The Tree Jade Turtle (Travel Stories They Don’t Tell You #3)
The shadow of the ancient pagoda felt cool and refreshing amid the 112-degree day, so I settled back against the old stone wall to talk with the vendor woman a little longer.
I had a strict no-souvenir policy at tourist sites like Bagan, but at this moment the ancient metropolis, like the rest of Myanmar, was far from being a tourist destination. Many locals had told me that prior to the coup, Myanmar was the third-most visited country in Southeast Asia; in my three weeks there, I could count the number of Western people I’d seen on two hands. Nobody wanted to spend money that could support a regime that was actively burning villages and dropping bombs just a few hours from where I now relaxed, but in all reality it was the locals who were hit hardest. They exhibited the typical Burmese politeness, but they could be very pushy, and several had actively tried to scam me in my time in this country.
Win Win, the woman who reclined across her table of wares from me, was very pleasant, maybe 50 years old, whose face was covered in the traditional Burmese beauty cream, thanaka. She had tried to sell me on her wares, which included “tree jade” figurines and sand paintings, and when I politely declined, she didn’t push the issue and instead talked with me about her country, her life, and the upcoming New Year water festival. Behind her, in the interior of the thousand-year-old pagoda, watched over by a restored image of Buddha and fading frescoes, her sister and daughter slept on mats.
I always take what vendors tell me with a grain of salt, and while I may not know my stones, I know that jade is supposed to be green, so what explanation for the glossy gray, tan, yellow, and brown figurines arranged on her table?
“Tree jade only comes from Bagan,” Win Win told me. “If a tree grows over a deposit of jade, the tree changes the color of the jade. That’s how you get different colors.”
I decided to break my no-souvenir policy here on the scorched, thorny, dusty plains of Bagan. I selected a tiny little turtle, which looked small and solid enough to survive the travel in my pack. It had interesting striations in gray and tan, and a shiny finish. I talked Win Win down to 10,000 kyats (about $2.78) and she wrapped it up for me.
“The turtle has a special meaning in Buddhism,” Win Win said. “The turtle followed the Buddha around on his travels, like an escort. It will bring you peace, protection, and luck. With this tree jade, no harm will come to you.”
I’m not a superstitious man, though I loved learning about lore. I merely wanted a small reminder of my travels, something particular to the area, and to help this woman who had treated me respectfully and not as an ATM. I didn’t really believe in the power of such things.
Of course, just like my no-souvenir policy, that notion was bound to fall, like the red bricks from the crumbling temples.
I had rented a little electric scooter from my family-owned hotel in Nyaung-U and ridden it about 15 minutes through the main archaeological epicenter of Old Bagan, and then down into the more modern town of New Bagan. The temples all have numbers on them — numbering over 2,000 — and the bigger, more famous temples like Ananda have names. Some of them are truly magnificent and beyond any feeble attempt at description; they must be seen, and that is all.
But I liked the smaller temples, too, the more out-of-the-way structures that seemed to have been forgotten by time and left to be reclaimed by the vines sporting two-inch spines and the cacti that seemed to grow from tree trunks. Of course, I knew this was not the case; on several occasions I saw landscaping crews resting in the shade of the pagodas, and families of vendors sleeping on mats right in front of the restored Buddha statues within the millennia-old buildings, watched over by faded frescoes.
One particular structure caught my eye. I noticed, on its second story, a covered Buddha altar, one that had to be accessible from the inside; sure enough, I found a passageway that lead to a set of stairs. My inner Indiana Jones and my inner child both leapt with delight and I immediately climbed upwards. The passageway was tight, and I had to crouch down to fit. It was so narrow that the heavy-duty nylon pouches on either side of my GoRuck GR1 scraped against the old brick. Finally I emerged once again into the strong sunlight, and beheld not just the Buddha altar but a magnificent panorama of palm trees and temples. It was truly a magnificent site, and I spent some time just taking it all in.
Then I went to go back down, when something else caught my eye. It was at the top of the entrance I had just crawled through, so dark it blended in with the shadows. A carving, perhaps? I got out my phone and turned on the flashlight, and leaned in to get a good look.
