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OUR THREE MAIN NATIONAL CAUSESNon-disintegration of the Union ..................................... Our causeNon-disintegration of national solidarity........................ Our causePerpetuation of national sovereignty............................ Our cause

PEOPLE'S DESIREOppose those relying on external elements, acting as stooges, holding negative viewsOppose those trying to jeopardize stability of the State and progress of the nationOppose foreign nations interfering in internal affairs of the StateCrush all internal and external destructive elements as the com-mon enemy

FOUR POLITICAL OBJECTIVESStability of the State, community peace and tranqulity, preva-lence of law and orderNational reconciliationEmergence of a new enduring State ConstitutionBuilding of a new modern developed nation in accord with the new State Constitution

FOUR ECONOMIC OBJECTIVESDevelopment of agriculture as the base and all-round develop-ment of other sectors of the economy as wellProper evolution of the market-oriented economic systemDevelopment of the economy inviting participation in terms of technical know-how and investment from sources inside the country and abroadThe initiative to shape the national economy must be kept in the hands of the State and the national peoples

FOUR SOCIAL OBJECTIVESUplift of the morale and morality of the entire nationUplift of national prestige and integrity and preservation and safeguarding of cultural heritage and national characterUplift of dynamism of patriotic spirit

nation

MANAGEMENTCHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

Kang Tian Lye, Eric

CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER:Selvakumar

EDITORIALEDITOR

Selvakumar

ADVERTISINGCynthia

PUBLISHING LICENSESwe Yu Khin

PHOTOGRAPHERSAung Aung,

Christopher Davy,

Kyaw Kyaw Win

DESIGNERKyaw Khaing

PRODUCTIONGenius

PRINTINGShwe Zin Press

DISTRIBUTIONAir Mandalay

COVER PERMISSIONNo. 5404460808

The ownership of trade mark is

acknowledged. No part of this

publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system or transmitted

in any form without the permission of the

publisher in writing.

AIR MANDALAY LIMITED146 Dhammazedi Road,

Bahan Township,

Yangon, MYANMAR.

Tel: (+95.1) 525 488, 501 520

Fax: (+95.1) 525 937

Email: marketing@airmandalay.com.mmWebsite: www.airmandalay.com

GF 01/2009

Statue at Indein temple Inle LakePicture Courtesy Zaw Min Yu

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4 AIR Mandalay

CON T E N T SWELCOME ABOARD

6 Mingalabar! & History

FEATURES

8 Three Days in Miraculous Pyay by Douglas Long

18 Lacquerware: Myanmar’s Finest Art Form by Ma Thanegi

26 An Oasis Called Sagaing by Yin Win

32 A Short Way from Inle: Excursion to Indein by Simon Whiting

38 Botahtaung Pagoda: Myanmar’s Original Hair Relic Shrine by Maw Maw San

44 Sa Pi Bi La Yangon

50 Little Miss Frog

56 Fish Curry in Kachin Style

TRAVEL TIPS

52 Route Map

53 Destinations

54 Myanmar Musings

57 Map of Yangon

58 Maps of Mandalay & Bagan

59 Passenger Sales Agents in Yangon

60 Passenger Sales Agents Abroad

61 Useful Numbers

61 Events Calendar

Air Mandalay’s ATR aircraft

maintenance facility is approved

by the European Aviation Safety

Agency (EASA)

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AIR Mandalay 5

Mingalabar!Air Mandalay warmly welcomes you onboard the Golden Flight. Safety, Reliability and Comfort is our motto and our aim is to get you to your destination promptly, safely and in comfort. Should you require any assistance onboard, please do not hesitate to call any of our cabin crew by using the call button.

Your CommentsShould you have any comments or any other sugges-tions, please write to: Marketing & Communications Department, Air Mandalay Limited or e-mail marketing@airmandalay.com.mm

6 AIR Mandalay

About Us

venture airline in Myanmar, was formed on October 6, 1994, to support the tourism industry. The airline is European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) part 145 approved and presently operates to all major tourist destinations in Myanmar and to Chiang Mai In Thailand.

Our Corporate IdentityAir Mandalay’s logo depicts the mythological Royal Hintha Bird which symbolizes loyalty, respect for traditional values, stability, good luck and prosperity.

The yellow colour represents the numerous golden pagodas found throughout Myanmar

colour of the robes worn by Buddhist monks in Myanmar, thus standing for religious values.

Our FleetAir Mandalay operates French built ATR aircraft that are quiet, comfortable and economical to operate. They are powered by Canadian built Pratt & Whitney engines.

