Final Edition!

Except for a brief stopover to pick up our luggage, Rossana and I are effectively leaving Yangon later this week to return to Atlanta, so I thought I’d sneak in one final blog post before we go.

As she started handing over her work responsibilities lately, Rossana has finally had time to squeeze in a couple of visits to sights around Yangon, and even a few of overnight trips. What this really means is that while she’s still working day and night, she’s now managed to take off Saturday and Sunday (consecutively!). What a slacker.

Golden Rock...
Our first road trip was to Kyaikhtiyo Pagoda. Thankfully, it’s also commonly referred to as “Golden Rock Pagoda” because I have yet to master the correct pronunciation for Kyaikhtiyo. For this journey we were accompanied by two of Rossana’s work colleagues and her driver, so we definitely got the local experience – albeit with the benefit of a private car from Yangon instead of the back of a pickup truck or crowded bus that it seemed most were travelling in.

Profile of Golden Rock with worshipers affixing gold leaf offerings. 

A bit of background regarding the pagoda copied directly from Wikipedia…

According to legend, the Golden Rock itself is precariously perched on a strand of the Buddha's hair. The balancing rock seems to defy gravity, as it perpetually appears to be on the verge of rolling down the hill. The rock and the pagoda are at the top of Mt. Kyaikhtiyo. It is the third most important Buddhist pilgrimage site in Burma after the Shwedagon Pagoda and the Mahamuni Pagoda. A glimpse of the "gravity defying" Golden Rock is believed to be enough of an inspiration for any person to turn to Buddhism.
To that last claim, I can only add that I’ve defied adoption of yet another religion.

Our visit was over a holiday weekend in Myanmar, and anticipating a large crowd, our “guides” had recommended we leave Yangon at midnight for the several hour drive to the base of the mountain. This was clearly the common strategy as it became obvious as soon as we left Yangon that many of the trucks and buses on the road along with us were packed with folks making the same pilgrimage.

The small town of Yatetaung is located at the base of Mt. Kyaikhtiyo, and here we transferred to large trucks that are the only vehicles allowed up the steep single track mountain roads. The trucks start running at 6am, and by 430am people began crowding the loading platforms and forming long lines to board. The cost to ride in the back of the truck is 2,500 kyat each way (about $2.50), but for another 50 cents, you can actually “reserve” a seat in the cab alongside or right behind the driver – no standing in line. For the ride up, this was what we opted to do. Good thing too because as soon as the trucks pulled into the passenger loading bays, all hell broke loose. Before the trucks even came to a stop, swarms of people were climbing up the sides of the truck like it was the last helicopter out of Saigon, filling the available seats before the folks who had been patiently standing in line (for hours) could board. In an incredible display of Buddhist tranquility, nobody got shot, beat up, or even yelled at. In fact the waiting passengers appeared almost serene as the full trucks pulled away, leaving them to hope for a seat on the next truck.

All aboard!

The only person who appeared to get worked up about this whole injustice was Rossana who was ready to start yanking these queue jumpers out of their seats and throwing them overboard. Her colleagues just shrugged off the whole affair as normal.

After surviving the ride up the mountain (now that should be enough of an inspiration for any person to turn to religion) and a tasty breakfast of Mohinga at a trailside restaurant, we shed our footwear and walked on to the actual pagoda.

Somewhat blurred photo of the trucks carrying us up the twisting mountain roadway.

Mohinga, the official breakfast, lunch, and dinner of Myanmar.

Well, most of us walked. Some made the pilgrimage via sedan chair.

Now why didn't I think of that?

The custom here, as well as a number of other pagodas and shrines, is to purchase whisper thin sheets of gold leaf and affix them onto the rock as an offering. I should add that although anybody can purchase the gold leaf, only men are permitted to actually apply it to the rock. Although everyone I’ve questioned is unanimous in the fact that there is nothing in the teachings of Buddha that says woman shouldn’t have equal rights, nobody can explain where this prohibition comes from.

