{"id":1078,"date":"2019-01-28T01:26:28","date_gmt":"2019-01-28T01:26:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=1078"},"modified":"2026-08-19T20:18:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T20:18:44","slug":"myanmar-oz-06","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=1078","title":{"rendered":"MYANMAR & OZ. 06"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, after leaving Nangatgyi village, we cruised through a section of the Irrawaddy that was being extensively dredged.<\/p>\n

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After much discussion aboard ship, we decided that they weren’t actually dredging to make the channel deeper.\u00a0 They weren’t capturing the sand or even the gravel.\u00a0 Next thoughts were rubies and other gemstones.\u00a0 In the end, collectively, we concluded that they are extracting GOLD.\u00a0 And indeed that’s exactly what they are doing!<\/p>\n

Apparently, the heavy residues are collected and panned, sometimes by children, aboard.\u00a0 The gold is then mixed with mercury to form an amalgam which facilitates collection.\u00a0 The mercury is evaporated to leave nuggets of gold (and plenty of nasty pollution, I’m guessing).\u00a0 The raw metal is shipped off to Mandalay where the gold is purified and beaten into gold leaf, 1\/250,000 of an inch thick.\u00a0 One ounce of gold can be beaten out to 300 square feet!\u00a0 Or, to put that another way, a\u00a0total of 2000 very thin, two inch square gold leaves can be obtained from a “tickle” of 24 karat pure gold.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

The process takes five to seven hours of pounding in up to ten different steps.\u00a0 Maybe we will get to see this in Mandalay.\u00a0 However, this manual industry is slowly being replaced with modern mechanized process which takes only a few minutes.\u00a0 Sadly, a lot of skilled workers will lose their jobs.<\/span><\/p>\n

So exactly how big is a “tickle” of gold?\u00a0 I need to find out!\u00a0 Anyone know?<\/p>\n

Today, soon after leaving our overnight wild-camping spot, we drifted slowly past the cliffs of the Akauk Thuang Mountain.\u00a0 The cliffs are carved with a thousand Buddhas! – actually 150 is probably closer to the mark, but who’s counting?<\/p>\n

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So why are they there?\u00a0 Another good question.\u00a0 Allegedly, this spot marks the boundary between states.\u00a0 There was a customs station here so all shipping had to stop and hand over taxes.\u00a0 It was also said to be a very dangerous place after heavy rain when whirlpools formed in the channel.\u00a0 So there were at least two reasons why sailors had to spend time here.\u00a0 The obvious thing to do was to carve a Buddha or two to protect the sailors from whirlpools (and the tax man!).\u00a0 These were cut into the cliffs and later painted.<\/p>\n

Another version of the story was that the customs officials themselves made them while waiting for customers.\u00a0 And, I guess that once there were a few in place, it became “the thing to do”.\u00a0 Like high quality, three dimensional graffiti!\u00a0 In any event, the rock carvers probably earned lots of brownie points in the world of Buddhism.<\/p>\n

The scenery has changed in a rather subtle way.\u00a0 Having left the delta region, there was evidence of rocky banks – but not always at the river’s edge.\u00a0 There were a number of small villages on the banks.<\/p>\n

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These were full of happy, waving people – but, sadly, also with a lot of plastic waste everywhere.\u00a0 Rather like we had found in Cambodia and Vietnam.<\/p>\n

Anyway, we cruised on upstream passing many areas where gold extraction was in full swing.<\/p>\n

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We passed a number of barges heading in our direction carrying coal from China to the power stations of Mandalay.<\/p>\n

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Barges carrying gravel and sand and empty barges were going the other way.\u00a0 In one particularly narrow section between sand banks we passed two barges which had run firmly aground.\u00a0 Not really sure how they were going to get free.\u00a0 Perhaps they were waiting for some extra tug boats – it’s certainly not an option to wait for high tide or the monsoon season.\u00a0 One of those was only going to happen a hundred miles downstream and the other was months away!<\/p>\n

