Detailed teakwood sculptures decorate the railings of Yokesaun Kyaung Tawgyi in Salay. Pic: Lwin Maung Maung

ALMOST unnoticed, I slipped into the gloom of the ancient museum, out of the hot sun. Only the souvenir seller glanced incuriously at me as I passed, and did not try to sell me his wares. Everyone else was absorbed in study or sleep.
The polished wooden floor under my bare feet was hot, but soon I forgot the heat amid the tranquillity of the surroundings.

I was in Salay, about 15 miles (24 kilometres) from Chauk, in central Myanmar. The museum, U Pon Nya, named after the writer, is inside Yokesaun Kyaung Tawgyi, an old monastery and one of the town’s most celebrated attractions. Even foreign tourists sometimes come. The entrance fee for locals is K200; foreigners may pay more.

Facing the entry is a picture of the monastery donor, U Pho Kyi, in traditional Myanmar costume. The visitor is drawn to the Buddha images and ancient lacquerware from the Yadanapon era. The museum contains 45 images.
But there are also signs of decay. In some places the roof is down, and parts of the flooring are rotting.

U Pon Nya Museum was built in 1882 as a monastery and contained many Myanmar handicrafts and sculptures. I heard about it while on assignment in Chauk, where a local persuaded me to take a look.

As I explored the museum, a stranger stepped out of a small room where he had been paying homage to an image of the Buddha. He asked me, “Where are you from?” I told him.

“I will tell you as much as I know about the museum and about Salay,” he said.
The stranger, a 35-year-old teashop owner, said I should think of the town as a second Bagan. “There are more than 200 ancient pagodas around Salay,” he said.

Even the museum railings are rich in sculpture – bullock carts, men, women, elephants, monkeys, sakka, small homes and other images. The teashop owner told me that these wooden sculptures illustrated jatakas (the stories of Lord Buddha) and Ramayana tales.

“You arrived here very late. If you’d arrived in the morning, you could have gone to Shinmazhagyo Pagoda, 4 miles from here. It is one of the most famous places in Salay,” the man told me.

He told me he was sorry there was no time to visit this place, since I had to get back to Chauk. There was no convenient way of getting to this pagoda for those without a place to stay in Salay, he said.

“Once there was a motorcycle taxi driver who made a living from hiring out his motorcycle around Salay,” he told me. But the cycle broke down on the rough roads and he could no longer afford to repair it. “So our only form of transportation in Salay disappeared,” he said.

The teashop owner suggested I should also visit Man Phaya, which houses the biggest lacquer images in Myanmar, and the nearby Rakhine Pagoda, on the eastern bank of the Ayeyarwady River, and we went there together.

It made for an exhausting, but satisfying, half-day visit to Salay. In the evening, I said goodbye to the teashop owner and went back to Chauk to complete my assignment.