View of the back side of the mountain top, lined with guesthouses and small shops.

Thuzar, Rossana, and Chan Myae visiting a fortune teller.

Although Golden Rock is part of virtually every package tour of Myanmar, Rossana and I saw only a small handful of other Westerners the entire day. In fact, foreigners have to sign in (and pay a fee, naturally) to enter the site, and when we were leaving we stopped in to use their restrooms, and the sign-in book had only a few additional names registered.

For the ride home, we opted to ride in the back of the truck down the mountain. Each row of seating is supposed to fit seven passengers. Our little group ended up buying up extra seating, so that we could sit just 5 across – and we were still “cheek to cheek”.

Selfie taken sitting in the back of the truck with my 47 new best friends for the ride down the mountain.

Inle Lake...
Last weekend, our final weekend in Myanmar, we went to Inle Lake, a large freshwater lake in Shan State, about an hour’s flight north of Yangon. The lake is home to a large population called Intha, who live along the shore of the lake, as well as in bamboo or wooden huts erected on stilts above the lake itself. There are almost no roads, as virtually all transportation and commerce occurs by boat. The lake is also site of large “gardens” that grow fruit and vegetables atop floating beds that are anchored to the lakebed by bamboo stakes. The planting beds rise and fall with the water level. At 2,900 feet (880 meters) elevation, it’s appreciably cooler, and less humid than Yangon. This alone is reason to like the place, but it really offers much more. In addition to being quite lovely, it seems to have avoided many of the things that make Yangon such a challenging place to live. It’s clean, uncongested, clean, quiet, no traffic, and did I mention clean? 

Transporting goods home from market.

A few more years of climate change and this could be Miami Beach!

Rows of tomatoes grown in floating gardens.

For a few dollars, we did the obligatory hiring of a boat with driver to pilot us around the lake for a day, stopping at assorted pagodas, shops, monasteries, markets, markets inside pagodas, markets inside monasteries, and small textile mills (the cloth produced here from silk and/or lotus threads are highly prized).

Step #1 - Spinning lotus fibres into thread.

Step #2 - Weaving the threads into cloth.

Step #3 - Hiring an adorable little girl to model the clothes to encourage tourists to purchase.

Another thing that the lake is famous for (at least throughout Myanmar) are the fishermen who use their legs pushing against a single oar to row their boats around the water. I've read differing accounts of why this practice started. Some say it's so that they can keep their hands free to work their fishing nets, and others that this technique allows them to remain standing in order to see over the vegetation growing in the lake. In either event, it looks damn hard - not to mention a recipe to end up taking a swim.

Let's see the Oxford Rowing Team try this!

Like everywhere else we’ve traveled in Myanmar, people here are unbelievably friendly – despite the fact that they probably see tourists all day, every day. People on shore, and every second boat that we passed seemed to make a big point of waiving at us. At some point we noticed that they wave at each other too. Maybe we’re not as special as we thought.

Child adds his welcome from an upper story window.

Young women preparing to head home after a day at the pagoda.

Even this little girl seemed pleased to see us.

One of our more unique stops was a Burmese cat refuge called the Cat Café (they also operate an organic restaurant where we had lunch), established with the intention to re-introduce the pure Burmese breed, which had disappeared from Myanmar some time ago, back into the country.

Resting up after a long day of being cute.

And as you literally can't swing a cat without hitting a pagoda in this country, we had to visit one or two on the lake.

Another sausage fest - only men permitted to apply the gold leaf to the five blobs that used to be images of Buddha before they were completely obscured by layers of gold.

Don't even think about it!

Pagodas R Us.

Rickety footbridge crosses the canal leading to a pagoda.

