Climbing 777 Steps to Mystical Mount Popa

Mount Popa. Buddhist Monastery on Taung Kalat. This photo only courtesy of Ralf-Andre Lettau.


Mount Popa is a dreamer's destination. Located 50 kilometers south of Bagan's Nyaung U township, I hired a van to punish myself once more. Climbing 777 steps on barefoot doesn't sound so inviting for me, but cogitate on this. Popa, which literally means "flower", is the center of Nats worship - animism religion - that pervades this barren region. A monastery of half a dozen temples rise on top of an extinct volcano that stands almost vertical (instead of the usual inverted cone that we're used to). On your way up, frisky macaque monkeys litter the steps, the roof, the side rails. Don't leave anything on the floor - or just bid them farewell forever! They populate your arduous path and whisk away with all that they can grab. Along the steps are vendors selling bottled yellow flowers that devotees offer to the gods. All I had to offer was a barrel of sweat and diligence. Myalgia notwithstanding, the view from above is breath-taking.

Suddenly, the arid surroundings turn into an idyllic canvas of earth and greens, and blots of golden stupas that arise from everywhere within your 360 degree view. It is a spectacle.

If I sound relatively pleased, wait up I am not done - I haven't even mentioned an earlier sidetrip to a shanty in the middle of the dusty terrain called nowhere. My mind was blaring, uh-oh - another shop hardselling goods to stupid tourists. But no! How wrong could I be? Everywhere you looked was a parched land. An old guy started entertaining me, giving me the lowdown on wine-making, juice extraction, peanut-wine grating (a cow grinds the peanuts around and around until the sap is extracted then fermented - I never realized peanuts had juice). I was in awe. Suddenly this barren place that God forgot didn't seem so. This was nature's bounty. A singular toddy palm tree turns into a stool, a table, a couch that looked like bamboo stacks, a wine, an alcohol, a roof, and - my favorites - the toddy palm juice (so sweet!) and the palm sugar curdled into a chestnut-sized candy! Then they gave me 2 small bags full of this palm sugar candy - "our gift," they said! I've never been so glad to hand in a "donation".

I still carry those "small bags" of candy with me - less 7 pieces.

This is the Eye in the Sky in a giddy hyperglycemic state, and reaching to the heavens from Mount Popa.

In a few week's time...

I will be in another hectic trip. I have recently renewed my passport (which turned out to be a harrowing experience) and I have so far visited the DFA 3x just for a renewal (can you believe that?). Since i was a child, I have never set foot at the DFA. It was always through a travel agent. Now I gag at the thought of ever visiting the DFA again ... and those darn scourge of our lives - the "fixers"- may they rot in hell! Oops sorry. Got carried away. ;-) (P.S. The next photos are courtesy of some sites on Myanmar.)

On a more personal note, I have noticed that this blogsite has had a good number of hits in just less than a month. I started this blogsite last week of October, just a few weeks after my arrival from the mind-blowing Siem Reap and Phnom Penh of Cambodia; and Hanoi and Saigon in Vietnam. I had the intentions of documenting my solo travel in Vietnam and Cambodia, as well as sharing my travels to help other Filipino travelers with the little details that would help the anxious wanderlust. I didn't really care much if i had readership, although I did invite all my friends to visit this site to share my adventures with them as early as November. This will somehow serve as a journal. Besides, the pics look better when posted here than on an album, I dunno why?!!




Last December - during the holiday respite nearing the recent New Year - I decided to employ a "counter" to somehow document the number of hits. I was awed by the number of hits!!! I honestly didn't think anyone would "visit" besides my friends (I don't think I have THAT MUCH friends who would keep visiting too.) To my surprise, in a span of less than a month, this site actually got almost 500 hits! Deduct my visits (which is once every 3 days or so), it still is a good number for just a span of a month. In fact, just from yesterday, I have had a spectacular 34 hits/"visits" within 24 hours.

In relation to this, if any of you gets to visit this site, please do say hello, and tell me what's on your mind. Would be nice to have a friendly living being making their presence felt. If you have been to an amazing place that needs to be shared, I'd gladly feature it here so we can share them with others. I would appreciate details and tips that would be "useful" to other travellers. As you have noticed, this blog-site is also picture-heavy so I would encourage you to share those photos. I can't promise to post all of them, but I'll pick my favorites.

Lastly, I will be visiting several places in Thailand again (I've been there several times) but the more notable visit would be that of Myanmar (Burma). I just saw Stallone's "John Rambo" (the 4th incarnation) set in Myanmar, which "demonized" the country's situation. Of course I understand that dictatorship runs this country, but it can't be that bad. Either way, I will find out! (As a footnote, go watch "John Rambo", the action is amazing! And Stallone is back!!! Soooo back!)

The itinerary in Myanmar will be pretty exciting: Yangon (the former capital - I recently read that it's Naypyidaw now, some 300 kms from Yangon), Bagan (my most anticipated), Mandalay and Mount Popa. If Cambodia's Angkor boasts of some 50 temples or so, Bagan has an astounding 4,400 temples!!! And I am fraught with excitement!

If any of you has been to Myanmar, I would appreciate any tips! I am posting herewith some photos I saw from my surfing.

And yeah, do say hi!

These last 3 photos were taken from a well documented backpacking all over Asia, especially of Myanmar. Please visit the site if you enjoy GREAT PHOTOS and a prolific retelling of a travelogue: http://willthedutch.blogspot.com/