Wednesday November 12, 2025
After breakfast at the hotel, we started
the drive to Golden Rock Pagoda.
We stopped in Bago to see the Kyaik
Pun Pagoda which has a 90-foot statue depicting four Buddhas (Kakusandha,
Konagamana, Kassapa, and Gautama) seated in four positions, sitting back to
back in four directions. They were built by King Migadippa of Bago in the 7th
Century AD (tradition) and renovated by King Dhammazedi in the 15th century AD.
We stopped for lunch in Bago, and it
was good Chinese food. The guide continues to be kind of bossy with the staff,
making them serve our family style meal (with them standing by the table) when
we’d prefer to just take what we wanted. The bathrooms were locked, and they
came running to freshly mop the floor for us. Myint Swe shopped for some fruit
for our dessert. We bought some snacks for later at the markets there.
There were many checkpoints crossing
various borderlines within the country. Myint Swe told us that some trucks sit
there for days or even weeks and they bring stoves to cook food while they wait.
We were ushered through quickly at each one. (they aren’t concerned with tourists)
There were at least 5 checkpoints close together from division to state.
We finally reached the Kinpun Base
Camp after 6 hours where we then switched to an open truck for about 45
minutes. I don’t know what we were expecting the truck to be, but it was a
large community truck, and they crammed people into it and we barely fit and
Myint Swe paid extra not to have one more person in our row. (5 instead of 6) He
chose the front row since he felt it had the most room for our backpacks. Well,
there was no rail to hang on (there was evidence that one used to be there) and
the road was steep and winding and those in the middle couldn’t see a thing.
I had an outside so I could hang on to
the metal arm and managed to get some shots on the way up. Even those of us on
the outside couldn’t really lean out to see as a passing one might hit you There
were sharp hairpin turns, steep climbs and one huge drop that felt like a drop
on an old wooden roller coaster. People behind us had their knees in our backs
and it felt like someone was playing tic tac toe on my back. The truck made
quite a few stops to fill the truck and when a few people got off at the chair
lifts Greg climbed over the bench to sit in the row behind us.
At long last we reached the spot to
get off for the hotel and then we still had about a 10 minute walk to the hotel.
There were porters fighting to take our backpacks and the first one that
grabbed mine caused the rest of them to yell at her and another one took mine
from the other one’s basket and she put Greg’s in too the crowd yelled at her
too. It seemed they all wanted the tip money. I welled with tears as the small
girl carried our things and was pleased to do it to earn money. This country
has brought me to tears more times than I can count. We got checked into the Mountain
Top Hotel and were shown to our rooms which were basic, but we had beautiful
views of the valley.
Golden Rock (Kyaiktiyo Pagoda) which is a well-known Buddhist pilgrimage site. It’s a small pagoda built on the top of a granite boulder covered with gold leaf pasted on by its male worshippers. According to legend, the Golden Rock itself is precariously perched on a strand of Buddha's hair as it amazingly stands on the edge of the cliff against gravity, and Burmese people believed the sacred hair relics of Buddha are inside.
We met Myint Swe for the walk to the
site and well before the actual site we had to remove our shoes and socks. So,
up the stairs and through all the wet, sticky, gunky stuff we trooped to the
top. It was beautiful and interesting to see, just painful for the feet. The
guide bought gold leaf for the guys to apply to the rock since women aren’t allowed
to we took the photos of the backs of their heads. Many locals wanted photos of
us with them and 2 monks came up to talk to us. One monk talked to us and the
other was videoing the chat. He asked if we believe that the rock can stay balanced,
and we said it seems impossible. He said scientifically it really shouldn’t and
said they believe buddha keeps it there. He said they believe it didn’t occur naturally
there but rather come to them as a gift.
Dinner was interesting and the food was
good but English was a challenge for the server. Tom got a cheese sandwich
instead of a cheese omelet. The rest of us got chicken sandwiches that we requested
no lettuce or tomatoes and were told it only came with mayo. It came with all
of it and a side of cashews. Everything was good.
Tomorrow, we leave at 8:30 to return
to Yangon.
Photo album - Golden Rock https://photos.app.goo.gl/jVE4iCR3WRVQ6eNG8
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