{"id":1143,"date":"2019-02-06T01:24:14","date_gmt":"2019-02-06T01:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=1143"},"modified":"2026-08-19T20:51:35","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T20:51:35","slug":"myanmar-oz-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=1143","title":{"rendered":"MYANMAR & OZ. 10"},"content":{"rendered":"

Balloon flights at dawn for some and didn’t they make a noise leaving at 5 am?\u00a0 We chose the day trip to Mount Popa and the adjacent temple built on top of a volcanic plug.\u00a0 This is reached by steps.\u00a0 Allegedly 777 steps!\u00a0 Lucky it’s not 888!\u00a0 But you’d need to speak Myanmar to fully understand that comment!!!\u00a0 Or to know Hetty’s Dutch, when it would be “chips, chips, chips!”<\/p>\n

There are monkeys all over the place.\u00a0 Dozens of them.\u00a0 Apparently, they grab tourists’ hats and phones and then trade them back for food!\u00a0 Clever critters!<\/p>\n

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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.\u00a0 They are very messy though and seriously add to the general mess hereabouts.<\/p>\n

Yan gave us a short introduction to “Nats” and shape-shifters in a small temple thing at street level.\u00a0 This didn’t add much to my knowledge base concerning religious beliefs of Myanmar.\u00a0 We watched the monkeys watching us watching them eyeing up our cameras and hats.\u00a0 They didn’t look too threatening – but they could sure move quickly.\u00a0 So, hats in bags.\u00a0 Bags done up tight.\u00a0 Cameras firmly gripped and off we set.<\/p>\n

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I lost count of the steps after about 35.\u00a0 Too much going on.\u00a0 Too much concentrating on cameras and phones!\u00a0 Too many bloody steps!\u00a0 Every 50 or so there was a guy holding out his hand for a “donation for cleaning the steps!”\u00a0 My answer was “Why don’t you clean the steps and stop asking for a donation for something you aren’t doing?”\u00a0 Under my breath, of course!<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 Some sections were quite ladder-like in their steepness.\u00a0 Then we came to a downwards section.\u00a0 What a pain.\u00a0 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!”.\u00a0 Monkeys rattled about on the tin roofs which mercifully kept the sun’s rays at bay.\u00a0 Rubbish was everywhere.\u00a0 Quite a bit of monkey poo too!<\/p>\n

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In the event, the temple at the summit was predictably naff and totally not worth the climb.<\/p>\n

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The view was panoramic though.\u00a0 We got our first glimpse of the hotel on Mount Popa where we were heading for our lunch.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

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On the way down I counted\u00a0 833 steps.\u00a0 That’s 56 more than required.\u00a0 In fact, about 833 more than I’d do another time!<\/p>\n

The Mount Popa Hotel, on the other hand was an oasis of calm and loveliness.\u00a0 It had stunning views of the temple we had just visited.<\/p>\n

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Excellent lunch, lovely garden and lovely pool.\u00a0 Next time I come, I’ll come straight here – with swimming togs.\u00a0 All the other suckers can climb the volcanic plug to the temple of doom.\u00a0 I’ll have a nice cool dip, a bit of a lie down and a lazy lunch before heading home!<\/p>\n

Talking of which, our driver seemed to be on a mission.\u00a0 Get home early or else.\u00a0 The road from Mount Popa was lined with villagers begging for money.\u00a0 Hundreds of them sitting at 100 metre intervals under make-shift shelters.\u00a0 Apparently, it’s really dangerous.\u00a0 When somebody throws money out of their car window, they all run into the road to grab it.\u00a0 You have to understand that there is nothing but paper money in this country.\u00a0 (The smallest denomination note we have seen has been worth 2.5 pence!)\u00a0 So money thrown out of cars blows all over the shop!\u00a0 Everyone rushes after it!\u00a0 Like I say – dangerous!<\/p>\n

On the way home we stopped at a palm sugar “factory”.\u00a0\u00a0 First a youngish lad ran up a palm tree to collect the sugary sap in little bowls.<\/p>\n

7<\/p>\n

Then we saw the sap being heated and thickened into something akin to fudge.<\/p>\n

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It was then rolled into sweet-sized portions by hand.\u00a0 All very suspect hygeine-wise.<\/p>\n

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Possibly slightly less bacterial-rich was the moonshine which was being brewed and distilled under dustbin lids.\u00a0 Probably equally dangerous to consume but for different reasons!\u00a0 The final demo was an ox-powered mill for extracting peanut oil.<\/p>\n

Last stop on the way back to our floating luxury hotel was in old Bagan.\u00a0 A photo-stop with dozens of pagodas!\u00a0 Just for a change!<\/p>\n

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After dinner we had a puppet show by a couple of guys who were third generation puppeteers.\u00a0 A long-established family business.\u00a0 And very skilled they were too!<\/p>\n

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Can’t finish without telling you about Thomas our guide…<\/p>\n

Dead Donkey<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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.”<\/em>
\n“Well, then, just give me my money back.”<\/em>
\n“Can’t do that. I went and spent it already.”<\/em>
\n“OK, then. Just unload the donkey.”<\/em>
\n“What ya gonna do with him?”<\/em>
\n“I’m going to raffle him off.”<\/em>
\n“You can’t raffle off a dead donkey!”<\/em>
\n“Sure I can. Watch me. I just won’t tell anybody he’s dead.”<\/em>
\nA month later the farmer met up with Thomas and asked, “Whatever happened with that dead donkey?”<\/em>
\n“I raffled him off. I sold five hundred tickets at two dollars apiece.<\/em>
\n“Didn’t anyone complain?”<\/em>
\n“Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back.”\u00a0 ” I still made a profit of $898!”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Balloon flights at dawn for some and didn’t they make a noise leaving at 5 am?\u00a0 We chose the day trip to Mount Popa and the adjacent temple built on top of a volcanic plug.\u00a0 This is reached by steps.\u00a0… <\/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-1143","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\/1143","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=1143"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8140,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143\/revisions\/8140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}