{"id":1122,"date":"2019-02-02T01:06:48","date_gmt":"2019-02-02T01:06:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=1122"},"modified":"2019-02-04T02:59:44","modified_gmt":"2019-02-04T02:59:44","slug":"myanmar-oz-08","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=1122","title":{"rendered":"MYANMAR & OZ. 08"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve lost count of the days!\u00a0 But today appears to be Thursday 31 January.\u00a0 Tomorrow we are going to win on the Premium Bonds.\u00a0 I say that every month, but I’ve never written it down before!\u00a0 A new approach!<\/p>\n

So, anyway, yesterday must have been Wednesday.\u00a0 Another busy day.\u00a0 Well, busy for the crew maybe!\u00a0 In the morning we moored at Minhla and walked ten minutes to the local fort.\u00a0 Then it was on to the local market.\u00a0 We were given a shopping list with suggested prices and pronunciation guidance.\u00a0 It sounded a bit of a naff idea, but, in fact, was a very good exercise. It got us really engaged with the stall holders. True to say, nobody had a clue what we were asking for – not even after it had been found and purchased. In the afternoon we had a talk about all the vegetables that we had bought.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On to Magway where we visited the Myathalon pagoda.\u00a0 This may sound bad, but it gets to a point when these pagodas seem to merge into one gold- plated image.\u00a0 Lots of slightly dubious tiled floor areas for walking barefoot.\u00a0 Lots of chances to water the Buddha’s at one’s personal corner.\u00a0 Lots of opportunities to upgrade one’s foot-ware!<\/p>\n

At the Buddhist nunnery we met with a dozen or so nuns.\u00a0 They answered all our questions about conditions in the nunneey and their daily routine.\u00a0 Apparently the nuns in residence there range in age from 8 to 84.\u00a0 Eight years old seemed to us a little young – but she was there with her aunt.\u00a0 \u00a0What can we say?<\/p>\n

Thursday – day 8.\u00a0 Now firmly on the second phone so photos now resume!<\/p>\n

Lots of cruising today.\u00a0 Lots of very shallow sections.\u00a0 Most boats we saw had sounding poles out looking for safe passages.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When we arrived in Salay, we came into the bank near a lady doing her laundry.\u00a0 We have no idea how washing clothes in the river water can actually make them cleaner!\u00a0 But I suppose they had been washed in the river last time – so at least they won’t get any dirtier!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We spent the afternoon wandering into Salay.\u00a0 We passed some grand old buildings…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

and put our head into the local primary school where we interrupted a geography lesson…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Then on to, you guessed, another pagoda!\u00a0 The Man pagoda.\u00a0 Well guarded by gold painted statues.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Then to the Yoke Sone Monastery (or\u00a0Yokesonekyaung).\u00a0 \u00a0This is a wooden structure built in teak\u00a0wood in the 1880s and now run as a museum for historical artefacts found in the region.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Even though this is an ex-monastery, we still had to go bare-foot.\u00a0 The village of Salay itself is a very poor village.\u00a0 We saw a game of wicker-ball in progress. A cross between volleyball and soccer.\u00a0 A small hollow ball made of woven bamboo strips is kicked or headed over the net more or less to the rules of volleyball.\u00a0 There were some very athletic overhead kicks being played!<\/p>\n

It was the end of the school day as we walked back to the ship.\u00a0 There were lots of children about keen to have their photos taken.\u00a0 Glenda amassed a small group of friends…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

…and there was even one young lady in full party gear.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Before returning to the ship\u00a0 we had a brief stop at the the only decent house we had seen in town.\u00a0 It was a rather nice boutique hotel with a lovely river-side garden.\u00a0 It was owned by the local doctor who had a useful supply of Korean-made copy-antibiotics with expired dates – but the appointment to see him took about two minutes to set up.\u00a0 The waiting time was less than one minute and his advice and drugs were free!\u00a0 Just like the UK!<\/p>\n

Tomorrow is the famous and much talked about Bagan!\u00a0 But this is so frustrating with intermittent Wi-Fi that I’m going to finish here and accept that I’m getting further and further behind!<\/p>\n

COUGH MEDICINE<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The pharmacist walks into the store to find a guy leaning heavily against a wall.<\/em><\/p>\n

He asks the blonde clerk:<\/em>
\n“What’s with that guy over there by the wall?”<\/em><\/p>\n

The blonde clerk responds: “Well, he came in here this morning to get something for his cough.<\/em>
\nI couldn’t find the cough syrup, so I gave him an entire bottle of laxative.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The pharmacist yells:<\/em>
\n“You idiot! You can’t treat a cough with a laxative!”<\/em><\/p>\n

The blonde clerk responds,<\/em>
\n“Of course you can! Look at him, he’s afraid to cough”.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve lost count of the days!\u00a0 But today appears to be Thursday 31 January.\u00a0 Tomorrow we are going to win on the Premium Bonds.\u00a0 I say that every month, but I’ve never written it down before!\u00a0 A new approach! So,… <\/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-1122","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\/1122","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=1122"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1124,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1122\/revisions\/1124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}