Sceneries of Rathedaung

Rathedaung is a little town in northern part of Arakan (Rakhine) state, which is on the way from Akyab (Sittwe) to Buthidaung. It is situated on the half way between these two towns, it is 80 nautical miles from Akyab to Buthidaung and Rathedaung is at 40 nautical miles from those two towns. But, believe it or not, it took about 6 hours to travel from Rathedaung to Akyab. Serious!!! On the way back from Rathedaung to Akyab, the ship departed Rathedaung by around 3:00 pm and reached to Akyab by about 9:00 pm.

Anyway, with helps of those slow moving vehicle, people can use as daily transport to and fro one place to another. Thanks alot to IWT.

Here we'll go, I'd like to share some scenery of Rathedaung.

It is the most distinct landscape of Rathedaung, called Rathedaung Zeti (Pagoda).

From Rathedaung

This is view of same place from other side.

From Rathedaung

In the second world war time, Rathedaung was one of the distinct places in Arakan. And in Anglo-Burmese wars also, Rathedaung involved as a prominent place.

From Rathedaung

From Rathedaung

Here is the scene that you can see from top of the hill. The lake is the main drinking water supply for whole Rathedaung, and people fetch water from that lake with portable container and used it as drinking water.

From Rathedaung

If you go down along the stairs on the slope of the hill, you can see statues of two lions there.

From Rathedaung

When I saw this tree, I felt something. The tree remains stem and branches only. No leaves, nothing. I just took this photo and give name "Beauty of Nothing" In the past the tree will have greenish leaves and it will have a time with full prosperity. Now, it has nothing. In my mind, I assume it can represent old age life of human being. My friend, how's your opinion?

From Rathedaung

This is another hill very close to Zeti Taung and Rathedaung township, it is Sigar Taung.

From Rathedaung

The following is the statues inside ordination hall on top of Sigar Taung.

From Rathedaung

Beside that ordination hall, there is another hall that housed one thousand statues of novices. On every 10th month of Myanmar Calendar, month of Pyar Tho, the people celebrate the festival called "Festival of Thousand Novices". People all over arakan state come over there and join this festival.

Arakanese Princess Aye Chun

This is one more attempt of mine trying to preserve the ancient literatures. Its name is Arakanese Princess Aye Chun. Aye Chun is a type of poems composed by wise ministers of ancient Arakanese Kingdom especially sung for child prince and princess to let them asleep. Arakanese Princess Aye Chun was composed by Adu-Mun-Nyo, minister of Arakanese King, Ba Saw Pru’s reign. It said that it was composed for daughter of Ba Saw Phryu. Unfortunately, until now nobody knows complete biography of Adu-Mun-Nyo.

It was in February 2010, the time I visited back to Arakan, I went to A Tway Thit (New Idea) Bookstore in Akyab Market and search for some books that I wanted to buy. Since my childhood, I went A Tway Thit whenever I reached to Akyab. I found out a book called THE GOLDEN MRAUK-U written by U Shwe Zan. I bought that one with 15K kyats. Bookshop gave me back this Arakanese Princess Aye Chun as a gift for purchasing the GOLDEN MRAUK-U. Thank you so much A Tway Thit.

Download Here!

The Ancient Kingdoms of Peru  IMAX Presents - Kingdom of the Tiger Lost Kingdom of the Maya

20100209 : Road to Rathedaung 2

It's only forty nautical miles between Akyab (Sittwe) and Kane Thar (Rathedaung) and land miles distance is less than that, but sorry about that it takes three blog posts of photos. It is quite lucky that the camera I am holding was not too good enough to take professional photo. Whatever it is, the photos I took are just for remembrance of the land we have been apart for so long. As I mentioned before, most of the places didn't have much changes. It's still same like a decade ago. The local main transportation vehicle, slow moving Inland Water Transport vessels are also crowded and dirty like forever.

From Rathedaung

Here we have a photo of the Mozze Island which footprint of Gottama Buddha is situated. People from Arakan believed that it was one of the Buddha's footprints that he put it on the visit to Arakan as per invitation of Arakan King, Candrasuriya. The transport ships between Buthidaung and Akyab stop twice a week at the jetty near that Parda Buddha's footprint and let the passengers to drop by and say to the prayer at that ordination hall that housed Buddha's footprint. But, Mgluaye was unlucky on that trip and didn't have a chance to go there and pay respect to it.

After passing through Mozze Island, there is not much distance to Mayu river. Coming out from Ku Daung creek, you can see Rathedaung Hill and Pagoda already.

From Rathedaung

Have a closer look...

From Rathedaung

More closer....

From Rathedaung

Rathedaung is always welcoming you...

From Rathedaung

From Rathedaung

This is Rathedaung Jetty, as of ship will continue its trip to Buthidaung, people from Rathedaung come down to jetty and sell foods for passengers. It is quite dangerous to see them working for earning such small amount of money, but they are all skillful and quite safe.

From Rathedaung

Now we reach to Rathedaung.

