NINE GATES OF ASIA

Burma You are equipped to fulfill your mission; you need nothing more at this time.” --Sedi June 16: Garden Guest House, Yangon, Burma Welcome to Burma . . . my first impressions are very favorable: wide boulevards, clean and well-maintained buildings. I settle into the Garden Guest House right across from the Sule Pagoda in the center of town. The view from the third floor of the Pagoda is spectacular. I need to go out and find a place to change money. As soon as I step out of the hotel, they find me. I walk along the Sule Paya Street for fifteen to twenty minutes and try to figure out the real exchange rate on the black market. Selim, a young Muslim, gives me the best rate. He says his best friend is also named Faruk. He takes me to a restaurant he calls his office, where I am going to change one hundred U.S. dollars. Selim asks, “Would you like some chai?” Hearing that they use the word “chai” for tea here surprises me. Chai has become almost a universal word. Selim pulls out a stack of bills from his shirt pocket, but this is just one-fourth of the whole. He pulls out a few more stacks and starts counting. A small mound starts forming on the table as he stacks up the bills he has counted. The people in the restaurant are watching us. I am not very happy to have people see me getting so much money. I know foreigners are short-changed in this fashion, so I count the four stacks one by one. It’s all there. Finally, Selim asks for his present. In this part of the world, it means commission or tip. We agree on a figure. June 18: Lucky Seven GH, Nyaung U, Bagan After a fifteen hour bus ride, we arrive at Nyaung U village with the first light of day. It looks like a charming village. I shoulder my backpack and start walking to Lucky Seven, ignoring the curious stares at the village bus terminal. When I insist on paying for a clean room with a bath in kyat, the rate comes to less than two U.S. dollars. I leave my stuff and start looking for a place to have breakfast. All the tourist places are closed at this early hour, so I sit down at a teahouse that’s open. Tea is boiling in jet-black teapots on a wood fire. There are freshly baked pastries on a table next to the fire. I order a milky tea, followed by another one. There is a very peaceful and relaxing environment in this country where Internet does not exist, whose borders opened to foreigners only ten years ago--a country that is ruled by a military junta and cut off from the rest of the world. As the sun starts coming up, I head over to Shwezigon, the most important temple in Bagan. Both sides of the walkway leading to the temple from the main street are lined with columns. The main stupa is extremely impressive: burnished gold alight with the rays of the rising sun. Everywhere I look, there are scenes ideal for photos. I have always been affected by the silent poetry of the Buddhist temples, which are a strong contrast to the kaleidoscopic of colors and chaos of Hindu temples. I lose myself in the majesty of their plainness. I spend hours there. Time flies by. I need to get back to the village without delay. I head toward the colonnaded road leading out of the temple. There are souvenir vendors on both sides of the road going to the main gate. I have already illegally changed money on the black market, but I don’t want to take the same risk again and thus try to spend my local money carefully. The lady vendors are extremely insistent. “We haven’t made any sales today. We need to take some money home,” they say. Ladies, you’ve hit me where it hurts again! I feel obliged to look at some things. They have beautiful painted wood boxes. I buy one from a stall. Upon their endless insistence I agree to buy a second one as well. Okay, these are for my good friends. At the last moment, I see a completely unique set of scales. This is an old wooden box with two small scales and elephant shaped weights; it looks antique. (Note: Everything had been normal up to that point. To experience the part that is abnormal, I have to wait until I return back home. When I return home months later, I will discover these three items I bought on my way out of Shwezigon inside the black suitcase I left in Istanbul at the beginning of my trip. This poses a question I haven’t been able to answer yet. Even though all my belongings were in Izmir, my hometown, and everything I bought during the trip was sent to Izmir, the answer still eludes me. More than how it happened, the question is, why just these three items bought on the way out of the same temple? What are they trying to tell us? Is the reality just that “it’s a miracle”? I don’t know . . .)