MANDALAY TO BAGAN

Next morning was an early start as the boat was leaving the jetty at 7.00 am. We were too early for breakfast at the hotel but were pleasantly surprised when the staff provided, unasked, two polystyrene boxes to take with us.

On the way to the river we went along the southern side of the palace moat and were surprised to see many, many local people out exercising, jogging, stretching etc. – if it was the same on the other 3 sides it would run to thousands of people.

The boat was nice – we had an allocated seat in an airconditioned cabin but, like most people we spent the entire trip on deck watching the scenery go by.

This was just as the some was coming up......

A little while after setting off we started on our breakfast boxes a little fruit and a small pastry,and a sandwich made with two slices of toast with strawberry jam. A first bite showed that they didn’t realise the niceties of the English breakfast – they had thoughtfully also put a fried egg in the sandwich.

There were two immediate consequences of this. The first was a really weird taste sensation of crunchy toast, savoury egg yolk and white, and very sweet strawberry jam.  The second will be familiar to afficionados of the “Perishers” cartoon strip which used to be in the Daily Mirror decades ago (maybe still is – I haven’t seen a Mirror for many years ?), who will remember Marlon’s inch-thick ketchup sandwiches and the outcome of the first bite. Well, I wasn’t expecting my toast to contain egg yolk………happily, I was that day wearing an orange t-shirt so the result wasn’t overly conspicuous.

The Irawaddy is very wide in places but in the dry season the navigable channel is erratic so we zigzagged cautiously along in places. At two points we nosed into the bank – at what seemed to be quite a remote spot -  and a narrow plank was let out to the shore. One man got off and another got on. I didn’t pay much attention at the time - I was too busy watching this lady who was very keen to sell her produce........

But when it happened again later I realised that they must be making a change in river pilot.

These three were watching the process closely.........

It was a very pleasant day, watching life on the river bank as we passed, fishing villages, people bathing or doing laundry, lots of kids waving. 

And also the other traffic on the river – most freight seems to be on flat-bottomed barges pushed by tugboats. Most of these had a small boat about 150 yards in front with two guys with long poles taking continuous depth-soundings.

We arrived at Bagan at around 6pm – so a long trip – but no problem getting a taxi to the hotel. We did have to stop on the way at a checkpoint though – every foreigner entering the Bagan Archaeological Zone must pay a government fee of $10. And they make random checks at various monuments to enforce this.