Earth Hour 2010

Today, 8:30 pm of March 27 of year 2010, nearly a billion of people from all over the world will turn off light for about one hour and celebrate Earth Hour event to promote awareness of Climate Change that was threatening our globe. Earth Hour began in 2007 in Sydney, Australia and this is fourth year celebrate this global effort to highlight that global climate was worsen and worsen by year by year and decade by decade, and even though we cannot solve this problem on climate change completely, we are able to slow down the process to happen very first.

You can visit official Earth Hour website http://www.earthhour.org/ and here are the ways how you can participate in this global event.

Upload your photos: http://flickr.com/groups/eh2010

Upload your videos: http://www.youtube.com/group/earthhourglobal

Tweets and blog posts: use the tag '#earthhour' to help us find your post

And for us, people from Burma, even though we are not participating officially in Earth Hour 2010, it is very lucky that our people in Burma are celebrating Earth Hour nearly everyday and sometimes it last about more than a day also. So, it is not a new thing for people of Burma. We all are saving energy per country-wide measure.

Furthermore, today is 65th anniversary Military Day of Burma also. Unfortunately, it falls on Saturday, government employee wasted one of the gazettes holidays.

20100209 : Road to Rathedaung 1

As of I don't want a single post to be very long long post with so many photos, I divided posts into some photos in a post. Here are some more photo of my Arakan trip.

Here are seagulls that are trying to catch the foods for them.

Like seagulls, daily life of the people from the surrounding areas also similar, they also starts their daily life on the water of Kaladan river...

Father and son are rowing together a boat...

I am sailing~~ I am sailing~~

Coast-guard navy in off-duty.

Let row together, it is sure we will reach our destination at one day.

In certain kind of situation, we may need to be able to row alone to reach our destination. Loneliness is our partner at that time.

Don't worry, our people are also using wind energy to go our trip. We used this kind of sustainable energy since before people noticed about global warming.

Youngest son at the head of the boat rowing to go faster, elder brother in front of him is baling out the water, father is guiding the direction of boat.

Wherever you go, I will go if we two are together. (Just one of the sentences coming into my brain to see that scene.)

One of the handful of bridges inside Arakan, that is Mun Chaung Bridge, one of the main bridges on the Rangoon - Sittwe highway.

Sometimes when I feel tired of capital life, I want to go a trip with such kind of boat. You can sleep and rest and feel the 100% fresh breeze passing through the river. You don't need to bother duties and responsibilities that you have to attend...

Stay tuned... I will upload some more scenic photos in next post...

:)

20100209 : Road to Rathedaung

It was early in the morning, and the weather was too cold. It has never been felt such cool weather more than a decade already. We woke up around 6:00 am and went out for breakfast. There was one of the tea shop nearby the telecoms: office of Akyab. It was so nice to have spicy Mont Ti in such cold weather. It made me sweat and warm up my body , and good for health also.

We took three-wheeled vehicle, similar to Toke Toke of Thailand, to Akyab jetty. Akyab was just woke up.

We were entering the boundary of Akyab Jetty area.

The three-wheeled motor-biked vehicle was becoming the main transport for the capital of Arakan state. Everywhere is still same conditions like a few decades ago. Who will believed that there was such kind of place unchanged for several decades? Can we say that we were preserving the Post World War II Akyab until to-date?

Here are another main transport vehicles of Arakan, known as Sampan. As of Arakan and Tanintharyi were occupied by British in First Anglo-Burmese War (5 March 1824-24 February 1826) earliest in Burma, there were so many adopted words from English language to Arakan. For example, hospital was called sick line, half cut barrel was still called drum in Arakanese also. You can study a lot of words adopted from English language in A Guide to Arakanese Language.

Behind there, you can see the traditional dockyard for big Sampan.

There were so many seagulls flying around our ship, you can buy and feed them from the ship also. If you throw the food to them, they will fly around and catch that food skillfully.

We have left Set Roe Gya Creek already. Now we were on Kaladan River.

Stay tuned!

20100208 : Road to Akyab

Akyab

It is old name of capital of Arakan state (now Rakhine State), now known as Sittwe. It was more than a decade that I haven't been there. On February 2010, I reached back to there. Akyab is still same conditions like a decade ago. Here are a few photos I have taken in Akyab.

Let start from Mingalardon airport, here we have one of MAI planes used for international airway travel, I thought it should be Airbus A310.

But, the plane I took from Rangoon to Akyab was not that one, it was just a Fokker F27 with engines with propellers. I was lucky on that day because I could take Myanmar Airways Domestic, and ticket fare was 50K from Rangoon to Akyab. The below one was meal provided on Myanmar Airways on plane.

Here we go, I have touched down crescent land.

This is Fokker F27 that took me from Rangoon toAkyab.

Akyab was still same appearance like a decade ago as I mentioned before, I could feel sea breeze that came from nearby Bay of Bengal. The roof of the airport building was undergoing renovation, so that you could see that some of the roofing plate were not there.

Moat (entrance) to Lawkananda Pagoda, it was taken from the vehicle that I took from airport to downtown. Sorry for that I couldn't take photo of pagoda itself.

After reaching to Mya Guest House, I hired a motorbike and went down to Akyab Jetty to fetch one of my relatives. After that, we went back to Mya and went to Point. Unfortunately, the time we reached there, the sun went down to the sea already. But, I still took some photos. This is one of the photos I took there.