Page 82 - The Rough Guide to Myanmar (Burma)

80 Yangon and around Midtown Yangon
1 The figure was begun in 1959 but not completed until 1974, replacing an earlier
giant seated Buddha on the same site which was demolished in 1957 (there’s
a photo of it, labelled “Wingaba, Rangoon”, in front of the reclining image).
The name of the pagoda, meaning “Six-storey Pagoda”, refers to this impressively
huge but now-vanished seated statue – the present reclining figure being more
of a three- or four-storey affair.
Housed within a huge corrugated-iron shed propped up on glass mosaic columns,
the Buddha has a delicate, rather feminine-looking face complete with blue eye shadow
and supersized eyelashes (each 33cm long). A stylish little bindi, diamond-encrusted
crown, delicate pink fingernails and golden robes decorated with glass mosaics
complete the look, while the soles of the image’s huge feet are covered in auspicious
golden markings. A gilded statue of the ubiquitous Shin Upagot (see p.386) sits in
a small shrine at the far end of the hall, near the Buddha’s feet.

Nga Htat Gyi Pagoda
• Shwegondaing Rd (turn right out of the Chauk Htat Gyi Pagoda, head down Shwegone Rd for 100m then go
left through the arch signed “Nat Htat Gyi Pagoda” and down this side road for 100m, then head up the covered staircase on your
right) • Free
The Nga Htat Gyi Pagoda (“Five-storey Pagoda”) is home to another of Yangon’s
supersized Buddhas – not quite the equal of the nearby Chauk Htat Gyi in size
at a mere 9m high, although the super-intricate, hyperactive decoration makes the
Chauk Htat Gyi Buddha look positively boring in comparison. Seated in the
earth-witness mudra, the figure – one of the country’s most flamboyant images
– brushes the ground lightly with enormous pink fingernails and sports riotously
decorated golden robes plus a jewel-encrusted crown, the whole thing set against
a magnificent wooden backdrop, with a sequence of planetary posts (see box, p.74)
around the base.

Drug Elimination Museum
• Hanthawaddy Rd (if coming by taxi and your driver doesn’t know
the museum, ask him to head to the nearby Junction Square shopping mall, from where it’s a 5min walk) • Tues–Sun 9am–4pm • $3,
camera $5
The Drug Elimination Museum is unquestionably one of Yangon’s wackier attractions,
looking like some kind of monstrous Stalinist carbuncle amid the upmarket streets off
Pyay Road. Opened in 2001, the museum is a grandiose monument of the era of the
generals, commemorating the junta’s heroic efforts to fight the evils of heroin, opium
and other illegal substances, with many photos of former generalissimo Than Shwe on
view – and conveniently skating over the extent to which the military themselves used
the drug trade to their own political and financial advantage.
The museum is spread over three spacious floors complete with life-size dioramas
and other diverse exhibits ranging from the pickled organs of expired junkies
through to a small plane – not to mention the bodies of various museum staff, who
can often be found blissfully asleep among the exhibits. Clunky displays of state
propaganda showcase local drug-eradication programmes, crop-substitution
activities and pictures of happy rebel ethnic groups “returning to the legal fold”
under the loving encouragement of the beneficent Tatmadaw (Burmese armed
forces). Elsewhere, a dimly lit room invites you to experience the horrors of drug
addiction at first hand, with lurid photos of skeletal addicts and a soundtrack
featuring random snippets of music and disembodied voices, while another exhibit
allows you to “set fire” to a pile of seized drugs. There’s also a small collection of real
drugs on display – although the section intended to contain a sample of heroin is
suspiciously empty.

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