Mar 21, 2015
This other guy from our hostel unfortunately joined us. He was not fun at all. Anyways, Christy, Dave and I went to find a minivan for our group and while we were waiting for one to arrive, some locals offered Dave some betel nut. Dave tried it for an entire 3 seconds and his facial expression said it all. Gross. Haha! He said it tasted like the minty stuff the dentist uses to clean your teeth with and you could feel it burning in your throat. The rest of the group was supposed to meet us after they finished with breakfast but somehow that didn’t process through so we ended up having to pick them up at the hostel which wasn’t too bad except the Asian guy went walking around looking for an atm and we had to stay and wait for him. Which would have been fine but we were already about 2hrs behind the time we were supposed to have left. Anyways, the ride there wasn’t too bad.
The night before we had decided that we were going to Harlem Shake on top of Mount Popa with the monkeys. Mount Popa is a volcano that is 1518 meters or 4981 feet above sea level. There is a temple at the top and to get there you have to walk 777 steps up the stairway. There are monkeys everywhere! All along the stairs and trees. We just needed a semi empty area to Harlem Shake and our dream would’ve came true. Sadly we did find an empty area with 2 or 3 monkeys just chilllin and we were setting up when a local came up the stairs and basically scared the monkeys away. That was the end of our dream. So we sadly descended the steps back down to get our shoes. While putting on our shoes, these group of locals (primarily girls) wanted to take photos with the (white) foreingers. That’s fine, I was sitting down next to Dave or Will (80% sure it was Dave) when this girl comes and sits right on top of me and motions for Dave to take a photo with her. Never in my life have I ever felt more invisible than that moment. She didn’t even look back to look at me or anything. Just carried on with taking a photo and then scooted me out of my chair so she could sit next to Dave. If I hadn’t caught my balance, I would’ve fallen flat on my butt. At that point I just walked down the rest of the steps with Bastian who couldn’t be bothered.
Mount Popa is known to be where Myanmar’s most powerful Nats (spirits) reside in. Which makes this place the most important Nat worship center. Which makes it Myanmar’s Mount Olympus. In my lonely planet book, it tells the legend of the Mother of Popa who was a flower eating ogre who lived at Popa. She fell in love with a Royal worker who’s job was to gather flowers from Popa for King Anawrahta. The King disapproved of their relationship and had the Royal worker executed for disobeying the him. The Royal worker became a Nat. The Mother of Popa died of a broken heart and became a Nat. Their 2 sons were taken to the palace and later became heroes in the King’s service. But they were both later executed for neglecting their duties. They also became Nats. Nats are spirits that are worshipped in Myanmar. There are 37 Great Nats and almost all of them were humans who met violent deaths.
Burmese superstitions says that you shouldn’t wear red, black or green or bring meat when you’re on Mount Popa because it could offend the resident Nats.
