Mandalay to Mingun……on the Irrawaddy.

No trip to Burma would be complete without a trip on the Irrawaddy river….or Ayeyarwaddy as it is called in Burmese.

We set off from a jetty in Mandalay….. jetty being walking the plank through the boats closest to shore! They all seemed to be parked three deep!

 We were assigned a rather large boat….we were just 3 persons!

It was interesting going upstream…. going downstream is no problem…. however the locals need a towboat to get back upstream to their home.


We passed some people clustered around a bank…..

and apparently they were looking for teak logs which might have fallen off from the rafts of teak being towed by boats going downstream. …...it happens a lot.

We passed many  boats being towed….

this one shows their living quarters on the first boat, then perhaps covered areas for other family members, and their animals  on the second boat...……

we passed the tow boat out front…..

Two boats sharing the cost of the tow……..

We arrived at Mingun……

The Pagoda there is unfinished….one can see why! Large cracks all around….
There is a small temple in the building….but we elected not to venture in……just in case!

 This area suffered from the same devastating earthquake which affected the Inwa area …
 The front part of the huge guarding lions fell into the river!

We went to see the Mingun Bell, one of the largest in the world…….

Hysin

The village of Mingun had lots of souvenir stalls …….…..

The village straddles the length between the unfinished Pagoda, the Mingun Bell and the Hsinbyun Pagoda

There were lots of taxis…… we wondered why……

until we also  used one to return to the boat!  It was quite a walk back and we wanted to see the sunset on the river.

We also spent some time with dolphins frolicking around us!  We were surprised to find them here……

Back to Mandalay… to walk the plank again!

Mandalay continued……...

Our start the next day was visiting a gold leaf workshop where we observed what hard work it was…..
they pound until  about 2 oz's of gold is stretched to a 3/4inch ribbon 20 feet long! It is then cut into 200 equal pieces…...

Once the gold is thin enough it is then wrapped in bamboo  paper…. to make this paper, which doesn'tt tear, the bamboo is soaked in lime for 3 years…….quite a lengthy process!

It is again hammered for about a half hour…..then each flake is cut in 6 giving 120 from the original unit!  These are again pounded and cut giving a total of 720 pieces from the original 2 ounces!…..

Then on to the packaging department! These ladies sit all day in an sealed enclosed space, so that the gold leaf doesn't blow away…..

And this lady is piecing together all the little bits of gold leaf so that there is no loss!

We found the whole process intriguing……

and of course they were being packaged for sale at the Pagodas….probably for men….ladies not allowed!!


After this we had an interesting trip to Inwa, one of the old capitals..

This involved crossing a river on a ferry

We found it a little disconcerting to watch the water being pumped out of the boat…..

 on the other side we found lots of horse and carts waiting their turn to take people to the Monastery..

 Our first stop…… the Yadana Hsimi Pagodas, destroyed in an 1839 earthquake

 The earthquake evidence was a little off putting!

We arrived at the Bagaya Monastery happy to be able to get out of the horse cart for a while……it was rather a bumpy ride!

 The gigantic teak posts…..

Apparently the architectural board has tried to remove the monks from the actual Pagoda…. and even built a very ordinary looking square block building for them on the doorstep……but the head monk won't move out and teaches the village children in one corner…..

 The carved exterior was spectacular….

particularly the doors…..

The entrance to the Monastery didn't have too large a parking space or turn around for the horses so we had a traffic jam!!

The ride back to the ferry went a little faster …….…..

 particularly after we bought some bananas for the horse…...

……..outside the Mahar Aung Mye Bon San Monastery

 The women do seem to do a lot of hard work….

The leaning tower behind is the only structure still there of the Palace…...

We also passed by some of their homes………

Back to the other side on the ferry and then on to Sagaing Hill,

which apparently has in total about 600 pagodas and monasteries, both for monks and nuns.  The monks are in red and the nuns in pink…otherwise it would be difficult to distinguish one from the other as they all have shaved heads.This is considered the religious centre of Myanmar and has over 3000 monks and 100 meditation centers.

And, of course, we had to make a few more handicraft stops en route…….

Pottery…...

 and silversmiths…….