{"id":1167,"date":"2019-02-05T06:00:53","date_gmt":"2019-02-05T06:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=1167"},"modified":"2026-08-19T20:42:59","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T20:42:59","slug":"myanmar-oz-09","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=1167","title":{"rendered":"MYANMAR & OZ. 09"},"content":{"rendered":"

Day 9 of the cruise.\u00a0 Soon after dawn, before sunrise, we passed the first signs of the mineral wealth of the country.\u00a0 That is, of course, leaving aside the masses of gold adorning the temples!\u00a0 Oil wells on the Eastern bank.<\/p>\n

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The scenery was starting to get more interesting.\u00a0 Hills and things.<\/p>\n

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…\u00a0 A bit of relaxed cruising …<\/p>\n

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… before we eventually arrived at Bagan via some fairly shallow sections.\u00a0 In the morning we drove through Old Bagan to New Bagan by coach.\u00a0 There we met the only elephant in town – he was the highlight of a dance display.<\/p>\n

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And how long does it take to make export-grade laquerware?\u00a0 Well – apparently a long time!\u00a0 First the basic shape has to be moulded with fine bamboo.\u00a0 Then it gets covered with gloupy laquer. Then dried in underground storage areas for a week before being sanded smooth and re-laquered.\u00a0 This process is repeated at least 12 times.\u00a0 Inside and out.\u00a0 Then a complicated multi-stage process gives three different colours to engraved patterns.\u00a0 Overall, it takes months to complete each piece.<\/p>\n

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And some pieces were gold-leafed…<\/p>\n

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Our afternoon expedition was to the Anada Temple with it’s large buddhas.<\/p>\n

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For sunset we were taken to a viewing tower attached to a very posh hotel.\u00a0 It was a weird place.\u00a0 The lifts were exciting too.\u00a0 Especially for Charles, Jeff and Caroline (plus five others).\u00a0 It launched with a shudder and after half a floor it shuddered again and came to a standstill half way between recognised stations!\u00a0 After half an hour the doors were levered open and a chair was dropped in from floor 1.\u00a0 The passengers were then used the chair to stand on while they were hauled out through the narrow opening.\u00a0 We were on floor 1 at the time, but sadly, didn’t know what was happening – so didn’t get a photo!\u00a0 Actually, it was a seriously risky business – the lift only needed to start moving again while someone was halfway out.\u00a0 Doesn’t bear thinking about!<\/p>\n

The view from the top, when we all got there was panoramic.\u00a0 We did have a spot of bother with Chinese elbows – but APT elbows are equally persuasive!<\/p>\n

We had been followed all day by some new found “friends”.\u00a0 Young local girls trying to persuade to buy things we didn’t need which had probably been made in China or Taiwan from seriously sub-standard materials by child labour.\u00a0 I mean genuine silk scarves for the equivalent of \u00a32.50!\u00a0 They met us as we came off the boat and were at each of our subsequent destinations. “Remember me?”, “You want lovely silk?”, “Remember me?”, “Maybe later!”, “How much you want to pay?”, “Maybe tomorrow!”.<\/p>\n

Nothing if not persistent!\u00a0 The sadder thing was the 5 and 6 year olds trying to sell postcards and their own drawings for $1…\u00a0 They should have been at school.\u00a0 Or was it the weekend???<\/p>\n

My phone is in hospital – actually it’s being shuttled around Bagan by a couple of the ship’s crew – but no cure could be found!<\/p>\n

We arrived at a very smart hotel in Bagan.\u00a0 It had two bouncers on the door.\u00a0 We were a really mixed party.\u00a0 Australians, Irish, Canadians, Dutch, Brits, Anericans, New Zealanders and our Myanmar guides.\u00a0 But they turned us away.\u00a0 “You can’t come in without a Thai!”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day 9 of the cruise.\u00a0 Soon after dawn, before sunrise, we passed the first signs of the mineral wealth of the country.\u00a0 That is, of course, leaving aside the masses of gold adorning the temples!\u00a0 Oil wells on the Eastern… <\/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-1167","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\/1167","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=1167"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8139,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167\/revisions\/8139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}