It’s most definitely on the tourist trail but to me it seemed more like voyeurism. Whilst we’d been travelling on the tour-bus in Burma, we had seen several lines of monks, young and old, in their earthy, plum-coloured robes, heading off down side-streets, bowls in hand to beg for their lunch.

It is considered auspicious across south-east Asia to feed a monk.  I remember once in Cambodia, seeing a monk with his food sack standing by the roadside as we drove along some muddy track.  Our car, bearing our mixed Thai-English family, pulled up beside him and we all fished around for something to donate – mainly oranges and bananas – which we  placed into his sack (being careful not to touch him).  

The monks at Mahagandayon monastery in Amarapura, near Mandalay, have turned their lunch time begging ritual into a spectacle. It benefits none of them directly, and, although our guide did give a donation on our behalf, I wonder how many other tours  do this. Doubtless, the invasion of their privacy helps along the local tourism industry, and maybe promotes greater understanding of Buddhism, through the sale of their books.

The monastery houses more than a thousand monks, from young novices of seven years to established elders.  Almost all boys in Burma are expected to spend a few weeks or months as a monk, after which they can choose to remain or not . There are some, orphans or children from poor families, who enter the monastery on a more permanent basis.

Monks do not eat after midday, taking only breakfast and lunch. At the Mahagandayon Monastery different donors provide the food for their midday meal, which they collect and then eat in their communal dining hall. Tourists are invited to watch the monks lining up and heading off to eat.  It is a fascinating and colourful spectacle, though it made me feel very uncomfortable, particularly the insensitive species of tourist who thought nothing of pointing cameras straight into the faces of the young initiates, or standing on the path, in the way, though they had been expressly requested to refrain from doing this. I was grateful for my good zoom lens, that allowed the monks and me to retain a modicum of dignity.

Tourists are now kept out of the dining hall – apparently some female ‘foreigners’ had arrived unsuitably attired and since then everyone is banned. I should think so too. Quite apart from the unspeakables who did not know how to show respect for the culture, I can think of nothing worse than hoards of strangers watching me eat.

The procession went on for  twenty minutes or more.  I was most impressed by the calm and dissociation of the young novices, some of whom seemed to be deeply steeped in meditation, so that they scarcely seemed to notice the tourists.  Was this a means of coping with this invasion? 

 Sights such as this are magical. What a paradox that in order to reap some of this magic we somehow detract from it too, simply by being there, like embarrassing spots of acne on a beautiful face.  Though, who knows, perhaps the monks enjoy the attention, or regard ignoring it as a challenge.  It’s all too easy to jump to conclusions and arrive at the wrong one. 

The least we can do when we visit such places is to show sensitivity and try to be as unobtrusive as the situation allows.  It pains me that there are too many tourists who don’t seem to give a damn.

 …Where the flyin’ fishes play, and the sun comes up like thunder outer China ‘crost the bay

Actually the road to Mandalay isn’t a road at all, it’s a river - the mighty river Irrawaddy, to be precise, that cuts a broad swathe through the dry landscape bordering the city. But sad to say, Kipling was wrong. There are no flying fishes in the Irrawaddy. And although the sun might come up like thunder , China is certainly not 'crost the bay. Mandalay is land-locked, slap-bang in the middle of Burma. No sea, no bay, no China.

Plenty of water though. There’s the river, of course. And there are lakes. It was for a lake that we headed on our first day in Mandalay. The lake was , in fact, in Amarapura, an old Burmese capital (Burma changes capitals like HM changes hats).

As lakes go this one was not particularly special – not the biggest, or the deepest or the highest. In fact it appeared to be half-empty, having receded to reveal richly planted water meadows. Its claim to fame lies in the nineteenth century wooden bridge that snakes across it. Called the U-Bein bridge, after a mayor of Amarapura, it is, at 1.2 Km, said to be the longest teak bridge in the world. I was full of admiration for the Germans , who did not appear to notice (or at least kept quiet about) the similarity between U-Bein and O-Beine, which means bow-legs in German. Must be my warped sense of the ridiculous.

My initial reaction, on hearing that this bridge was on our itinerary, was conviction that this would turn out to be another hyped up ‘tourist trap’, something conjured out of nothing to draw the crowds. Undermining this thought was a niggle of doubt – the U-Bein bridge features on the cover of Amitav Ghosh’s wonderful novel, ‘The Glass Palace’. The picture is iconic, suggesting a scene of timeless beauty and deep tranquillity, but I airbrushed away the hope that it might reflect the reality, just as, I reasoned, the photographer must have airbrushed the photograph

How wrong I was. The U-Bein bridge IS iconic, one of the most photogenic places I’ve ever seen. And it’s in constant use, not only by tourists. Girls in sarongs, monks and nuns, cyclists pushing their heavy old steeds, locals heading to the temple or to the market, and yes, traders touting to tourists, all pick their way across the slatted walkway high above the lake. It’s rather giddying up there, especially near the edge and I didn’t venture too far along it. Instead Pat and I walked through the water meadow to the lake edge and admired the bridge from below, and its romantic reflection in the water. As far as I was concerned it was love at first sight and an abiding gorgeous memory.

And to finish: forget those strict instructions not to cast your perfidious female eye on, let alone touch, any monks who might cross your path (and there are plenty). This young saintly one not only entlisted me to take a photograph of him on the bridge with a group of girls (including a German girl from our party), but then enlisted someone to take a photo of him with - Pat and Yours Truly!