{"id":1214,"date":"2019-02-11T16:26:13","date_gmt":"2019-02-11T16:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=1214"},"modified":"2026-08-20T07:46:59","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T07:46:59","slug":"myanmar-oz-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=1214","title":{"rendered":"MYANMAR & OZ. 12"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday 4th February.<\/p>\n

Well, well.\u00a0 I guess we might have come as far as we can by boat.\u00a0 This morning we got completely stuck again.\u00a0 We had taken a short cut to pass a couple of barges. The captain used his propellers to wash a bit of deeper water.<\/p>\n

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Eventually we had to turn round and find our way across the river to the channel that the barges had navigated 30 minutes earlier.\u00a0\u00a0 Our only consolation was that another cruise ship that had tried to overtake us while were aground really got stuck beside us!<\/p>\n

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So plan B (8.30 departure from our next dock) rapidly became plan C (9.30) and then D (10.00).\u00a0 We now have a 47 mile ride to Mandalay on a bumpy motorway with non-elaborate road marking.\u00a0 In fact, there were no white lines at all.\u00a0 As we left town we got weighed (1.98 tonnes – I don’t think – 19.8 tonnes?\u00a0 Just goes to show how good the food is on board!).\u00a0 Anyway the toll was 2,200 kt, about \u00a31.20.\u00a0 Repeated 3 times on the way. Our weight was recorded as 15800 later?\u00a0 Are we talking pounds here?<\/p>\n

OK, so not a bumpy motorway at all –\u00a0 just a bumpy road!<\/p>\n

Arriving in Mandalay we crossed our river and saw the original bridge.\u00a0 The speed limit was marked as 48 kph.\u00a0 Original!\u00a0 I guess that’s 30 mph in metric!\u00a0 Why not make it 50 – or 150 come to that? Anything over about 13 kph is more or less impossible.<\/p>\n

The poem – “The Road to Mandalay” was played to us as we arrived.\u00a0 All very atmospheric.\u00a0 Took our minds off the terribly poor accommodations along the embankment road into the city.\u00a0 Apparently, Rudyard never actually visited Mandalay.\u00a0 So his references to flying fish make a little more sense.\u00a0 Perhaps he thought Mandalay was on the coast somewhere!<\/p>\n

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First stop was at a temple.\u00a0 Surprise, surprise!\u00a0 Miles of stalls inside the buildings selling all manner of “stuff”.\u00a0 Glenda in full “no shoes or socks” mode<\/p>\n

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… and with Jahn discussing the men only policy at the Gold Buddha.\u00a0 The equivalent of \u00a31 gets 5 sheets of gold leaf.\u00a0 Very difficult to handle.\u00a0 The low down, easily reached, section of the buddha is heavily “leafed” – less so at 20 feet up!<\/p>\n

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It had to be done – so I queued with Bruce, paid my 2000 kt, then queued again to get in round the back of the statue.<\/p>\n

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We added to the thickness of gold on the low down bit on his left knee, (I couldn’t reach his face!).<\/p>\n

Then lunch at the Hilton Hotel.\u00a0 Nothing special there.\u00a0 We’ve got so used to the boat’s magnificent food!\u00a0 Diced with death to cross the road to get a picture of the palace and moat with Mandalay Hill in the backgound.\u00a0 The monastery at the top of the hill can be reached by steps – 1792 of them.\u00a0\u00a0 Bare-foot, no doubt!\u00a0 Or you could drive up!<\/p>\n

The palace is a square with 2 km sides and is surrounded by an eight foot deep moat with alligators.<\/p>\n

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Apparently the king (or at least one of them) had 76 wives.\u00a0 He built a palace with 124 chambers.\u00a0 One each for the wives and a few extra for himself!\u00a0 On the way back across the main road I waited about 20 minutes for a green man to show himself – but I think he’s on holiday today.\u00a0 So diced with death a second time.\u00a0 (I made up the bit about alligators by the way!)<\/p>\n

After that excitement we were taken to Kuthodaw Pagoda see the world’s largest book. It’s carved onto 729 sheets of marble – double sided!\u00a0 It was the brain-child of King Mindon and completed in 1868.<\/p>\n

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What a pain if the carver made a spelling mistake on line 100 (the bottom line) of the second side!\u00a0 Each “page” is six inches thick and some four foot tall.\u00a0 The theoretical “book” would be the height of a 30 storey building.\u00a0 Even native Myanmar speakers can’t really understand much of the language.\u00a0 But anyway it transpires that we had started reading on page 1458.\u00a0 So we know vaguely how the book ends, but we don’t know much else!\u00a0 More shoes off and on.<\/p>\n

Graduates and brides-to-be like having photo-shoots in the place…<\/p>\n

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Next stop was – oh no!\u00a0 Another perishing pagodary thing.\u00a0 Actually, a royal house.\u00a0 The Shwenandaw Monastery.\u00a0 Another chance to walk on grotty floors – this time teak again.\u00a0 And no ladies were allowed in the inner part of the front room where the king kept his Buddha.\u00a0 Apparently everything in the place used to be covered in gold. Even his mattress was woven with golf threads.\u00a0 The king employed a marksman with bow and arrows to sit on top of the roof.\u00a0 His job was to shoot birds that had the temerity to sing while the boss was asleep.<\/p>\n

This is another photo location…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

At last, we end up in the gold leaf producing quarter.\u00a0 A great deal of effort goes into producing this stuff!\u00a0 Machines roll out a thin strip of gold.\u00a0 This is cut into small sections, sandwiched between layers of bamboo paper (the manufacture of which is an art-form in it’s own right!) and then ten bells of eight are beaten it of it – for hours – seven at least!<\/p>\n

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The lads with the sledge hammers time themselves with an intricate device consisting of a half coconut shell with a small hole drilled in the bottom.\u00a0 This is floated in a bucket of water and takes approximately exactly 30 minutes to sink.\u00a0 After all this, the leaves are separated from the paper layers and cut to size.<\/p>\n

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We were then driven through the stone carving quarter.\u00a0 Here artisans expose themselves to an extremely dust-rich atmosphere for 10 or more hours a day.\u00a0 I hate to think what their life expectancy is.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

On to the Thein Nyo Silk Weaving workshop.\u00a0 Where more skilled ladies spend their days producing fine silk fabrics for just $US 3 a day.\u00a0 Ironically, the boss parks his two luxury Japanese limos in the weaving shed right in front of the looms.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

After another tedious, bouncy, horn-tooting ride back to the ship, we had a display of traditional dancing from a Mandalay dance school.\u00a0 It seemed to have a lot of similarities with the dancing we saw in Camboda.<\/p>\n

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Next morning we suffered a repeat of the “Road to Mandalay”.\u00a0 The only notable event this morning was the coach driver driving into the toll barrier as it was coming down.\u00a0 However, that’s for another episode!<\/p>\n

But before we go…<\/p>\n

A short gun story…<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A guy walks into a crowded bar waving his unholstered pistol and yelled “I’ve got a 45 calibre Colt 1911 with a seven round magazine and one in the chamber!\u00a0 I want to know who’s been sleeping with my wife!”<\/em><\/p>\n

A voice called out from the back of the room…<\/em><\/p>\n

“You’re going to need more ammo!”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday 4th February. Well, well.\u00a0 I guess we might have come as far as we can by boat.\u00a0 This morning we got completely stuck again.\u00a0 We had taken a short cut to pass a couple of barges. The captain used… <\/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-1214","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\/1214","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=1214"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8142,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214\/revisions\/8142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}