Road to Mandalay

20^th April 2013

Today we commence our Road to Mandalay Tour. Orient Express Transport is at the hotel  reception at 9.15am to take us to Yangon Airport for our flight to Bagan, where we will meet up with the ship for our Irrawaddy Cruise.

The organization is seamless, our bags are picked up from our rooms at 8.15 am, and we won’t see them again until we get to our cabin on the ship. The plane we are flying on is a special charter from Air Mandalay, exclusively for Road to Mandalay passengers. It is a small plane, an ATR 42, a bit smaller than the last 2 we have travelled on, and it is only half full.

Flying to Bagan is uneventful and takes around 1 hour and 20 minutes, with a snack served along the way. Arriving at Bagan airport (we are the only arrival we can see),  and are taken straight to the bus which will take us to the ship. The temperature is already in the high 30’s, and the countryside very, very dry.  Along our trip, there are temples, pagodas and stupas everywhere along our route sitting out in the desolate landscape. Apparently there are over 3,000 religious monuments in Bagan. They are impressive structures and most appear to be made of brick.

It takes about 15 minutes to arrive at the ship, which was built in Glasgow in 1964, and spent the early part of its life in Europe prior to moving to Myanmar in 1996. It is 100m long and was refurbished a few years ago, and the facilities are very impressive. Once aboard, check in was seamless, and we were in our cabin in about 10 mins. The ship only appears to have about 50% occupancy, if that, so we receive a very welcome cabin upgrade as well. We later find out that there are only around 20 passengers on board and 84 crew.

                             

                                       The "Road to Mandalay" berthed on the riverside

A buffet lunch is ready in the dining room, after which we have some time to look around before departing on our afternoon tour of Bagan, leaving at 2.30pm.

Our first destination is the Ananda Temple.

On entering the Temple from one of its 4 entrances you are greeted by a large standing Buddha

Renovations are underway, as they discovered old paintings underneath the plaster

Locals seek refuge from the heat to have a sleep in the coolness of the Temple buildings

Like all of the temples, the building is impressive

A workshop manufacturing  lacquer ware was our next stop. We are treated to a demonstration of the tedious process of making lacquer ware, from building the base shape, mainly from bamboo and the applying multiple coats of lacquer (sap extracted from a tree that turns black when exposed to air). The process is a bit like applying a 2 pack polyurethane coating, with multiple layers of lacquer, sanding between coats. The ultimate product can have up to 20 layers of lacquer (each one requiring 24 hrs to dry.)

                                   Making lacquerware is very labour intensive

the polishing process is pretty primitive

Patterns are etched into the surface to accept coloured inks

Some bases made of  bamboo alongside some finished items

It was then back to temples, with our next stop at Gubyaukgyi Temple.

This Temple is famous for its well preserved paintings through the inside, but no photos are allowed

Then we had a tour through a local village, to get a feel for typical village life. It is really basic.

Our last stop for the day is at a large, and steep pagoda, that we can climb to get a very good view of the area.

Cattle/ water buffalo are the workhorses of the local villages

Mechanised transport is via locally modified trucks

Water has to be collected from the local well, like this

Or this

Peak hour traffic

The kids seem happy

On the way back to the ship we stop at a large pagoda, from which we can get a great view of the area, and the staggering number of pagodas built on this plain. to get to the top viewing level, you need to climb 5 flights of steep stairs.

                                The climb up the pagoda is steep but well worth it

                                                   Getting back down is interesting

Reboarding the ship after a busy afternoon, we noticed that the mooring lines for this ship are tied to a couple of big tress on the shoreline.

The bow line

We arrived back at the ship at 6.45 pm , had a shower, and a very nice dinner in the dining room. We have met up with another Sydney couple, who have become a defacto member of our group, so the 6 of us dined together.