The Kyaiktiyo Pagoda, Myanmar

The Kyaiktiyo Pagoda

(The Golden Rock Pagoda in Myanmar)

The lush green hill as seen from the Pagoda.

I am not a believer. Without reason, I don’t believe anything but I question everything. If someone comes up with an assertion that something is defying gravity I’ll take it with not a pinch but a palm full of salt.

The Kyaiktiyo (“Chaee-tee-o” in the Burmese language) Pagoda located 170 km from Rangoon in the Mon State in southern Burma is one pilgrimage site the Buddha believers hold in much reverence owing to one so-called miracle. The pagoda is standing on a stone that is precariously balanced on another piece of a rock. The miracle is attributed to Buddha for keeping in balance what to many appears a defiance of the gravitational force.

Fog played hide and seek.

After the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon and the Mahamuni Temple in Mandalay, this is the third most visited pagoda in Burma. They say one strand of the Buddha’s hair is enshrined in the pagoda thus holding the 5.5 m tall pagoda in balance on a boulder which appears as if it will roll down anytime. The believers call the balancing of one stone over another (the rock) a miracle that defies gravity. The hair relic (supposedly enshrined therein) was donated to the king by a hermit who was blessed by the Buddha himself. Such an irrational belief but no wonder, beliefs are generally irrational.

How these stones ended up in a position that looks like defying the concept of gravity is not my point. The fact simply is that no one in his senses will digest that gravity can be defied except for experimentation under controlled lab conditions.

Ironically there’s another gravity-defying phenomenon called Krishna’s Butter Ball. It is a huge round shaped boulder balancing itself on a sloppy rock. Located near Mahabalipuram in the state of Tamil Nadu in India, the Hindus have their own myths related to it.

On my itinerary

The golden rock pagoda was on my itinerary for the obvious reasons and I had planned it as the last item of my trip to Burma. The weather in southern Myanmar was very turbulent and it was continuously raining. The day I reached back from Mandalay there were many missed breaths and many shudders down the spine mid-air when clouds made a toy of the ATR 72 plane flying to Yangon. About half of the one hour flight was through turbulent weather with the cockpit making repeated announcements about staying calm and seated. Once on the ground, the passengers realized how planes got ‘lost’ due to bad weather.

Visiting the pagoda on a rainy day

There was no respite from the rain and the chances my visit to the pagoda appeared bleak. The hotel manager talked to a couple of taxi drivers who expressed their reluctance to take the trip. They were apprehensive of some stretches of the road passing through the paddy fields getting inundated since the rain has been continuing for two days. Luckily, I had the phone number of a taxi driver whom I had met at the airport when I had landed in Yangon for the first time. He is Mr Soe Min (soemintour@gmail.com, +959444776609). Soe agreed albeit with some reluctance to take me there. Let’s stay positive, Soe, I told him. If we couldn’t make it to the destination I assured him full payment. The risk and the determination were both mine. And we made it to the base location amid heavy downpour from where only trucks authorized by the authorities are allowed to go up the mountain. 10 Km by road but about 50 minutes of a journey by the truck.

At the trucker’s mercy

The truck with benches to accommodate passengers.

Once at the base point you are at the mercy of the truck driver. They don’t have a timetable. The truck will move when full. The benches at the back of the truck can accommodate 50-60 passengers. On a rainy day filling up the back of the truck appeared a distant dream. It took more than two hours for the truck to get full. The truck finally took to the road and after about ten minutes of the journey, the rain stopped. Next two hours were full of respite and I enjoyed photographing the pagoda amid the hide and seek of the fog that had engulfed the tops around the pagoda. The return journey (about 40 minutes) by the truck was amid a heavy downpour that continued unabated till we reached Yangon back at about past 8 pm.

In all an adventurous 12 hours trip covering about 360 of Burmese roads. Mission accomplished.

The reality of the structure caught on my camera

As the pictures speak there doesn’t appear any real miracle. The balance is perfect and gravity never defied. It’s the camera and the viewing angle that make or believe this or that.

Have a look at the photographs.