Yesterday afternoon, I flew back to Yangon from Bagan. When we went to check into the airport at Bagan, it was so laid back. My guide checked me in, then asked if I wanted a cup of coffee. We went back outside of the airport to a fenced in area that was a cafe where everyone else was waiting for the airplane (including a couple of guys from Malaysia whom I had been running into off and on the past two days). They work in the music video business. We sat and talked about our wonderful experience in Bagan. One of them tried to sell me a $50USD bill which he couldn't use in Myanmar (ok, big hint for anyone traveling to Myanmar....it really is "cash only" like the guide book says...no credit cards--that includes the hotels!, no bank machines, don't exchange money at the airport! Your guide will exchange it for you at twice the exchange rate. You will only need a little bit of local money for meals. And here's another catch that the guide books don't tell you about...the bills have to be totally flawless! If it even has an ink flaw on it from the printing press, they won't accept it!! I had about US$100 that I couldn't use, which really strapped me towards the end. Everyone I ran into was having the same problem. Luckily on the last day, my hotel took Japanese yen to settle my bill, which I had, and which I obviously won't be using now. Don't ask me why, but they prefer American money...even the other foreigners were carrying USDollars...when I read that in the guide book, I thought it was weird, but it's true. Everything is priced in USDollars...so you'll need a lot of spotless 20's and 1's .. Especially if you want to buy anything!).
Anyway, back to the airport, the guide suddenly said, time to go inside....I asked him how he knew, and he said that when they turn the a/c on in the terminal building, that means the plane is about 15 minutes away. :-)
So today, Day 39, after spending the night in Yangon, up and out early to drive to Golden Rock (with my Yangon driver and guide), about a four hour drive away. On the way we just happened upon a group of monks coming into a village to get their food for the day from the villagers...I had seen this before in both Thailand and Bhutan. They walk single file into the village with their pots, and the villagers come out and fill each of their pots with rice and any leftovers they might have...
Then we stopped at a pagoda called "four sisters". This was built in the style of another form of Buddhism, where the buddhas are out in the open...
The reason for the name "four sisters" is because there is a myth surrounding this about four sisters who used to take care of cleaning up around this one. They promised the Buddha that they would not marry, but would dedicate their lives to taking care of them. Then one day, one of the sisters got married...soon after that one of the buddhas developed a crack. The sister thought it was her fault so she died of grief soon after that. The crack has since been repaired, and these statues are constantly being repaired and repainted (more on that later).
Then we stopped in at the monastery where the monks were preparing for their noon time meal...
Lining up single file again...
...to proceed into their communal dining room...
Then on up the road, stopping at a fishing village where they make dried fish. I will spare you those photos....yuk...but thought that John, and any of you other people who like to fish, would enjoy seeing this fisherman at work...
He has a huge net (I missed the photo when he pulled the entire net out of the water, but its twice as tall as he is), and he walks through the water with the net, just scooping up the fish! I think the fish were called snake heads. They then dry these fish and sell them to people from other villages who sometimes only have this as their only source of protein throughout the week, since they live too far away from the market to go every day, and so may go only once a week.
We now arrive at Golden Rock.......well almost. First we have to get into an open truck to travel about 10 kilometers straight up a winding, narrow road, which is not accessible to cars...
Then the truck arrives at its final destination, and we're still not there yet! Now I know why the guide told me to pack light, as we now need to walk three kilometers to our hotel, with our stuff. Now I know for all of you avid walkers, this may sound like a piece of cake....but it was about 43 degrees celsius, and the reason we had to walk from here is because it was even more steep and hard for even the trucks. It seemed like at least 10 kilometers!! They do have these porters who will carry you up!! But I was determined to walk. When we were almost there where it got relatively flat, we did stop for this photo opp with some porters...
Although it's not a great photo, you get an idea of the other option for mode of transport up the hill.
Phew.....so we first checked into our hotel for a brief rest and a shower...
(to be continued....)
using BlogPress from my iPad
No comments:
Post a Comment