Notes on Myanmar and the Myanmar blog

Why is Joe riding an elephant? Our car had a flat on the mountainous road between Napyidaw and Inle Lake. We had a few hours to kill in the village of Tin Mar Bin while the tire was being repaired. The son of the richest family in town was about to be initiated as a monk novice (something all Buddhist youngsters in Southeast Asia are expected to do at some point for a week or a month), and a celebratory feast for 2000 people was about to commence. An elephant had been hired to lead the ritual procession, and we were offered rides. Joe accepted, warily, and afterwards he paid $5 towards the elephant's sugar cane and the mahout's whisky.

In his caption for a photo of a monk novice in make-up, Joe used the term "ladyboy." This was not derogatory. It's the Thai term for transsexual. The Thai word "katoey" can mean either transsexual or transvestite. A current controversy being reported in The Bangkok Post is over the age at which young "ladyboys" can be safely (voluntarily) castrated in anticipation of later gender reassignment surgery. Two Bangkok hospitals are world centers for this operation.

We mentioned briefly our visit to Themanya Monastery and the remains on display there of a beloved monk who died in 2004. An AP story today (picked up from BurmaNet, the pro-democracy Burmese news service) begins as follows:

"A group of armed men on Wednesday stole the body of one of Myanmar's most revered Buddhist monks, whose corpse has been preserved in a glass coffin since he died more than four years ago.

"Officials said the coffin containing the body of Sayadaw Bhaddanta Vinaya, better known as Themanya Sayadaw, was stolen from the monastery in eastern Myanmar where he preached.

"The officials, who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to release information, said at least nine armed men wearing camouflage clothing carried out the theft. The officials said they had no idea who the thieves were or why they took the body."