station I got out at a small town with a short string of roadside cafes just after day break and had Roti and Sweet tea. This was all just in case there was a welcoming committee at the other end. I began suspecting the tuk-tuk driver in Pyay of being a go between, a plausible conclusion considering how many doors he could open compared to maybe some others.

This same thing happened to me in Moulmein where I was hit up by two secret police with the same standard questions and their answer for asking the questions was the same in both cases, ‘for your protection’, I wondered and still wonder, ‘from whom?’

I believe I was more or less targeted because I’ve been to Burma before and I’ve written a book about the repression I observed first hand. I buried a non-fiction part two, in a fiction sandwich in my book, ‘Cale Dixon and the Moguk Murders’ so I could get back in the country. Somebody told me recently, ‘Just because your paranoid doesn’t mean your not being followed.’ In Burma the old saying of the locals was, 'The walls have eyes and ears' and they wouldn't talk to foreigners in fear of their families and prison or forced labor. Today, watch the locals as they move around. They will duck and bow at all costs to a mean secret police officer who abuses his power. The secret police have assimilated into the fabric of society and they're still taking notes and prisoners.

I only have one Burmese Blog left to put up and it’s meant to be a compilation of observations, helpful criticisms and awareness.

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Sri Ksetra Museum and Beyond, Myanmar, Burma

 Sri Ksetra Museum and Beyond

Along time ago, just east of the city of Pyay (Prome), the ancient capitol city of Sri Ksetra has been sitting half buried by time, weather and evolution. Artifacts have been discovered dating back consistently between the 4^th and 9^th century A.D. when Sri Ksetra was a flourishing capitol and an important stop on the trade routes in all directions. Radiocarbon testing has also found some areas to have been active within the social network of the Pyu to date back into early B.C.  The people that lived in this walled city of approximately 5.5 square miles fortified by high brick walls, irrigation systems, a fortified kings’ palace grounds, and thousands of acres of cultivatable land were called the Pyu. Since basic excavation and rehabilitation have been done as early as 1927 and as late as 2007, this city hasn’t met its global educational potential.

So far archeologists have linked the city of Sri Ksetra with two other Pyu cities of minimally smaller square mileage, Halin and Beikthano. Sri Ksetra is approximately 170 miles to the northwest of Rangoon. The area is dry in the summers and when the monsoon season comes, the Pyu engineered ways of containing water mainly for agriculture and consumption in reservoirs, connected irrigation systems, water banks and other ingenious ways. Locals are still using some of the causeways and city grounds for cultivation.

A tour around the city walls and through one of the nine gates discovered leads you into a long forgotten way of life influenced primarily by Buddhism, . There have been numerous finds of solid palm-leaf with both Pyu language and Pali. Some of them are on exhibit in the museum before the Sri Ksetra exterior walls. These palm leaf scriptures have and will aid further in the development and evolution of languages in the region.

The Shikhittaya Site Museum itself has collected a thorough assortment of artifacts with good explanations and dates in Burmese, English, and some French. Some of what they couldn’t display is set in large photos and details.

The curator is a woman with good English skills and lots of knowledge of Sri Krestra.

If you are going to Burma/ Myanmar you should go back in time and see this place. It’s not even half excavated and it’s a wonder. I have no idea of future plans for the site but it’s important to find out how big the network really is.

There were large burial urns discovered with Pyu inscriptions, the cover stone of the relic chamber of cetis design, Pyu Buddha images, Brahman gods and goddesses, figurines of different gods, gold and silver plates, Vishnu Lakshmi stone reliefs, iron nails one meter long, silver coins, Pyu beads and many other cultural artifacts.

Back outside the museum on the Sri Krestra city grounds and beyond, there are 5^th century Cetis, the largest being Bawbawgyi at 153’ with a walk-in opening when not under refurbishment.

In the 5^th century King Duttabung built 9 Cetis within the city walls. These are different in shape than most of the pagodas in Bagan.

Some of the spots have been recreated but everything underground is somewhat protected.

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Bagan, Myanmar

Bagan, Myanmar

Steph, Poul, and myself took advantage of the noon check out time and wandered into the Ban Cherry Guesthouse and booked rooms. It is by far better to call ahead to make a reservation to any guesthouse anywhere in Myanmar because Internet connections are sketchy or periodically turned off by you know who along with frequent power outages. Cherry Guest House;  No. 278/3000, Maha Bandoole Garden Street (Barr Lan), Upper Block, Kyauklada. Mobile Ph. # 095340623, 098526399. Bagan is somewhat spread out along the banks of the Irrawaddy and there are a lot of foreigners of every expense level. When it comes to a bed and a bathroom I’ll pay down. Bagan is broken into two, old Bagan and new Bagan. We wandered around looking for a place to eat and wash the daily dust out of my mouths. At dusk one can see particulates in the air and headlights.

The following morning I rented a bike from Cherry and took off about 6 am for the sunrise and to catch the morning light on the red brick pagodas. Other pagodas have been painted gold for your touring enjoyment and they light up like candles in the morning light.

I wandered through the sand back roads where I searched out the tallest Pagoda with stairs before the sun crested the horizon. Once up the stairs with a few other spectators I noticed a viewing tower in the foreground that was considerably higher than where I was in the scheme of things but photos turn out better the closer to the pagodas rather than afar.

To the west pagoda spires speckle the land sticking out of the mist with only a few massive pagodas catching early light.

Beyond the horizon hot air balloons rise with the light and heat and fly over-head close to the spires.

The land in between the pagodas is farmland of hay and dry rice bracketed by dirt roads and Tamarind trees. Locals drive their oxcarts down the dirt roads with a few straggling bikers such as myself saying hello and sliding around in the sand. Most of the pagodas I went to in the morning, I was the only person there. Solitude and peace and quiet can be found.

I stayed for a few days taking in some of the local artists works and enjoying the local food. An artist I enjoyed spoke English and showed me about his gallery. His information is as follows: Address, Bagan Nyaung Oo (Main Rd.) Ngar Myet Hnar Qtr. Nuang Oo. Tel: 0925620885. E-mail: shwemudra@gmail.com.

I booked a bus to Pyay, home of a 4th century walled city and palace of the Pyu people (Pre-Burmese). Very interesting city, museum and archeological site; the Sri Ksetra, Pyu Cultural Heritage Region.

In the foreground is a water tank that the monks used to bath in.

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