Tapp's Travels

We’d made it as far as Jindabyne.  After a LONG day’s driving were faced with a gated, gravel track which meandered across rolling grassland for a couple of kilometres before diving steeply down to the Mowamba River.  And our lodge. …

We leave behind Melbourne and Jeff’s signature dishes of excellent, elaborate, icecream-based puddings (of which, sadly, I don’t have a photo – Oh yes I do!  Thanks Jeff!). We head for the Warby Ranges behind Wangaratta.  But who wants to…

OK, I know I said we’d left Myanmar, but Glenda has just read the last few episodes and would like me to correct a couple of inaccuracies.  Firstly, there are in fact no direct flights from Heho to London.  Surely…

En route for Heho airport, we passed the gangs of workers still hacking cliffs to bits by hand and others still making the road, also by hand!  We stopped briefly at a paper and umbrella “manufacturing” workshop. Then we arrived…

Now I’ve really got to make stuff up!  It’s Tuesday 19 February and we are at Wangaratta.  Problems with photos locked inside broken phones and lack of internet – not to mention being rather busy doing all these things I’m…

I think we left the last part with yet another pagoda visit on the horizon.  The Phaung Taw Oo Pagoda. This one was a bit different in that access was by waterway only.  A big jumble of activity.  New houses…

Today is (well, it was!) Wednesday 6th February.  We are programmed for yet another long bus ride, a couple of pagodas, a ferry ride across the Irrawaddy and a pony cart ride.  Our decision was final. We were going to…

5th February – 11 days ago now! First, we had a visit to a silver workshop, then a ride up the narrow, steep and meandering road to a hill top monastery, the Swenandaw Monastery, and the associated temple. This is…

Monday 4th February. Well, well.  I guess we might have come as far as we can by boat.  This morning we got completely stuck again.  We had taken a short cut to pass a couple of barges. The captain used…

There may not be many bridges over the river, but those that do exist are generally mighty long.  This one had 30 spans, plus kilometre long approaches on both sides raised on stilts. Good cruising weather! First stop – Yandabo,…