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| Mandalay royal moat and city wall (Pic: Tourism Myanmar) |
Come to Mandalay
It’s an enjoyable place, it’s our iconic city
So beautiful with waters shimmering
And emerald-green palace walls
With turrets and banquettes
Surrounded by the moat
All bright in the sunlight reflecting
HUMMING this famous song in praise of Mandalay, I set foot on the grounds of our former royal city. Surrounded by the dark Shan Plateau far to the east, Mandalay Hill to the north, and the Sagaing Hills across the Ayeyarwady River to the west, enchanting Mandalay immediately captivated me, a Yangonite. My former doubts about the city’s reputation, expounded in many songs and poems, suddenly disappeared.
I was like a foreigner visiting Myanmar for the first time. Women riding motorcycles; old, nearly empty buses; beautifully designed buildings; clean streets crossing each other at right angles – everything was interesting. Township names had royal bearings. Locals looked more carefree. Their use of the Burmese language was lovely, and to my ears, sounded more Burmese. Among the locals who were accustomed to the cold, I was the only one who wanted to “scream at a junction to make the city quake,” as a Myanmar poet wrote more than 100 years ago.
I had been familiar with a popular story of how Mandalay came into existence long before. Lord Buddha, the legend goes, made a trip to this region during which he met an ogress at the top of Mandalay Hill who cut her flesh and offered it to him as food. He prophesied that the ogress would be the founder of a future royal city, a metropolis of Buddhism, which would emerge at the foot of the hill.
I don’t know if the legend is true, but 2400 years after the Buddha’s death, a royal city did emerge on the spot in 1857 when King Mindon, not much liking his old capital Amarapura, decided to move to a new one.
A new city was laid out in an empty area at the foot of 230-metre-high (790-foot-high) Mandalay Hill. King Mindon named the new capital Yadanabon, which was derived from the Pali name Ratanapura (“city of gems”).
The first precious gem I encountered during my visit was Kuthodaw Pagoda near the foot of the hill, where “world’s biggest book” is on display in the form of 729 marble slabs on which the entire Buddhist canon is inscribed. As I walked the pathways between the small stupas that housed the slabs, I couldn’t help appreciating the effort of King Mindon who, upon embarking on the inscription project, said he “wanted to make a meritorious deed no one had ever done before”.
Then I went to the nearby Atumashi (Incomparable) Monastery. One of the Seven Great Edifices simultaneously founded by King Mindon in 1857, the original Atumashi is said to have been a “magnificent wooden structure with considerable exterior stucco and set on a high platform.” Unfortunately, only stumps of the charred teak pillars, a grand staircase and some colonnaded walls were left after it caught fire in 1890.
Adjacent to Atumashi stands Shwenandaw, or the Golden Palace Monastery, but there are no longer gold leaves on it. Adorned with woodcarvings depicting stories from the life of the Buddha, known as the Jataka tales, it was once a royal chamber in which King Mindon died in October 1878. It was moved to the present location and established as monastery by his son King Thibaw. Thanks to the move, it was the only original royal chamber left following World War II, during which the royal palace and residences were destroyed.
At sunset, I went to the top of the hill.
“Fanny ... Fanny ... It’s like when the devil took Our Lord up on to the high mountain and showed Him the kingdoms of the world.”
Anyone who has read F. Tennyson Jesse’s 20th century novel The Lacquer Lady will surely remember these words, which were spoken by the character Agatha as soon as she reached the top of Mandalay Hill. She likely would not have been able to write such vivid prose had she not had firsthand experience of the scene. As I stood at the top, the sky turned rose with the sun about to set behind the Sagaing Hills across the distant river, and the city looked so exquisite in the twilight. The night city soon emerged in the darkness along with light that gleamed on the water of the square moat edging the inner city.
At the top of the hill, a Buddha statue points his finger to the city, and an ogress pays respect to him by joining her palms against her breast – a depiction of the legend of the city’s founding.
The next day, I visited the palace. Passing through the entrance to the rose-red battlements, I looked for gardens with tamarind trees, golden spires, gold and white pagodas, scarlet palace chambers, gilded teak pillars and the central seven-storey pyathat (tiered wooden spires) where the Lion Throne of the king once lay. But all had been lost forever!
As I walked through the site I considered the ups and downs of the city’s past – the golden era of the reign of King Mindon, the royal bloodshed that followed Prince Thibaw’s ascension to the throne, the merry days of the last royal couple, their defeat at the hands of the British in 1885, and the royal couple’s final departure from the city at Gauwein Jetty.
In front of the court in this very palace, Thibaw’s queen Supayalat humiliated the Prime Minister U Kaung, who suggested that the king should avoid war against the British. The queen wept as she stood on top of Nan Myint tower and watched the British steamers dock at the jetty. Two cannons in front of the palace were silent as the British troops approached. The ideological split in the palace and lack of leadership are often cited as the reasons for the Myanmar defeat.
On November 28, 1885, the palace surrendered to its enemies without a single shot of gunfire. The chamber of the Lion Throne became an altar, the assembly hall became military headquarters and the queen’s chamber a nightclub. The palace suffered an even worse fate when it burned down during World War II.
Coincidentally, I visited the jetty on the evening of November 29, 2005, exactly 120 years after the last king and queen of Myanmar boarded a ship on their way to permanent exile.
On that day, a British officer “signed to the king to walk along the gangway, but the king hesitated and held back. Ah! Thakin, it was hard on him to take his foot from off his kingdom, from off the land that was his.
“And so he hesitated. Then the officer grew impatient and signed again, and the queen went forward and put her hand in that of the king and led him up the way to the steamer as a mother leads her child when it is lost and afraid.”
So goes the depiction by author H. Fielding Hall in his famous book Thibaw’s Queen.
Other gems I encountered on my trip included nearby historical sites such as the unfinished Mingun Stupa and the world’s largest ringing bell; sacred sites in the Sagaing Hills; the ruins of old capital Inwa; Taungthaman Lake, where I walked on the teakwood U Bein Bridge and rode in a boat enjoying the breeze; and old monasteries and stupas in Amarapura. Wherever I visited, I was enthralled by the traditional arts and crafts, and felt lost in the pleasant natural surroundings.
Despite its vibrant past, Mandalay is developing fast into a globalised metropolis. Much of Mandalay’s heritage has been destroyed by disasters and wars, but it still boasts a great many sites of historical significance and remains one of the places that provides the best insight into the heart and soul of Myanmar.
Yangon might be bigger, but it is not as grand Mandalay. Yangon is like a coquettish girl but Mandalay is a graceful lady in modest dress. Less bustling, having pleasant surroundings, bearing a royal atmosphere and rich in culture and tradition, Mandalay has become my new favourite town, whatever weaknesses it may have.
At the end of my holiday, I left my beloved Mandalay with great reluctance – a city full of cultural and sentimental value; and the last fortress of Myanmar culture.
(This travelogue was published in the print edition of a "Travels" special supplement by The Myanmar Times in October 2006.)
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