Back in Yangon...
One of the biggest festivals of the year, Thadingyut, also known as The Lighting Festival took place on the full moon, a week or so ago. We went to one of the places in town to check out the celebrations. Mostly just a big rowdy street fair, with the added excitement of a lot of open flames. It was also the first time I’ve seen people powered Ferris Wheels. There is no engine to turn the ride, rather teenage boys are employed to climb up into the framework of the wheel and when enough of them shift their weight to one side at the top, an imbalance is created and gravity spins the wheel - surprisingly fast - and they leap off as they pass through the bottom of the arc. The photo below is of a relatively small version, probably no more than 25 or 30 feet high, but the same method was used to turn a couple of much larger wheels, that required about 10 guys to hang off the rigging in order to spin the wheel.

Suspect these guys have a tough time getting life insurance.

And of course what's a festival without tasty snacks...

Oh boy!  It's fried cricket season again.

Some scenes from the local bank...

Picking up a little walking around money for the weekend.

In the US, if you walk into a bank with a facemask, it's usually to rob the place.

Parting shot...

Some of you probably saw this on Rossana's Facebook page, but it amuses me so much I'm posting it again.

We made a quick trip across the Yangon river to Dala last week, and while being pedaled around, this kid attached himself to my tri-shaw. While mugging for Rossana's camera he failed to observe the bicycle parked just in front of him in this photo. Two steps further along it introduced itself to him and he went down faster than Malaysian Airlines stock price.




Before you're convinced that I'm too cruel, in typical kid fashion, he was back on his feet and chasing after us again within seconds - though I'm not entirely certain he had the same number of teeth.

Jingle Bells

If the Nats (spirits), Dragons, and Galouns permit, the world’s largest bell, and what some refer to as the Buddhist Holy Grail, may be about to resurface from the mud and silt of the Yangon riverbed where it has been submerged since the early 1600's.

Galoun - Mythical half man half bird

The Dhammazedi Bell was commissioned in 1476 and donated to the Shwedagon Pagoda in 1484 by King Dhammazedi of the Mon dynasty, ruler of the southern part of Myanmar at the time.  In 1608, the bell was seized by Portuguese mercenary Filipe de Brito who had taken control of an area south of Yangon.  De Brito’s plan was to take the bell back to his base of operations and melt it down to manufacture cannons.  

Alas, de Brito had not read the Wikipedia article about how to calculate fully loaded displacement of a boat, and when he attempted to ferry the 270 ton bell across the swift moving Yangon River, it promptly sank.  To put this into perspective, 270 tons is roughly the equivalent to the maximum gross takeoff weight of a Boeing 777 (or about 6,136 fully grown Emperor Penguins for those of you on the metric system).

Mugshot of the Dhammazedi Bell

For his efforts, five years after the theft, de Brito was captured and impaled on a stake - a punishment reserved for defilers of Buddhist temples.  [note to self – don’t defile any temples]

Shwedagon Pagoda as it appears today - sans bell

Now our story skips ahead 400 years or so.

Why hasn't the bell been recovered in all this time?  Witnesses to the sinking knew precisely where the bell had gone down, and the river is only around 30 feet deep at low tide.  Has the bell somehow joined Amelia Earhart and MH370?

No fewer than seven attempts to locate and recover the bell have been made in the last three decades alone however none has been successful, due in part to the fast moving tidal river currents and murky waters, leading some to declare that the effort is cursed.  “Several divers had already died looking for the great bell, including two Myanmar Navy divers who became trapped inside a wreck and died horribly” American diver Jim Blunt told The Independent.  According to local newspaper, The Irrawaddy, historian U Chit San Win has made it his mission in life to relocate this lost artifact of Myanmar’s past.  Since 1987, he has led a number of searches, including one in 1996 that was supported by then Military Intelligence chief Gen. Khin Nyunt.  During one attempt in the 90's, U Chit San Win lost a son to rabies.  When asked what he thought about the bell's curse, he declined to give a direct answer.

Others have been less reticent about expressing their concerns.  During a meeting between U Chit San Win and a government minister that was observed by a member of The Irrawaddy’s staff, the minister attentively listened to a detailed proposal to launch another search, but in the end declined to back the project because, he said, he feared for the safety of his family.  Yet, there are many who superstitiously maintain that recovery of the bell could be the key to the country’s return from its current status as one of Asia’s poorest nations.  According to U Chit San Win, “Our country is so poor and plagued with conflict.  Many people believe that if the bell is found, it will bring us peace and prosperity.”

