Reclining Buddha and Chinese New Year Celebration

These two events are not related – only related by my day of sightseeing. In the morning I went to see the Reclining Buddha and in the evening we went to China Town here to witness the Chinese New Year Celebration.

It’s a good thing the Reclining Buddha is resting because his size would make his features appear really eerie. He is housed in a large metal-roofed shed, only a short distance from the Shwedagon Paya I toured the other day. If you haven’t had your fortune told lately, there are fortune tellers and palm readers ready to do so – for a fee of course. Of course, nothing here is expensive, so if you were so inclined this is the place!

That evening Tamara and I and friends of hers went to China Town here for the Chinese New Year’s Celebration.

It was a lively occasion with hundreds and maybe thousands of people swarming the streets, buying and selling everything including any kind of food you’d want, flowers, clothing, cheroot cigars, spices, even bamboo and sugar cane. The Chinese Dragon even made an appearance. After we had made our purchases, we headed to a restaurant called the Western Duck for a traditional meal of duck. It was good, although I must say the Peking Duck I have had in the past was better to my way of thinking.

I am truly amazed at the number of people who attend a function or festival or market, all crowded together, and no one seems to get trampled or hurt. The same applies for the traffic. So many cars, taxis, buses, bicycles, carts, wagons and pedestrians, sharing the same roadways, all attempting to miss the inevitable pot hole and yet the percentage of injuries I would think is small. The flow of traffic is like a dance in a way, where all of the dancers are swaying in the same direction at the same time. Drivers are more aware of each other here due to street size and volume of traffic. Somehow they zig and zag at the right time to accommodate each other. A gentle tap of the automobile’s horn will let the surrounding drivers know of one’s intention to change lanes, cross in front of, or enter a lane of traffic. Sometimes the changing of lanes gets pretty hairy as far as I am concerned with cars coming within inches of each other in that process. No one from Yangon even flinches when getting in the other driver’s way. They seem to know the other driver will look out for them. Perhaps I am looking at it through a tourist’s eyes, but still, I am amazed at these truly lovely, gentle people.