Our CrewOur pilots are trained at ATR training facilities and undergo re-currency training on simulator every six months.

The aircraft maintenance engineers are trained at both ATR and Pratt & Whitney facilities to ensure that the ATR aircraft operated by Air Mandalay are always well maintained.

Selection and training of our multi-lingual cabin crew is aimed at providing high levels of service consistent with Myanmar’s Gentle Traditions.

AIR Mandalay 7

PyayMIRACULOUSTHREE DAYS IN

Wunchataung Paya provided

golden spires peeking out of a canopy of green, and towering above them all Shwesandaw and the huge sitting Buddha at Sehtatgyi Paya.

Visiting

by DOUGLAS LONG

PyayToungoo

Phyu

Hpapun

BAGODIVISION

YANGONDIVISION

YANGON

Bago

Kyaiktiyo(Golden Rock)

8 AIR Mandalay

erhaps inspired by the sound of monks chanting at a nearby

monastery, I started the

day visit to Pyay by sitting on the balcony of my bunga-low at Mingalar Garden Hotel and reading a few pages from Snow in the Summer, a book on Buddhist mindfulness and meditation by Sayadaw U Jotika that had been given as a gift a few weeks before. A light morning rain was fall-ing on the hotel’s pond, where

waiting to be fed. The air was cool, the wind pushing low grey clouds across the sky. It wasn’t quite as miraculous as snow in the summer, but it was

a rare pre-monsoon rainfall and therefore welcome relief from the usual heat of early April.

When my wife Twera woke from her slumber, we ate breakfast at the hotel’s pond-side gazebo, gave the cat-

then walked out to the main road to Payagyi Pagoda, a tall, spherical structure made of bricks thought to date back to the 5th or 6th century AD. Whatever its actual age, the abundant plant life grow-ing out of the vast network of cracks on the pagoda imbued it with an ancient atmosphere. There were three terraces of diminishing circumference built

The view of Pyay from Wunchataung Paya

AIR Mandalay 9

10 Air Man-

around the base of the stupa. According to Buddhist belief, only men are allowed to walk on the third tier, while women

els.

There were plenty of trishaw drivers in the vicinity of the pa-goda, and we hired one to take us on a long ride through the countryside east of Pyay to the site of Thayekhittya (Sri Ksetra), a pre-Bagan Pyu city that was at the height of its power from about 400 to 800 AD. There was a small museum displaying artefacts from the Pyu era, and it was also here that we hired a bullock cart for a reasonable fee to take us a three-hour tour of the countryside.

By now the rain had stopped but clouds remained. We passed through idyllic farmland with few other people in sight, stopping every now and then to explore the

ancient city’s crumbling walls and monuments. Rahanta Cave Complex contained eight Buddha images and was said to be the tomb of a revered monk. Bawbawgyi Paya, a 46-metre-high cylin-drical stupa, was undergoing repair work during our visit. It was covered with bamboo

Above:

Sehtatgyi Paya

Right:

Yahadar Shitseh

Th eindawgyi

Below:

Mingalar Garden

Hotel

10 AIR Mandalay

scaffolding that provided entry to a mysterious open-ing high up on the dome that otherwise would have been inaccessible; it was tempting to climb up and peek inside but I’m afraid of heights, the bamboo looked rickety and a Myanmar-language sign said it was off limits anyway,

so we moved on to the tiny Bebe Paya, which had three Buddha images inside, while nearby Lamyethna Paya was looking a bit worse for wear, requiring an iron framework to prevent collapse. Inside were four Buddha images facing outward from a central pillar.

Other sights included the cem-etery of Queen Beikthano, where six half-buried funeral urns made of stone were pro-tected from the elements by tin roofs, and the overgrown East Zegu Paya. Our tour was all very pleasant but the big-gest surprise came in the form of laughing children who

AIR Mandalay 11

would occasionally dash from

cart for a moment to hand

then stop and wave as we disappeared around the next bend in the dirt road.

Upon our return to the mu-seum we paid the cart driver his modest fee, and Twera honoured the real workers – namely, the two oxen that had pulled us for miles around the countryside – by tapping them lightly on the head with her umbrella and saying “ch-ezubeh” (thank you) to each one.