At some point, the former military junta that ran the country declared that only citizens of Myanmar have the right to search for the bell because recovering it is a “national issue”.  This view is still held by many in the current government and has caused rejection of recent offers of assistance from outsiders.  Meanwhile, dissident groups have decried all recovery efforts, claiming that doing so would only serve to legitimize the illegal regime.

Rejecting technology, a new team of locals has received permission, and begun to search for the bell.  The latest salvage team consists of about 70 people, including 10 divers recruited from Myanmar’s Myeik Archipelago.  These divers are heralded for their ability to dive for long periods without breathing apparatus.  Instead of Ground Penetrating Radar, Seismic Surveys, geophysics, or other hi-tech goodies, their search is guided by a monk sitting atop one of the salvage boats.

Vendors sell snacks and information pamphlets to spectators who gather on the riverbank to watch the search efforts

"If we just rely on modern technology we will face more problems," San Lin, the leader of the salvage attempt told  BBC News recently, citing the belief that Buddhist "nats" or spirits are preventing the bell being found and that only a spiritual approach will locate it.  "We must use our traditional ways so that the dragon spirit does not keep hold of the bell."

Divers work without scuba gear in near zero visibility to search the muddy riverbed
(photo BBC News)

And now, they are claiming success!  “After asking permission from all noble persons and saints, we definitively declare that we have found the Dhammazedi Bell,” declares a statement from San Lin.

But, before you book tickets to hear the bell rung at New Years, some are skeptical of the team's discovery.  It seems that to date, the divers have provided no actual evidence of their claim.  There were a handful of large, A-Class ship mooring buoys that were sunk in the vicinity during World War II. These buoys were of approximately the same size as the bell, have a similar ring at the top, and could easily be mistaken for the bell. 

There are even some who doubt the existence of the bell altogether.  Curiously, it seems that for the first 200 or so years after the alleged[?] theft, no mention of the bell at all was made in any Burmese literature.  Could this whole story just be an urban myth?  Have they just been pulling our (bell) chain all these years?  We may know in a matter of weeks.

===============

Okay, okay, I've taken a few weeks off since the last blogpost.  At first it was just too darned hot to spend much time outside wandering the streets.  Now its monsoon season and things have cooled off nicely so I don't really have an excuse. 

- Eric 
   

Of Race Horses and Body Snatching

I’d walked and been driven along Horse Race Course Road a handful of times before I consulted a map to see if there actually was a race track somewhere to go along with the street name.  Sure enough, on the map you can still see the grounds of a former horse track in the midst of what is now a densely populated urban neighborhood. 

 

Add some snooping via Google Earth and it seems that the outline of the original track still exists, along with some outbuildings, a running track, and curiously, what looked to be a baseball field. 

A really large greenspace, it’s not labeled as a park on the map, rather the "Kyaikkasan Grounds", whatever that means (the Kyaikkasan part is named after a nearby pagoda which is claimed to contain 16 hairs of the Buddha, it's the "grounds" bit I'm not sure about).  Add the fact that it’s surrounded by a high wall with only a single entrance, and I figured this is probably not somewhere open to the public.  Still, the allure of a nearby place devoid of cars that might have a decent running surface, coupled with a little digging on the internet revealing that this was originally the Rangoon Turf Club, along with the site of a notorious body snatching - well, it was too much to resist…

A bit of history – The Rangoon Turf Club was established (elsewhere in town) originally in 1887, and moved to this location in 1926.  Unlike most colonial clubs in town, the Turf Club was not whites only.  Lim Chin Tsong, whom I wrote about back in November was a onetime chairman.  I can’t find much else about the colonial history of the club, other than it was still in operation as late as 1953 but seemingly abandoned sometime thereafter, and following the 1962 military coup, it was used as an assembly site for government-engineered rallies.