It is clear that there is going to be a generation of deaf boatmen.\u00a0 The noise some (most) of the river boats, big and small, make is deafening – even on our ship as they pass.\u00a0 The boatmen have the banging noise going full bore all day long!\u00a0 Now, what was it you were saying?<\/p>\n

The trip ashore today was at Pyay (pronounced “Pee”) – also known as Prome.\u00a0 We were programmed to visit the site of an ancient Pyu city, Sri Ksetra, a few miles South-east of Pyay.\u00a0 There were a few remnants of the old city wall which had originally been 14 kms long and 14 m high.\u00a0 Now a World Heritage site.\u00a0 Here is the wall with monks …\u00a0 Barry, one of our number, managed a spectacular trip, fall and roll off the wall.\u00a0 Lots of first aid ensued!<\/p>\n

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There was an interesting plant growing here.\u00a0 Touch-me-not.\u00a0 A sensitive plant which folded up it’s leaves when touched…\u00a0\u00a0Mimosa pudica<\/em> is a creeping annual or perennial flowering plant of the pea\/legume family.\u00a0 The compound leaves fold inward and droop when touched or shaken, defending themselves from harm, and re-open a few minutes later.<\/p>\n

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There was also a museum containing the artefacts which had been found during archaeological excavations.\u00a0 There were coins and beads and terracotta relief figures and images and jewellery and burial jars l…\u00a0 All dating from about 600 BC to 60 AD when the succession of Pyu kings died out.<\/p>\n

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After that, we were transported back to town to visit the Shwesandaw pagoda.\u00a0 More gold stupas.\u00a0 More weekday “corners” at which to pour water over your own buddha.\u00a0 You get issued with a buddha depending on your day of birth.\u00a0 So I get Tuesday (the lion) and Glenda has to visit the Saturday corner (the dragon) (honestly).\u00a0 The plan is to pour cups of water over your Buddha – one for each year of your age plus one for the Buddha himself and one for the pagoda (or something like that!).\u00a0 So Glenda did 23 cups, while I did rather more!\u00a0 I used three cups together like I had seen an old local man doing!\u00a0 Saved a bit of time!<\/p>\n

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The steps up looked a bit energetic …<\/p>\n

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– so we took the lift.\u00a0 And that was the end of shore leave!<\/p>\n

More tomorrow…<\/p>\n

Bill and Blanche<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Bill and his wife Blanche go to the state fair every year, and every year Bill would say, “Blanche, I’d like to ride in that helicopter”.<\/em><\/p>\n

Blanche always replied, “I know Bill, but that helicopter ride is fifty bucks, and fifty bucks is fifty bucks!”<\/em><\/p>\n

One year Bill and Blanche went to the fair, and Bill said, “Blanche, I’m 75 years old. If I don’t ride that helicopter, I might never get another chance”. To this, Blanche replied, “Bill that helicopter ride is fifty bucks, and fifty bucks is fifty bucks”.<\/em><\/p>\n

The pilot overheard the couple and said, “Folks I’ll make you a deal. I’ll take both of you for a ride. If you can stay quiet for the entire ride and don’t say a word I won’t charge you a penny! But if you say one word it’s fifty dollars.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Bill and Blanche agreed and up they went. The pilot did all kinds of fancy manoeuvres, but not a word was heard. He did his dare-devil tricks over and over again, but still not a word…<\/em><\/p>\n

When they landed, the pilot turned to Bill and said, “By golly, I did everything I could to get you to yell out, but you didn’t. I’m impressed!”<\/em><\/p>\n

Bill replied, “Well, to tell you the truth, I almost said something when Blanche fell out, but you know, fifty bucks is fifty bucks<\/em>!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, after leaving Nangatgyi village, we cruised through a section of the Irrawaddy that was being extensively dredged. After much discussion aboard ship, we decided that they weren’t actually dredging to make the channel deeper.\u00a0 They weren’t capturing the sand… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-myanmar-2019"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1078"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8137,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078\/revisions\/8137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}