We actually had passed through it on the canal on our way to Bogalay.
The town is historic as the site of a former palace, with nine city walls (now mostly lost to the forest and urban growth), as well as the 2500 year old Shwe San Daw Paya,..
said to contain several hairs of the Buddha, brought here from India by two Mon local merchant brothers on Buddha's instruction, since he spent previous lives here as an elephant and a deer. I was most intrigued by the 20 or so deadly sins whose punishment was depicted in scenes from hell, this one of leeches attacking adulterers.
There is too much history to relate here (also, I'm not sure I understood it all), but one feature was a bell containing an inscription in old text saying there are actually 6 hairs of the Buddha here, thus eclipsing even the Shwedagon Paya in Yangon (the Paya rivalries seem quite intense).
Another feature was a pavilion in an adjoining lake containing a statue of a son of the Buddha, Arahat, who was the protector of sailors, and is depicted scanning the universe for dangerous things like storms - wow! a weatherman who can do something about it.
Because of all the history, there have been attempts at archeology, and as part of SST's Community-Based Tourism (CBT) commitment we visited a little museum containing some of the clay and ceramic items found.
Actually, as we walked about the town we were finding small pieces of pottery and ceramics, most of them likely ancient, some with designs and inscriptions. Apparently the government does not consider Twantay a priority for further archeology and preservation.
We were guided by a local tea shop owner who had been trained by the CBT folks on interpreting local history. Among many other things, he took us to some tout da dapat trees, named for a king who used the fruit as a cure for leprosy. It's now used for skin allergies, tastes a bit like a custard apple, and it's quite spendy, at $2 a piece.
They claim it grows only in this area, and a tree must be 100 years old before it produces fruit. The trees we saw were said to be 600 years old.
The town is also known for its pottery production, making useful items like water pots, small lanterns, mortars and pestles and water filters (porous clay pots). We visited a shop...
and kiln...
where we watched a potter and assistant work on a pot.
As we were touring around the town we happened upon a Nat ceremony that Mr. Soe was at a loss to explain, but which seemed to me to be like those in Viet Nam, where a medium in a kind of trance communicates with a Nat spirit, in this case a teenage boy communicating with Ko Gyi Kway, who likes grilled chicken, alcohol, cigarettes and gambling (remember him from Mt. Popa?)
And if you think that was weird, our next stop was the most unusual, a pagoda dedicated to protecting snakes - thankfully non-poisonous Burmese pythons, 25 of 'em, all descended from two brought by a nature-loving monk. It looked harmless enough from the outside...
but (Mona, stop right here)...
Pleasant dreams.
Our last stop was at a family joss stick (incense) operation, making one of the uses of the main local product that gives the area its nickname, Bambooland.
All in all an amazing day, and maybe the most informative (I skipped several things) of our whole trip.
Casual Observation:
Magic shows are popular in the rural areas in Myanmar - maybe related to the Nat cultural legacy?
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Videos embedded (reluctantly). Scary snakes!
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