Mandalay

In his book  Burmese Days  George Orwell said of Mandalay in the 1930’s:  ‘it is rather a disagreeable town — it is dusty and intolerably hot, and it is said to have five main products all beginning with P, namely, pagodas, pariahs, pigs, priests and prostitutes’.

Eighty years later and the priests are now monks.  The pariahs, people of mixed race and accepted by neither community, and the pigs, are no longer obvious but have have be replaced by another P - pollution.  This is generated by wood burning, thousands of motorbikes and now more than a few new expensive cars. 

Nissan Z sports, new Honda and Toyota - note the dust that has settled on the parked cars

Much of the city still resembles a war zone with decaying infrastructure piles of rubble and many unpaved or once paved streets.  But Myanmar is recovering economically and commerce is on the rise even in Mandalay.  There are a lot of new cars in the street and thousands of motor bikes, all contributing to the haze, along with the wood smoke from cooking.

The back street seen from one of our hotel windows and two more streets nearby
note the worker towards the top of the building scaffold - no harness, no shoes

Mandalay is recovering as the religious, commercial and administrative centre of Central Myanmar on the mighty Irrawaddy.  It owes this status first to King Mindon and then to the British who kept it as an administrative centre and built the first modern bridges here.   The ‘old flotilla’ of the song, and original poem, refers to a fleet of paddle steamers that the British used to steam up the river to take Mandalay and to overthrow the new Burmese king who had been accused of a massacre to come illegitimately to the throne.  

Actually it was not him. It was his mother-in-law. 

Mandalay Fort

Mandalay was established by King Mindon a Buddhist prince who was reincarnated from a woman who cut off her breasts for the Buddha on top of the hill that dominates the town.

In 1857 he established the city as the site of his court.  Near the city centre centre he enclosed the huge square area 2.5 km on each side, now known as Mandalay Fort.  It is surrounded by 8 metre high walls and a giant moat 230 ft. (70m) wide. 

Left: a section of the moat around The Fort (to its right) - seen from The Hill through the smog,
Right: the view of The Hill along the moat 360 degrees the other way - photo from Google Maps

At the centre of the enclosure he built a large royal palace compound.  It resembled the wooden palace buildings in the forbidden city in Beijing.  It housed himself, 62 queens and their 110 children, as well as the other women and the eunuch’s of his household.   Public pavilions included several large audience chambers in which to conduct the affairs of state.  It must have consumed an entire forest but it is nevertheless dwarfed by the surrounding parkland.

A section of the recreated palace - the little kennels on top are lookouts for non-castrated men sneaking in.
The white building with the pool is real - from the British period - as opposed to recreated in concrete.

In many respects King Mindon was a modernist, reforming the public sector, supporting free trade and press freedom.  He encouraged one of his brothers who was very enthusiastic about introducing new technology and his kingdom made rapid economic progress.  Unfortunately his court was a hot-bed of intrigue and the good brother was murdered by a couple of the bad ones. 

When he was dying one of his wives, Hsinbyumashin, claimed that he wanted to see every possible heir one last time.  As they arrived she had them killed, except her daughter and son-in-law, her daughter's half-brother Thibaw, who became king and queen.

King Thibaw ruled for seven years, evil queen Hsinbyumashin pulling the strings behind the throne.  He took several more wives presumably all selected by Hsinbyumashin.   There are photographs in the museum that now stands on the site.  She had good taste.

One of several reception halls, the main reception, historic photos of  King Mindon and some wives, outdoors

At this period the photographic record began to grow and there are also surviving clothes and household effects, including a crystal bed imported from France. 

The old British East India Company had expanded its influence across the sub-continent and secured its commercial interests through a series of accommodations with local princes under which they continued to rule locally but had their territorial ambitions and their military powers curtailed.  But after the Indian Mutiny the Company was disbanded.  And in 1877 Queen Victoria became Empress of India and southern Burma.  From that time onwards the British, in Rangoon were looking for a reason to absorb the northern kingdom into greater India. They continued to dispute Thibaw's legitimacy.  In 1885 they used the ‘old flotilla’ to force him to abdicate and sent him into exile, thus securing control of the whole of Burma.

They took over part of the palace as a Governor’s residence.  Other palace buildings became an officer's club and the surrounding grounds, within the moat and walls, a military fort.   It remains so today, although not too many armies would be proud to put it on display.  The quarters of the married troops were a sight to behold.  Although they were two story buildings laid out in military style, as one might see in other military bases all around the world, these looked like a giant over-populated squat.

The Japanese

In May 1942 Mandalay fell to the Japanese when the British withdrew after heavy air raids and the loss of air superiority.  The fort was targeted and the nineteenth century wooden palace caught fire.  It was largely destroyed.  Two more masonry colonial brick buildings on the site and numerous small decorative walls survived, as can be seen in the photograph above.

Under Colonial rule, Indian and Anglo-Indians had begun to dominate commerce. Rangoon had become and Indian city with a higher living standard than any in India.  Growing urban wealth contrasted with relative rural poverty, much as in Thailand today. 

The country was undergoing a resources boom based on timber and oil.  Rural people and local tribes, of which there are many, felt left-out and saw their country being exploited by foreigners.   So initially the Japanese were welcomed by much of the indigenous population. 

But it did not take long to discover they had gone from frying-pan to fire.  This was not helped by Japanese racism, that made the British pukka sahib look like a loving uncle, the Japanese proclivity for taking reprisals, like the massacre of 600 at Kalagong village, and their enslaving local tribes to work on the Thai (Siamese) - Burma railway.

When the British-Indian army returned, regional fighters threw their support behind the ‘liberators’.

The Japanese were removed from Mandalay with considerable additional collateral damage to the town and fort and the loss of 112 troops, predominantly from an Indian Army Gurkha battalion that retook Mandalay hill.  They are still memorialised there.  The number of Japanese who died is not recorded.

The Japanese held The Fort for some time.  It’s actually an excellent fortification against ground troops, with its wide moat and solid walls quite infantry and tank proof.  The Indian regiments shelled it.  More damage was done.

So some time in the late 1960’s it became a matter of pride for the Junta to restore the old palace and with it the memory of the glorious days of the Burmese Empire.   A replica was built in fireproof concrete, with corrugated steel roofs, painted to look like the original.  Allegedly they used slave labour, which was probably quite true to the original.  The whole site is essentially a museum and has the more formal museum within it.  Most of it is unused and much beloved by the birds that nest in it.  But for some reason they still insist that you take off your shoes to wonder among the droppings.

Mandalay Hill

The faithful climb the Hill barefoot via long covered staircases. We ascended by cab. The view from the top is panoramic but it was obscured by the smog and dust that blankets the city side.

Bottom of the steps, steps at the top, view away from the city, memorial to 4th Gurkha Rifles March 1945

The cab returned us to the centre where there are markets and restaurants catering to backpackers.

Sitting over lunch I realised that I no longer had my camera.  Shit!  It must be in the cab.  OK, we got the cab from the Fort.  Maybe he went back there? 

I grabbed a motor bike taxi guy jumped on the pillion and asked him to go like the wind.  Long story (that involves a second taxi-bike, a long walk and one guy giving the other his lunch) cut short - I recovered my camera.