Korahn Gayle, Myanmar, January 2016.
Words and photo: Kev Metallier
Religion in Myanmar is no joke. About 89% of the Burmese population are practicing Buddhists. That’s why there are more golden temples scattered through the country than there are pubs in Australia. But the Burmese aren’t blowing the froth off cold ones, instead they are praying to Buddha every single day, a bonus of which is not having to worry about your beer belly.
During our Burmese travels earlier this year we were on the road to Bagan. Our driver informed us that we weren’t too far from yet another amazing holy temple on top of Mount Popa. He insisted it would be worth the detour and satisfy all of our tourist needs. During the drive, we spotted something through some clearings in trees beside the road. A series of golden statues and monuments. This certainly didn’t look like an official Buddhist temple or your average tourist spot, so we requested the driver pull over so we could investigate.
“…next we saw this huge gap from one of the statues to another. Of course, the first thing I thought was that this could make for one crazy shot.
As we approached the first statue we noticed dozens of workers building hundreds statues of every shape and size imaginable. That’s when we realised we’d actually stumbled onto the place where they make all these amazing things, a golden artifact factory you could say. As we looked around we noticed there was also a nice view of Mount Popa off in the distance. Then next we saw this huge gap from one of the statues to another. Of course, the first thing I thought was that this could make for one crazy shot.
Enter our English friend Korahn. He decided it needed to be taken care of. He climbed up in front of all the workers, none of whom said a word. One try and one do later the workers erupted into cheers and clapped like crazy as they all ran over to congratulate him. Perhaps you could say he introduced them to a new way to communicate with Buddha.