The grounds reemerged from obscurity in late 1974 following the death of former UN General Secretary U Thant.  An internationally respected diplomat, U Thant was unanimously elected as the first UN General Secretary from Asia.  While highly regarded abroad, Thant was distrusted by Burmese dictator General Ne Win, leading to his being labeled an “enemy of the state” even though he was still representing Burma in the UN at the time.  Upon his death in New York from lung cancer, U Thant was the first person ever to lay in state in the United Nations headquarters; however, upon the return of his body to Rangoon, General Ne Win refused to permit a state funeral or any other honors. 

Instead, the body was placed in the Kyaikkasan Grounds as they were now known, for public viewing.  Students from the not-so-nearby Rangoon University attempted to organize busses to travel to the viewing but were advised by the bus companies that the government was forbidding them to rent any busses in connection with the funeral.

The students reacted by organizing a march from the University to the Kyaikkasan Grounds, where following funeral rites, speeches, and prayers by attending monks, the students overpowered guards, seized the body and returned with it to the University where they announced that they were going to erect a mausoleum.  The rest of the story takes place away from the Kyaikkasan Grounds so I’ll save it for another day, but let’s just say that like most protests in this country it did not end well for the students with Martial Law imposed and several hundred dead at the hands of the military.

Back to present day - although there were a couple of guard posts that I had to pass by, nobody challenged me as I approached, so they were either just being nice to the stupid westerner, or maybe the place really is open to the general public.  I rather suspect the former. 

Upon entering, the first thing I saw was the outline of the racecourse.  Now much narrower, and paved over, it’s still an uninterrupted 1 mile oval suitable for running or cycling.  A pair of decaying grandstands grace one side of the track. 

Looking down on the remains of the track from the grandstands.





View of the grandstands.

1920s version of luxury boxes.

Original "clubhouse" of the Rangoon Turf Club, now home to some sort of government sports ministry (that is apparently ripping off the Olympic logo).

Off to one side are several outbuildings with signs indicating that they are for Judo, Weightlifting, Sepak Takraw (a game similar to volleyball but you play it with your feet), gymnastics, other sports, and a swimming pool.  There’s also a synthetic running track that’s in remarkably good shape.  All in all a pretty nice facility.  But not a single athlete, jogger, or even school kid kicking a ball around the vast infield.  In fact, the only signs of “life” were the guards that I passed, and some people I presume were groundskeepers who were sleeping in the shade.  And some goats.

Chess, really?



Genuinely nice track.

Lawnmower at work.

And then there’s the baseball “stadium”.  I don’t get it.  The British certainly didn’t introduce baseball.  The closest country that probably has a proper league is Korea.  But here, on the racecourse infield is a baseball diamond, complete with fences, dugouts and a two level grandstand.  The field is in pretty poor shape with sand dunes down both the right and left field lines, but it appears that somebody (I’ve no idea who) is still using it.  There is evidence of fairly recent chalk denoting the foul lines.  Maybe I should have packed my glove.



Baseball diamond viewed from the upper deck.

Sand dunes down the right field line.

Parting shot:

 

While we're on a sports theme - football players take over a busy downtown street late in the day.  These games go on every evening until well into the night.

 

 



 

 

 



Time Traveling (Long)

Eric:
If coming to Yangon requires setting your watch back 25 years, hopping the ferry across the Yangon River for the 10 minute journey to Dala requires a reset of at least another 50.   

Despite its close proximity to downtown, barely half a mile, Dala is a sleepy township that has been virtually passed over by development.  Except for the town center, there is no running water, and little else in the way of infrastructure for the town residents, many of whom still live in traditional bamboo huts and commute into Yangon to work as vendors, day laborers, or in low paying civil service jobs.  

Two well worn ferry boats connect Dala to downtown for about 30,000 passenger a day, crossing back and forth across the river at 20 minute intervals from around 5am until dark.  It is possible to make the journey by road, but to do so involves a 35 mile journey, three bridges, tolls, a lot of bad roads, and a whole lot of traffic.

