Rowboats on Taungthaman Lake waiting for the sun to set
The evening before we departed Mandalay we took off to see one of the principal photo ops in Mandalay…the sun setting behind U Bein Bridge. The bridge is the oldest, longest teak bridge in the world. Located in the Amarapura township of Mandalay it is used as a passage across Taungthaman Lake by hundreds of monks every day. Continue Reading…
Kuthadow Pagoda
We were on our way to Mandalay. No, not Maxim de Winter’s house in the Daphne Du Maurier novel Rebecca, but the last Royal City of Myanmar. We were coming to this most misfortunate of cities to meet our Viking River Cruise boat. Continue Reading…
The floating gardens of Inle Lake are tended by women in small boats going up and down the waterways. Planting, weeding and picking are all done from boats. This Burmese women paddles skillfully between the beds of the floating garden.
In a village on Inle Lake we visit an amazing market.
Our Viking tour group flew up to Heho, a small town with a regional airport…which, believe me, is far easier than bouncing along on the narrow poorly paved roads leading to Inle Lake. Like most underdeveloped countries Myanmar suffers from substandard infrastructure…roads, bridges, trains and ports are either in poor condition or nonexistent. The country has 17,500 miles of roads but only about 2,100 miles are paved and during the monsoon season most of these unpaved roads turn into a quagmires. Continue Reading…
The women and children in Myanmar have a culture of painting their faces with a paste made from tree branches of a special tree. The makeup is called Thanaka and aside from decorative is supposed to have medicinal properties to clear up bad skin and act as a sun block. Here a lady in the Scott Market who sells Thanaka was checking out her face and hair.
Young Buddhist nuns in the streets of Yangon
We were leaving our very posh digs in Bangkok and heading to Yangon this morning. The Viking River Cruise staff had everything under control. Our bags were picked up at our rooms and taken to the airport ahead of our bus. When we arrived at the airport we had already been checked in and we were given boarding passes for our flight to Yangon. Continue Reading…
