21st January, 2017

Well, despite the title (witty, eh?) we did not visit any stupas to start with, but instead visited the market, which was fantastic. Wonderful colours and busy, bustling people (mostly women – the men apparently were in the tea house sorting out the world) and a fascinating array of produce most of which looked very fresh and inviting. It was very much a market for the locals and Meung, our guide, was invaluable in explain what was what, not least as we had never seen some of the produce and weren’t sure what you were meant to do with it. I make no apologies for the number of photos as I have spared you a load of them and would have been happy to have spent most of the day there, it was that vibrant.

It was also a great opportunity to view the local populace albeit mostly the female half – see comment re tea houses above. The Burmese/Myanmarese are a lovely people, small and petite for the most part and, since they are usually smiling, exude a very welcoming air. You do not hear many raised voices except maybe for a shouted joke across the market. I feel like a large, rather fat and ugly giant by comparison.

One last photo from the market is of betel leaves, fairly widely used with lime and tobacco (I think) and it is largely chewed. As we know from Papua New Guinea days, it can give a hallucinogenic kick but also mouth cancer and ruin your teeth. Mind you, they display it beautifully!

We said goodbye to the market, but Meung had an interesting tour for us today as our next destination was a local soya bean factory. We walked through the local village first and down to the blanks of the Ayeyarwady River, getting a brief insight into local life in the countryside with livestock (we liked the end-to-end pigs) and vegetable gardens scattered about.

From there it was a short walk to the soya bean factory, a village industry that seemed to be thriving and even exporting to other countries. I like factories and all the processes and, as ever, Meung had all the facts and explained how the whole village would take part. I think they even hired extra workers.

It was then time to get back to the temples (only about 2,196 to go), so off we went to our first of the day, Htilominlo Paya, an impressive double cube with some fine stucco work and four large Buddhas inside.

A short drive took us to another ‘leaning tower’, indeed two of them and some other striking stupas that were not even worth a mention in the guide book, but which would have been top notch anywhere else. I felt sorry for them so took their picture. Note the weaver bird nests.

Next was Ananda Paya, often considered to be the most beautiful of the temples and pagodas. What is most interesting is that it has been restored having been cleaned and the plasterwork brought back to its former glory. This gives you an idea of what all the temples would have looked like in their prime as the brick remains that you see everywhere were only the base for a covering of plaster. It was completed in 1090 with a spire that rises 52 metres high (which gives you a foundation for imagining how tall the pagoda at Mingun would have been at 150 metres high!). Note that the wide angle lens I have tends to flatten things….

And that was that for the day. As you will note from the date of posting this, I am a long way behind, so I have had to leave out a lot of detail about the buildings and sites we visited, so you will just have to visit them yourselves. I hope you are lucky enough to do so. Till tomorrow……..