Tapp's Travels

MYANMAR & OZ. 10

Balloon flights at dawn for some and didn’t they make a noise leaving at 5 am?  We chose the day trip to Mount Popa and the adjacent temple built on top of a volcanic plug.  This is reached by steps.  Allegedly 777 steps!  Lucky it’s not 888!  But you’d need to speak Myanmar to fully understand that comment!!!  Or to know Hetty’s Dutch, when it would be “chips, chips, chips!”

There are monkeys all over the place.  Dozens of them.  Apparently, they grab tourists’ hats and phones and then trade them back for food!  Clever critters!

However, apart from a few aggressive postures by the dominant males, where lots of yellow teeth were bared, we didn’t see any such behaviour.  They are very messy though and seriously add to the general mess hereabouts.

Yan gave us a short introduction to “Nats” and shape-shifters in a small temple thing at street level.  This didn’t add much to my knowledge base concerning religious beliefs of Myanmar.  We watched the monkeys watching us watching them eyeing up our cameras and hats.  They didn’t look too threatening – but they could sure move quickly.  So, hats in bags.  Bags done up tight.  Cameras firmly gripped and off we set.

I lost count of the steps after about 35.  Too much going on.  Too much concentrating on cameras and phones!  Too many bloody steps!  Every 50 or so there was a guy holding out his hand for a “donation for cleaning the steps!”  My answer was “Why don’t you clean the steps and stop asking for a donation for something you aren’t doing?”  Under my breath, of course!

After about 300 steps we came to the “shoes off” station. After this we realised just how unclean the steps were! …and there were hundreds more to go.  Some sections were quite ladder-like in their steepness.  Then we came to a downwards section.  What a pain.  At this stage we were saying things like “I REALLY hope it’s going to be worth all this effort” and “It had better be!”.  Monkeys rattled about on the tin roofs which mercifully kept the sun’s rays at bay.  Rubbish was everywhere.  Quite a bit of monkey poo too!

In the event, the temple at the summit was predictably naff and totally not worth the climb.

The view was panoramic though.  We got our first glimpse of the hotel on Mount Popa where we were heading for our lunch.  Let’s go!

On the way down I counted  833 steps.  That’s 56 more than required.  In fact, about 833 more than I’d do another time!

The Mount Popa Hotel, on the other hand was an oasis of calm and loveliness.  It had stunning views of the temple we had just visited.

Excellent lunch, lovely garden and lovely pool.  Next time I come, I’ll come straight here – with swimming togs.  All the other suckers can climb the volcanic plug to the temple of doom.  I’ll have a nice cool dip, a bit of a lie down and a lazy lunch before heading home!

Talking of which, our driver seemed to be on a mission.  Get home early or else.  The road from Mount Popa was lined with villagers begging for money.  Hundreds of them sitting at 100 metre intervals under make-shift shelters.  Apparently, it’s really dangerous.  When somebody throws money out of their car window, they all run into the road to grab it.  You have to understand that there is nothing but paper money in this country.  (The smallest denomination note we have seen has been worth 2.5 pence!)  So money thrown out of cars blows all over the shop!  Everyone rushes after it!  Like I say – dangerous!

On the way home we stopped at a palm sugar “factory”.   First a youngish lad ran up a palm tree to collect the sugary sap in little bowls.

Then we saw the sap being heated and thickened into something akin to fudge.

It was then rolled into sweet-sized portions by hand.  All very suspect hygeine-wise.

Possibly slightly less bacterial-rich was the moonshine which was being brewed and distilled under dustbin lids.  Probably equally dangerous to consume but for different reasons!  The final demo was an ox-powered mill for extracting peanut oil.

Last stop on the way back to our floating luxury hotel was in old Bagan.  A photo-stop with dozens of pagodas!  Just for a change!

After dinner we had a puppet show by a couple of guys who were third generation puppeteers. A long-established family business.  And very skilled they were too!

Can’t finish without telling you about Thomas our guide…

Dead Donkey

Thomas, a city boy, moved to the country and bought a donkey from an old farmer for $100. The farmer agreed to deliver the animal the next day. The next day, the farmer drove up and said, “Sorry, but I have some bad news. The donkey died.”
“Well, then, just give me my money back.”
“Can’t do that. I went and spent it already.”
“OK, then. Just unload the donkey.”
“What ya gonna do with him?”
“I’m going to raffle him off.”
“You can’t raffle off a dead donkey!”
“Sure I can. Watch me. I just won’t tell anybody he’s dead.”
A month later the farmer met up with Thomas and asked, “Whatever happened with that dead donkey?”
“I raffled him off. I sold five hundred tickets at two dollars apiece.
“Didn’t anyone complain?”
“Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back.”  ” I still made a profit of $898!”

2 thoughts on “MYANMAR & OZ. 10

  1. Robyn and Kevin

    Totally different to our day in Bagan- we didn’t do any of that, and just as well! I don’t think we could have climbed all those steps in 36° heat and high humidity. What happened to 09?

  2. Barry (and Sybil)

    Interesting new header picture of a fisherman. Are those people on the walkway along the top of the poles?

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