The Dead, The Red and The Sitting

Another bright, sunny day. The afternoon study tour for today took us to a huge WW II memorial with rows of graves, beautiful flowers and long trellises of vines with purple flowers. While we were wandering around, gardeners were trimming bushes, mowing the lawn (with what looked like the cross of a weed whacker and a rototiller) and At the center was a huge, round, stone pavilion where a short description carved in the stone said 27,000 people were buried there from the war. One of our participants, Mark, made an insightful comment about how one person's ideas could influence and hurt so many. An interesting feature was the 4" deep inset in the ground for each row of headstones. I wondered if this was more of a practical feature (perhaps having buried the entire row at once) rather than an aesthetic one.

From there we traveled to see white elephants which in fact looked more red and pink. If they had been clean I think they might have looked almost tan colored. Probably the lightest skinned elephants I have ever seen, but certainly not white. We were all rather disappointed. While here I had the chance to talk with one of the MIT students who explained the origins of the 7 different ethnicities in Burma (Kachin, Chin, Karen, and Wa are the only ones I can remember right now). She told me most of the people arrived from Tibetan and Chinese areas originally and the people differentiate them by their facial features.

Our last stop of the day was to see the largest Buddha in Burma. It is carved from one piece of alabaster stone found near Mandalay. The statue was carved and then transported by train to Yangon. It sits about 30-40 feet tall. Most of the pagodas we have visited have very few people at them when we arrive. At this one I was able to see a monk praying.

Today was another very hot day. If I do not keep as cool as possible it is hard to function. Most of the time I feel like a zombie. I am contemplating buying an umbrella to shield me from the sun and the rain when it eventually comes. They sell ones that fold up into about 6" long. Tomorrow is a free day for us to do whatever we want. I feel like we have already seen most of the sights and there are not many places to go for entertainment or spots listed on the hotel map. I should spend some time working on a sermon for chapel. Jackie (Hong Kong) and I are leading Monday's service. Here's to words of inspiration!