Tidbits From Thailand: August 2009

On our last morning in Mandalay we got up at 4:00 in the morning (that's AM if you didn't catch that) and we took our prearranged little blue truck taxi to the pier, with our favorite taxi driver. He didn't really speak English, but he was tall and skinny, and just super nice and gentle and friendly, and he drove the heck out of that little blue taxi considering it was about 40 years old. And he had a really cute 4 or 5 year old daughter, but she was probably in bed at 4 am. At least I hope so.

And then we got on a boat. A boat to Bagan. Bagan is an amazing place full of temples. But more on that later. First, I have to show you the sunrise we saw on the boat. It was lovely. A bit misty, but lovely all the same.

And, there were boats.

Boats and sunrises are fun to photograph.

And then the sunrise was over, but there were still more boats, and we got to see some of how people along the Ayeyarwady river live.

In Myanmar, most men and women wear long skirt-like garments called longyis. They are wonderful, and they look so elegant and natural on the men. After a day or so, you start to think that men in long skirts are totally normal, and that men in pants just don't look as good. I tried to get Evan to wear one, but I was unsuccessful, to say the least.

And a cart coming down a ridge next to the river.

More boats. Sorry. Remember, we were on a boat, in a river. There wasn't much else going on.

Some oxen and their driver, coming to meet the boat at one of its stops.

A woman carrying her rice home.

A monk.

These women had just dropped one of their bags of food. I don't think they ruined anything, though.

This area of Myanmar is called the Dry Zone. There is very little rain here, even in the rainy season. However, rice from the wetter areas of the country comes through here and these stops along the river are rice trading centers. The boats also bring other supplies for the people along the rivers as well. Here's a view at one of our stops.

After that it got too dark to really take any more pictures. And then our boat ran aground on a sandbar in the dark (the trip was 15 hours: from 6 am to 9 pm, and we ran aground about 8 pm). We waited, thinking we were going to spend the night on the boat, pretty sure that they weren't going to get the boat unstuck without some major help, but eventually another boat was found, and it towed us off the sandbar, and we made it into Bagan around 10:30, safe and sound.

In a few days: post 4, and the wonders of Bagan!

We arrived in Mandalay after a 12 hour bus ride on the worst roads I could possibly imagine (yes, they were paved, but in name only) at about 5:30 am. There were three non-Burmese passengers on the bus: me, Evan, and a Japanese tourist traveling alone, and we were quickly scooped up by a 'taxi' (a small blue truck of Japanese origin that was at least 40 years old) who promised to take us to our hotel for about $2 each.

Into the taxi as well hopped a guide who wanted to sell us a day trip package around Mandalay for about $40 US ($10 for him as guide, $30 to rent the car for the day). His price was maybe a little bit high, but what really screwed him over was that I had spent most of the night being sick on the bus, and was now in no mood to make plans for riding around all day in another bumpy vehicle.

So we went to the hotel, and I wasted most of the morning sleeping until I felt more like a normal person. Poor Evan was feeling fine, but he waited for me to feel better before going out and exploring Mandalay.

Here I am in the hotel room, attempting to look happy.

This meant, though, that we missed the coolest part of the day and started out in the hottest part. We decided to wander central Mandalay near our hotel. Here are a few pictures. They don't do justice to how hot it was. It was about 40 0r 41 degrees celcius, or 104-106 Fahrenheit. And humid. So we drank a lot of water.

This is an important religious or government building in Mandalay, but I don't remember which. We didn't go in, we just walked around it. It's surrounded by a large moat, which you can't see here.

And I'm totally intrigued as to what these things are. My first guess would be something like stones to put in a fire to keep it hot? But now as I type that it sounds sillier. Why would you need to shape stones like that? But I don't think these are charcoal, or coal, so they must (on second thought) be non fire related. So really, I haven't got a clue what they're for. But they were all laid out in the sun like this, so that must do something for them.

And I don't know what this is either, but I think I can guess better: it's some sort of fruit or vegetable, maybe mushrooms, being dried in the sun. Pretty, don't you think?

After walking around for about an hour we decided that it was just way too freaking hot to be doing so much walking, so we (weaklings) headed back to the hotel for a quick rest, and then scurried out just in time to catch Mandalay Hill for sunset. As you can see, it was kind of hazy, so not the best sunset weather, but there were some pretty colors in the sky.

