Burma: A little more on Yangon

 I think labor must be pretty reasonable in Yangon. This is a close-up of scaffolding near the Shwedagon temple. It must have taken quite a while to assemble and I think the third story might be a little shaky.

 The red splotches on the sidewalk are betel juice (apologies to Michael Keaton). You cut the nut into chunks, add a little lime (the mineral, not the fruit) to improve alkaloid absorption, and wrap the mixture in a fresh tobacco leaf. The juice will stain your teeth red, but not to worry: they will soon fall out due to gum disease.

This is a statue of a man riding a galon, a mythical bird astrologically associated with people born on Sunday. That's me! I think it looks like a bird equivalent of a centaur.

We visited the only synagogue in Yangon, probably the only synagogue in Burma. It's a Sephardic congregation, possibly descended from Jews who stayed on in Babylon after the restoration of the temple. Their Torah, seen here, is 125 years old.

The Reclining Buddha at Chaukhtatgyi Temple is not the largest in Burma, but certainly large enough. I think this image of the Buddha commemorates a confrontation he had with a giant who, after seeing just how big Buddha could become, learned a little humility. Also, the reclining posture is associated with the beginning of the passage into Nirvana. I am a big fan of the axillary roll, placed to prevent traction on the brachial plexus and ulnar nerve injury.

 Buddha is not wearing his big sandals here, so we can appreciate the 108 auspicious symbols by which the Buddha can be recognized. I was fascinated by the amount of information that is stored in the Buddha's footprint. Some people have devoted years to the study of these symbols.