On our way to Thanbyuzayat

I'm writing my entries on my iPad in Notes and uploading them into the blog when we get internet connection so some parts of the blog will appear a bit disjointed, but now you'll know why.

We've been on the road to Mandalay for just on two hours having left Hotel 51 after tea and Twinings lemon and ginger tea at 7.30 am. I was aroused from a deep sleep by a man calling out - sounding very similar to the pilgrims in Tibet, I was sure he was on a pilgrimage to the monastery - but no, after listening to my video our guide tells me he was selling "steaming beans"!

Toot, toot, toot is our constant companion.  The driving here is very similar to the driving in China - but with horns.  Not too dissimilar to NYC either.  Many of the taxis are motor bikes converted with a tray attached for passengers.
 

 

As for the local transport; people sit on top of cars and trucks; people are crammed onto the local buses and jump on and off as they start to take off, hanging precariously onto the hand rails with feet barely touching the running boards. 

Here in Burma, as in Thailand, the billboards large and small - in fact most advertising - shows the locals with nearly white complexions. The darker your skin the lower down the caste ladder you're considered to be. 

The soil looks to be quite rich and fertile with green fields, rice paddies, and buffalo that help the farmers plough the soil. Stupas are dotted throughout hidden by rubber plantations, tall and smaller palm trees and eucalypts. Smoke tendrils waft up from burning litter or burning fields. Bamboo is a well used commodity I see it being used for scaffolds, huts and as a means to carry goods. It hangs from the back of a motorbike, too long for the pillion to hold it drags along on the ground. 

There're lots of corrugated tin huts some newer tin much of it rusted. Army trucks with soldiers pass us but they're not menacing looking unlike those in Tibet.

We headed 40 kms towards Mandalay before turning off on the road south towards Mawlamyine, Moulmein as it was called when it was under British rule. Lunch was at a tourist bus destination - large covered buildings with row after row of aluminium tables and chairs and we were the only "white people" there.  (Political correctness in the way people are described hasn't come here - you're described exactly how you are - white.) Local river catfish, fried chicken, rice, Myanmar curry veggie and peanut soup, "chicken insides" ie liver, catfish, and Myanmar beer! The bill for lunch 12,500 kyat ~ $12.50. Yes our wallets are HUGE - if only the kyat was equivalent to the AUD or USD! 

We crossed one of the four large rivers in Burma to get to Mawlamyine and passed alongside  the original bridge the British bombed during the war.  It wasn't repaired.  After checking into our hotel and having a short rest, we explored the city seeing the original St Matthews Anglican Church, the First Baptist Church built in 1827 and a Catholic Church.  The Strand was quite remarkable with old Colonial buildings stretching from one end to the other, and blackened run down houses in between - a real show of the differences between the 'have's and have nots'.  The Indian quarter was particularly depressing.  Women sat on their doorsteps rubbing coconut fibres between their hands making long lengths of jute.  Little kids ran around the dirt by the roadsides in a filthy state.

 

We went up in a lift (thankfully) to the top of the mountain - another pagoda but this one had a beautiful view over the whole of Mawlamyine and the river and waterways.  Asked if we'd like to see around the other side of the pagoda, we opted to be dropped off on the Strand to check out the street food stalls where we had dinner - five courses, two large bottles of beer all for $4.70.