Next morning back at the truck depot waiting for the ride down, I absorbed some more of the ambiance. Hard-sell-in-your-face vendors here. The most popular items are bamboo guns and rocket launchers all with "U.S.A." written on them. A number of monks sported them - go figure.
Today's ride down was MUCH easier, oddly no one wanted to sit next to me. Air brakes were on constantly - it was too rough to chance getting my camera out. Steep! 45 minutes to go 7 (?) miles.
Back in the bus I uncurled from my fetal position in the back seat and managed to take in some scenery. The land looks very fertile here. Rice is the big crop but also, banana, papaya, betel nut, long bean on aisles and aisles of bamboo trellises, rubber, gourds and even green pepper corns.
Saw only one small combine harvesting rice (I think - our guide is short on narrative for this ride.) Most labour is by ox or by hand. We passed several road works that looked painstaking. A modified Macadamized system with sequential layers of rock, each a finer grade than the previous but topped with bitumen. Large rocks 8" diameter were being laid out in 100 meter long x 1 lane wide patches. They were all being crushed by a small portable rock crusher and laid by hand - mostly by women.
One Chinese vehicle that has made a difference here is an all purpose truck that has it's motor exposed and sitting proud of the cab/body. This makes it accessible to drive pumps and winches etc. attach a steering wheel and a cart and you have a truck.
Truck pic coming
The city of Bago was next on the list for sites to see. Shwemawdaw Pagoda, the highest in all Myanmar at 375 feet. This one was only painted with gold enamel paint instead of being gold leafed. Our stops are only 20 minutes now at these places - not sure if Nyi-Nyi is being considerate of the unwell travellers or if he's heard the grumbling. I find this one interesting as is has a large chunk of it's previous incarnation lying where it fell after an earthquake and the new existing form built around it...but 20 minutes is barely enough time to do the counter clock wise walk around the base and fight off the vendors on the way out. Onwards.
Next it was to see a giant python. A sacred python. A reincarnated-to a python. It was big, 17 feet x 1 foot in diameter. It just laid there in like a big puddle of snake. By now our guide has taken to getting out of the bus and not waiting for anyone so if you are not the 1st person to arrive when he stops you get half heard and half understood snippets from the others. So what I got is that this monk found a snake and decided to feed it. People came from all over to see it so he decided it was his reincarnated sister built a temple so people could come and pray and donate money. Then the monk died and now he's reincarnates too, not sure if it's in the same snake or a different one. In any case there was a monk and snake and pic on the wall that Marie said looked like a porn shot so I was chuckling about that for the rest of the day.
On the way to the last best-of-Bago sites we passed something that we had not encountered before, a local dump. Noteworthy is that there was nothing but plastic bottles and wrappers. They don't have a lot of stuff here so they don't have a lot of garbage. This would be an excellent place to start a corn based plastics industry and spare them.
Saw a big reclining Buddha next. Big and sparkly. His feet are crossed so he's not dead yet. The Burmese have been without for so long that they are embracing lights in a big way. It gives a Las Vegas or perhaps more accurate, a video game arcade feel to a number of their holy sights. Like this one.
Our last stop as we approached Yangon was a contrast to the flash and glitz early in the day - a Commonwealth War Memorial for world war II casualties. It was neat and tidy with manicured lawns and pruned tropical plants. Very calm and peaceful feeling. A number of international wreaths from Remembrance Day a few day earlier remained.
Then it was gratefully back to the Panda hotel to crash for the night. We had canceled our plans to go our to a dinner and show - and given the density of the traffic we would have missed it anyway.
Today's ride down was MUCH easier, oddly no one wanted to sit next to me. Air brakes were on constantly - it was too rough to chance getting my camera out. Steep! 45 minutes to go 7 (?) miles.
Back in the bus I uncurled from my fetal position in the back seat and managed to take in some scenery. The land looks very fertile here. Rice is the big crop but also, banana, papaya, betel nut, long bean on aisles and aisles of bamboo trellises, rubber, gourds and even green pepper corns.
Saw only one small combine harvesting rice (I think - our guide is short on narrative for this ride.) Most labour is by ox or by hand. We passed several road works that looked painstaking. A modified Macadamized system with sequential layers of rock, each a finer grade than the previous but topped with bitumen. Large rocks 8" diameter were being laid out in 100 meter long x 1 lane wide patches. They were all being crushed by a small portable rock crusher and laid by hand - mostly by women.
One Chinese vehicle that has made a difference here is an all purpose truck that has it's motor exposed and sitting proud of the cab/body. This makes it accessible to drive pumps and winches etc. attach a steering wheel and a cart and you have a truck.
Truck pic coming
The city of Bago was next on the list for sites to see. Shwemawdaw Pagoda, the highest in all Myanmar at 375 feet. This one was only painted with gold enamel paint instead of being gold leafed. Our stops are only 20 minutes now at these places - not sure if Nyi-Nyi is being considerate of the unwell travellers or if he's heard the grumbling. I find this one interesting as is has a large chunk of it's previous incarnation lying where it fell after an earthquake and the new existing form built around it...but 20 minutes is barely enough time to do the counter clock wise walk around the base and fight off the vendors on the way out. Onwards.
Next it was to see a giant python. A sacred python. A reincarnated-to a python. It was big, 17 feet x 1 foot in diameter. It just laid there in like a big puddle of snake. By now our guide has taken to getting out of the bus and not waiting for anyone so if you are not the 1st person to arrive when he stops you get half heard and half understood snippets from the others. So what I got is that this monk found a snake and decided to feed it. People came from all over to see it so he decided it was his reincarnated sister built a temple so people could come and pray and donate money. Then the monk died and now he's reincarnates too, not sure if it's in the same snake or a different one. In any case there was a monk and snake and pic on the wall that Marie said looked like a porn shot so I was chuckling about that for the rest of the day.
On the way to the last best-of-Bago sites we passed something that we had not encountered before, a local dump. Noteworthy is that there was nothing but plastic bottles and wrappers. They don't have a lot of stuff here so they don't have a lot of garbage. This would be an excellent place to start a corn based plastics industry and spare them.
Saw a big reclining Buddha next. Big and sparkly. His feet are crossed so he's not dead yet. The Burmese have been without for so long that they are embracing lights in a big way. It gives a Las Vegas or perhaps more accurate, a video game arcade feel to a number of their holy sights. Like this one.
Our last stop as we approached Yangon was a contrast to the flash and glitz early in the day - a Commonwealth War Memorial for world war II casualties. It was neat and tidy with manicured lawns and pruned tropical plants. Very calm and peaceful feeling. A number of international wreaths from Remembrance Day a few day earlier remained.
Then it was gratefully back to the Panda hotel to crash for the night. We had canceled our plans to go our to a dinner and show - and given the density of the traffic we would have missed it anyway.
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