We returned to Mingalar Garden Hotel for a brief after-noon rest, then hired a trishaw to take us in the opposite di-rection we had gone in the morning: This time we trav-elled west towards downtown Pyay and the Ayeyarwady River. We disembarked from our three-wheeled transport in the vicinity of the towering Shwesandaw Paya but de-cided to bypass the landmark pagoda for the time being. Instead, we walked up a set of stone stairs to a hilltop bristling with various pagodas, includ-ing Wunchataung Paya, which

its many golden spires peek-

ing out of a canopy of green, and towering above them all Shwesandaw and the huge sit-ting Buddha at Sehtatgyi Paya. The wide, brown Ayeyarwady

town, and beyond that low hills disappeared into the haze.

Rather than backtrack, we explored a network of foot-paths leading past a collec-tion of hilltop monasteries, and

that took us down to a solitary colonial building built in 1910 that also seemed to be in cur-rent use as a monastery. We eventually came out on the south side of Shwesandaw,

Below:

Payagyi Paya

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which was our next stop. There were more good views of the town from the pagoda plat-form, and walking down the east stairs past a mossy old shrine with crumbling statues, we made our way to the big sitting Buddha we had seen from Wunchataung. Of more interest to us was the crew of painters who were using bright colours to refurbish the scenes of the Buddha’s life on display around the pagoda. They were quite happy to pose for photographs next to their handiwork and explain the

scenes they were working on. In the end they all gathered for

a group photo before getting back to their work of beautify-ing the pagoda.

By now dinnertime was ap-proaching. We walked past the statue of Bogyoke Aung San – the father of Myanmar independence – on our way to the river, where there were a number of restaurants over-looking the water and serv-ing a variety of Myanmar and Chinese dishes. We settled on Hline Ayar Restaurant, where

rooms, rice and fried potatoes, drank a couple of beers and then skedaddled before the singing girls took the stage. We

Top:

Buddha fi gures at

Yahandar Shitseh

Th eindawgyi

Above left:

Sehtatgyi Paya

Above right:

An ancient wall at

Th ayekhittya

Right:

Historical marker at

Payagyi Paya

AIR Mandalay 13

14 Air Man-

ambled for awhile along the river, where many locals were also ambling and some kids

of early evening.

We dedicated the next day to exploring an intriguing area well beyond the town’s limits. After breakfast at the pond-side gazebo, my wife and I hopped into the back of a small truck we had arranged to hire. We blasted through the streets of Pyay, across the Ayeyarwady River on the Nawade Bridge, through a landscape of rolling hills and

ingly named town of Okk Shit Pin, and then along the road to Pathein before turning

down a dirt road to the village of Htongo. The whole ride took about two-and-a-half hours so

out and stretch our legs.

There was a bit of a lull while lo-

cal authorities checked my

passport,then we

boardeda local boat and

chugged a kilometre or so downriver to Akauk Taung. This is what we had travelled all this way from Pyay to see: rows of Buddha images in alcoves carved into the riverside cliffs by men who collected boat taxes in the 19th century. The images – most in sitting or lying down positions – are arrayed in rows from just above water level to high up on the cliff face, and many of their robes had been painted red or gold. Although Akauk Taung (Tax Mountain) is not heavily pro-moted as a tourist destination, it’s one of the more striking sights I’ve seen in the country.

Above and right:

Akauk Taung

Below:

View from a

bullock cart at

Th ayekhittya

14 AIR Mandalay

For a close-up look at some of the carvings, we stopped the boat at a nondescript spit of sand along the river, from which a steep pathway was hewn into the cliff. The trail passed just underneath – and within arm’s reach – of a group of carvings, which revealed themselves to be much bigger than they had appeared from the river. At the top of the trail was a monastery overlooking the water. The boat pilot told us there was a waterfall near-by but reaching it required an hour of walking along a confusing network of trails. He didn’t know how to get there and we had no guide, so instead we opted to sit for awhile with the head monk of the monastery, who offered us green tea and biscuits, before we started the long journey back to our hotel.

We began our last day in Pyay as we had the previous days: with breakfast at Mingalar Garden Hotel’s pond-side

seemed to know who we were and swam over to where we were sitting. Twera greeted them with a friendly hello be-

water and watching the ensu-ing feeding frenzy.

Our agenda for the day called for a car ride to Shwedaung 14 kilometres south of Pyay. The main attraction there was Shwemyetman Paya, home of a large Buddha statue wear-ing gold-plated spectacles. Many pilgrims believe that the image has the power to heal eye ailments, and nearby is a glass case full of eyewear abandoned by people who claim to have achieved per-fect vision during their visit to the pagoda.