About a foot from my face was a beehive the size of a basketball.
I should probably note right now that I am deathly afraid of insects, especially swarms of them.
I literally fell backwards, scarpering across the old stone, putting as much distance between myself and the beehive. This was no cute beehive you might see on the Utah flag. This was a writhing mass of stinging hate, and although these particular bees were quite tiny, there were a lot of them. My first thought after my heart returned to its normal rhythm was how I had not disturbed them on my way up; my head must have missed them — literally — by two inches or less. They must have been lying dormant in the extreme heat of the day, and that’s why they didn’t attack me. But not they were in motion, and already I could see several scouts detach from the horrible mass, buzz me, and return to the hive, bringing reports of an intruder.
So, naturally, I looked for other ways off the temple. There were no other staircases, so I started judging the distance to the ground. I was probably about 15 feet off the ground, not a great height, but the ground was stone, and if I landed even the slightest bit wrong I’d be limping out of Bagan. I looked around to see if I could perhaps hang from the ledge and then drop down from there, but due to the ornate decorations at the top and bottom of the walls, I would risk landing wrong and falling backwards, hitting my head.
In other words, it didn’t seem dangerous, but it was.
And with the sun beating down on me, I didn’t know what to do. Could I have very slowly scooted under the beehive, like I had done on the way up? Of course I could have, but in that moment, I froze.
Off to the side, I saw a little collection of huts and houses amongst the trees. It was either a little village or a farmstead, and it was just close enough to call out to, but then you had the issue of dignity. Ah yes, that sin that gets us all. I didn’t want to be the foreigner (the one foreigner for miles around) who had to call for the locals to help him off the roof because he didn’t want to get stung. How cute.
And yet, I didn’t have many options.
I sat down on the hot roof, wondering what to do, when I saw a man go walking by. A little local man in a longgyi, the full-length skirts worn by both men and women in Myanmar. He walked over to one of the stupas, which had small openings big enough for one or two people to pray side by side in front of a statue of the Buddha. He had a book with him; he was going to escape the heat and read in the shade of the stupa.
“Mingalarba!” I cried out to him. “Hello!”
I saw him look around, and finally crane his head up. He waved. I waved back. My first plan was to use Google Translate and put the Burmese translation on speaker so he could hear me, but I ended up resorting to hand signals, grand gestures of semaphore that went basically thus: Can’t get down. Things that sting. Do you have a ladder?
Bees? The man asked.
Yes, I replied. A huge beehive.
Just run down quick, he said.
I need you to understand that that is not going to happen, I said.
Finally, he shrugged and walked off into the trees. He returned a minute later shouldering a massive ladder, and I don’t know why but I busted up laughing. I seriously considered taking a video of this little man walking over with a ladder three times the size of him, captioning it:
POV: You’re stuck on top of a temple and need to be rescued by the locals because you hate bees (with a little bee emoji at the end)
I could deal with a lot, but I drew the line at swarms of stinging insects.
The little local man in the longgyi, whose name I never got, placed the ladder up against the side of the temple. As I climbed down the roof of the temple, I noticed that this ladder was handmade. The rungs were spaced wide apart, held on by wire, and protested noisily when at last I stepped climbed onto it. I was somewhat shocked that it bore my weight.
Finally, I got to the bottom of the ladder, and my feet touched terra firma. I used every bit of Burmese I knew to thank the man profusely. I used Google Translate to make sure that he knew that it was the bees that kept me from getting down.
Uh huh, the man seemed to say. The bees. Right.
I parked my electric scooter at a food stall and got some pork curry and rice, vegetable soup, and a tall glass of sugar cane juice with lime. After a long day of exploration and emasculation, I needed a refreshment.
As I finished my delicious food and sipped my sugar cane juice, I got out the little package from my backpack, unwrapped it, and produced the little tree jade turtle. It will bring you peace, luck, and protection, Win Win had said.
Well, it had protected me from hitting that beehive. It had brought me the luck of that man coming along to help me. And now it brought me peace.
Can’t ask for more than that.
