{"id":1307,"date":"2019-02-16T23:18:27","date_gmt":"2019-02-16T23:18:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=1307"},"modified":"2026-08-20T08:05:29","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T08:05:29","slug":"myanmar-oz-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=1307","title":{"rendered":"MYANMAR & OZ. 15"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think we left the last episode with yet another pagoda visit on the horizon.\u00a0 The Phaung Taw Oo Pagoda.<\/p>\n

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This one was a bit different in that access was by waterway only.\u00a0 A big jumble of activity.\u00a0 New houses being built with manual pile-driving…<\/p>\n

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…and a bridge under construction (or reconstruction).<\/p>\n

The toilets around the side of the temple were guarded by physical barriers, soldiers armed with machine guns and finally by two fierce looking women who wanted paying for access to the loos.\u00a0 These turned out to be predictably undesirable.\u00a0 Sort of touch-nothing-under-any-circumstances sort of places!\u00a0 Hover, pee, leave!<\/p>\n

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There was a royal barge thing but it was moored under cover and approached only by bridge.\u00a0 Sadly, said bridge was the one under construction.\u00a0 No way past.<\/p>\n

OK.\u00a0 So shoes off yet again.\u00a0 300 kt for a photographic permit. … and a photographer sticker.\u00a0 (They really are keen on stickers Here!)\u00a0 \u00a0Not that I’m really sure I need more photos of buddhas – big, small or intermediate, but there was one particular sign that just had to be documented!<\/p>\n

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In rapid succession we visited several artisan operations. Firstly, a silk weaving workshop.\u00a0 Here they extracted fibres from lotus Iily stems…<\/p>\n

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…and they start the weavers young here!…<\/p>\n

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The girls are on $3 US a day…\u00a0 But are allowed time for lunch…<\/p>\n

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A BYO picnic amongst their looms.\u00a0 Our carriages await…<\/p>\n

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… for transport to lunch at a Burmese cat sanctuary.<\/p>\n

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Then swiftly on to a blacksmiths where three men with sledge hammers managed to not get tangled as they smashed the target in turn one after the other.<\/p>\n

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Interestingly, they had a brew pending!<\/p>\n

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But the knives and implements they were making looked pretty effective.<\/p>\n

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Then it was off to the boat builders.\u00a0 It takes a month to build a boat and costs $1000-2000.\u00a0\u00a0All done with hand and foot tools.\u00a0 We didn’t see any sign of power tools.\u00a0 But young family members were helping!<\/p>\n

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The nearly finished product.<\/p>\n

Heading home after a full day’s exploration…<\/p>\n

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… and arriving back at our oasis of peace and tranquillity.<\/p>\n

QUICK THINKING:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A man walked into the produce section of his local supermarket and asked to buy a half a head of lettuce. The boy working in that department told him they only sold whole heads of lettuce. The man was insistent that the boy ask his manager about the matter.<\/em><\/p>\n

Walking into the back room, the boy said to his manager, “some stupid customer wants to buy a half a head of lettuce.”<\/em><\/p>\n

As he finished his sentence the boy turned to find the man standing right behind him, so he added: “and this gentleman kindly offered to buy the other half.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The manager approved the deal and the man went on his way. Later the manager found the boy and said: “I was impressed with the way you got yourself out of that situation earlier. We like people who think on their feet here. Where are you from, son?”<\/em><\/p>\n

“Canada, sir,” the boy replied.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Well, why did you leave Canada?” the manager asked.<\/em><\/p>\n

The boy said, “Sir, there’s nothing but whores and hockey players up there.”<\/em><\/p>\n

“Really!” said the manager. “My wife is from Canada!”<\/em><\/p>\n

The boy replied, “No kidding? Who did she play for?”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think we left the last episode with yet another pagoda visit on the horizon.\u00a0 The Phaung Taw Oo Pagoda. This one was a bit different in that access was by waterway only.\u00a0 A big jumble of activity.\u00a0 New houses… <\/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-1307","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\/1307","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=1307"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8144,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1307\/revisions\/8144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}