The town itself is quite tranquil, with several more pagodas and a smattering of colonial architecture. Breathing in the serenity, it was hard to imag-ine that this small town was the scene of a major battle during the early days of World War II,

when the Japanese were forc-ing the British to retreat into India. I asked our driver if we could stop by Shwenattaung Paya but he told me it was “so far” and “in the jungle.” I

I knew from my years of expe-rience in Myanmar that “so far” can mean 50 miles or 50 feet. This time “so far” appar-ently meant that it would cost me extra money on top of the K12,000 I was already paying for the car. I might have forked over the extra cash to see the remote pagoda if we weren’t due to leave Pyay by bus in a few hours to return to Yangon.

On the way back to our ho-tel we did stop at YahandarShitseh Theindawgyi. The an-cient structure has been re-furbished three times over the

then the Thayekhittaya style and then the Inwa style. During our visit it was undergoing the process for the fourth time, presumably in Nay Pyi Taw style. Onsite were hundreds of

AIR Mandalay 15

have been found when the pagoda was discovered hid-den in dense forestland many years ago; it was uncovered after a monk had dreamt of its location and led a search par-ty straight to the ruins. Locals

found, as well as old wooden monastery pilings that had

For our last stop our driver swung down a dirt road to Shin Hlaing Gu, a pagoda and tomb near Shwe Pyay Aye Meditation Centre on the banks of the Ayeyarwady River. There was no one around except a lone pilgrim, who nonchalantly told us that the pagoda was sometimes known to glow at night. I didn’t comment but didn’t necessar-ily disbelieve him either. In a land where children appear from nowhere to hand wild-

The main attractionthere was ShwemyetmanPaya, home of a large Buddhastatue wearing gold-platedspectacles.

Left:

The bespectacled Buddha at Shwemyetna Paya

Below:

Laymyethnar Paya at Thayekhittya

Bottom:

The Ayeyarwady River near Pyay at dusk

tax collectors create stunning artwork in homage to the Buddha, and mystical visions provide guidance for the un-earthing of ancient ruins, a luminescent pagoda didn’t make any less sense to me than rain in the dry season or snow in the summer.

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Lacquerware:Myanmar’s finest

art formby MA THANEGI

Handycraft

18 AIR Mandalay

he use of lacquerware is extensive in Myanmar,

ranging from Buddha im-ages, monks’ bowls, sheets

inscribed with Buddhist texts, and trays for offering

ter pots, stacked food carriers,

feet that serve as both dinner tables and plates; to decora-

hotels and wealthy homes.

Lacquerware is light and du-rable and has been a favou-rite material throughout the

Lacquer is the sap of the thitsi (Melanhorrea usitata) tree that grows wild in the forests of Shan State.

Photo courtesy of 13th Street Lacquer shop.

AIR Mandalay 19

ages. In the days of the an-cient kings, royalty used solid gold utensils for betel boxes or

en garments in boxes made of lacquer because they were light, easily por-table and safe from in-sects. Commoners kept their betel-making par-aphernalia and che-roots in lacquer boxes, and in the countryside they continue to do so, laying them out so guests can help them-selves.

Scholars are unable to agree on exactly how the craft ar-rived in Myanmar. It is possible that the Pyu civilisation that

from the 2nd to 8th centuries received the knowledge from people from the northern part of present-day China known as Yun, who excelled in mak-ing lacquer. This might explain why lacquer is called yun in the Myanmar language. The

Pyu people were highly ci-vilised and extremely

skilled in

craftssuch as

jewellery and textiles, so it is possible that they too learned the art of lacquerware. When the Pyu kingdoms fell into de-cline, their remnants were as-similated into the newly formed kingdom of Bagan in the early 10th century, and to this day Bagan remains the centre of

in Myanmar.

Lacquer has also existed in China and Japan for hundreds of years but Myanmar prod-ucts are very different in style and technique. Here they are still made by hand using old methods and simple tools, as well as organic paints and co-lours.

Lacquer is the sap of the thitsi (Melanhorrea usitata) tree that grows wild in the forests of Shan State. The sap is col-lected by making a shallow V-shaped cut in the bark and allowing the sap to drip into a small bowl placed at the pointed bottom of the inci-sion. The harvested sap must be stored in airtight containers

substances are mixed with the sap to create lacquer of differ-

mercuric sulphide for red, arse-nic tri-sulphide for yellow, indi-go for blue. Pebbles or clumps of clay of various colours are also collected and pounded

The sap is collectedby making a shallow V-shapedcut in the bark and allowingthe sap to drip into a small bowl placedat the pointedbottom of theincision.

Th e tools and techniques for creating lacquerware

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