And some nice lanterns at the paya (temple) on the top of the hill.

Here's a sliver of the moon for you.

And some more lanterns. I know how you like lanterns.

And some more moon, too. Just more of everything, all for you.

After Mandalay Hill we hired a trishaw driver to take us to a vegetarian restaurant we'd read about in our guidebook. I was looking forward to a place where there was more than one option for me on the menu. Myanmar was actually a lot easier to be vegetarian than Thailand; where in Myanmar there were always one or two vegetarian dishes I could order, here in Thailand it's more like none at 90% of restaurants.

But anyway, the vegetarian restaurant was under construction, so we ended up somewhere else very touristy and expensive, with decentish food. I felt a little bad for our trishaw driver (a trishaw is a bicycle taxi) as he had to pedal us to two different restaurants and then after to the night market, then back to our hotel. And he was approximately half Evan's size, tiny. Apparently very strong though, and he seemed very happy for the business. Trishaw is a very nice way to travel if you can forget that someone else is sweating so you don't have to.

The next day we wanted to make up for lost time, so we rented a little blue pickup (and driver, of course) to take us to the towns outside of Mandalay. There are four old capitals of Myanmar just around Mandalay. We made it to 3 former capitals: Inwa (formerly known under the British as Ava), Sagaing, and Amarapura.

But first, at the helpful suggestion of our taxi driver, we stopped at a puppet shop. You can see these puppets all over Thailand, but apparently they are all made in Myanmar and then imported into Thailand, although most Thais would be surprised to find that out.

There were some ladies on display working on a tapestry right in front of us. The working conditions for them looked okay, but three women could not produce all the puppets and tapestries in that shop, so I'm not sure about the conditions for everyone else.

Some of the smaller puppets ($5).

Evan and I bought a sort of medium sized puppet for $15 of a minor demon, he hangs on our wall here in Thailand. Considering that we had brought all our money into Myanmar and couldn't get any more while we were there, $15 seemed like a lot at the time. A night's lodging, plus a meal, that we couldn't get later if we needed it.

Here are some cows on the road on the way to Inwa.

And some more cows. You can never have too many pictures of cows.

Then we arrived at our first stop: the Bagaya Kyaung Monastery, which is built entirely of teak, and dates from 1834. It was beautiful. This is our horse-cart waiting for us in front of the monastery, under a mango tree.

And the road leading to the Bagaya Kyaung

Here's a view of the inside of the monastery.

And here's a photo of Evan there. Note the ubiquitous water bottle. And the squinting. It was a bright day.

After that we toured around Inwa a little bit more. Here are a couple of random Inwa photos. A doorway in one of the old buildings.

Evan and a big lion.

Evan and a pointing man.

And, as I'm sure you were eagerly awaiting, more cows in the road.

After Inwa, we drove to Sagaing. Sagaing is basically just a few hills covered with lots and lots of stupas, or temples. We walked all the way up one of the hills to the stupa at the top. The heat was blistering, and I drank more water than I ever remember drinking, and still was thirsty. It was the middle of the day.

At the top of the hill were some monks who wanted me to take a picture of them. It got me all flustered. Wasn't I the one who was supposed to want a picture of them? What were they doing, just volunteering and posing like that? Still, it turned out pretty well. There are so many young monks in Myanmar. Sometimes it's hard to remember that they're just boys too.

And here's a view from partway up the hill, of some of the stupas on the next hill. You can see they're connected by a path, so that you can walk from temple to temple.

Leaving Sagaing, here are some more cows in the road. Just because I thought maybe you hadn't seen enough. And, on the right side, a government checkpoint? I'm not sure. If it was, it was illegal to take a picture of it. Oops.

A huge Buddha we stopped to see along the way. Look how small Evan is in comparison.

Some traffic driving through Mandelay after we detoured to the hotel so I could pick up a fresh camera battery for Amarapura. The picture makes the streets look emptier than they were; it was pretty trafficky.

Some more photos outside of Mandalay on our way to Amarapura.

The Ayeyarwady River in Amarapura.

And finally, sunset at the longest teak bridge in the world, U Bein's bridge in Amarapura. I'd been waiting for this moment, and these photographs, all day. And I wasn't disappointed.