I’ve made the journey across the river a couple of times now.  It’s a nice break from the chaos and traffic of downtown on a hot afternoon.  Arriving at Pansodan Jetty on the Yangon side, you first pass through a busy open air market, followed by a gauntlet of small children hawking picture postcards to the relatively infrequent tourists, finally reaching the ferry terminal.  Here you queue up at the “Foreigner Ticket Office” and present your passport before handing over US $4 for the roundtrip (locals pay the equivalent of 10 cents each way).  When the ferry pulls in, you join a throng of people all trying to pile onto the boat at the same time as arriving passengers disembark.  A challenge made even more interesting by the many passengers with boxes, baskets of fish or produce balanced on their heads, and bicycles strung with miserable looking chickens destined to market, all competing for space along the narrow pier.  Despite the chaos, the boat will only remain at the pier for a few minutes before shoving off for the return crossing.

Crush of passengers preparing to exchange places as the ferry docks.

Yangon equivalent of a minivan.

Live chickens trussed to bicycles enroute to market.

The two ferries, the Anawyahta and Kyan Sit Khar are operated by the Inland Water Transport Company, now a state agency and descendant of the original Irrawaddy Flotilla Company.  Founded under British rule in 1865 it was once regarded as the greatest river fleet on earth. The company operated over 600 vessels carrying in excess of 9 million passengers a year at its peak in the 1920s.  The company was nationalized following Burmese independence in 1948 and renamed, though in a nod to its origins, the surviving boats still sport the black and red funnels that distinguished the Irrawaddy Flotilla fleet.

Passing the ferry from the opposite shore mid river

Fire buckets hang suspended from the ceiling.

Once aboard, there’s enough seating on the boats’ two levels for about half the passengers, the remainder either renting tiny plastic stools scattered throughout the decks or standing along the rail where you can toss puffed rice purchased for a few cents from a vendor to the seagulls that follow the boats onto the river in hopes of a snack.  If you’d rather feed yourself, other vendors abound selling noodles, candy, gum, and other treats – and of course beetle nut.

Vendor selling fresh fruit to passengers aboard the ferry.

 

Seagulls shadow the ferry competing for handouts from the passengers.

There’s also a small cadre of tri-shaw drivers who work the vessel soliciting passengers and both trips I’ve taken I have engaged one of them to show me around.  In fact, in my second visit accompanied by my friend Jan who was visiting from the US, my tri-shaw driver from my first trip remembered me and acted as a sort of a tri-shaw pimp setting up the second tri-shaw that we needed for our Tour de Dala.

Disembarking in Dala is sort of a mirror of the boarding process, except the quay on this side is even smaller than that in Yangon.  I’ve yet to see anyone nudged into the water by the press of the crowd, but I suspect it happens.

Once away from the bustle of the ferry terminal, Dala quickly descends into a sleepy village atmosphere.  Most of the traffic is on bicycle, with a few motorbikes (unlike Yangon, they’re legal on this side of the river), and the occasional  noisy tractor.   

Situated right at sea level with waterways on three sides and no real high ground, Cyclone Nargis in 2008 devastated Dala and much of the surrounding area, killing thousands.  Remnants of the destruction can still be seen in downed trees and a reservoir that once was the primary fresh water source since rendered unusable.  My tri-shaw driver shared that his mother was among the victims of the cyclone.



4 Passengers + the driver.  Heavily loaded tri-shaw pedals away from the pier.
That's more people than I used to fit in my Mini.

The first stop on the ‘tour’ was the Shwe Sayan Pagoda.  A small and otherwise unremarkable pagoda attached to a monastery, it’s noteworthy because of a mummified monk that is on display behind a glass case.  According to the story, a couple years ago the mummy opened his eyes.  I’m sure there’s more to this story, but that’s as much as the tri-shaw driver was able explain [hey, if he’d paid more attention in school, he’d be explaining the solution to the Schrödinger equation for the hydrogen atom in arbitrary magnetic fields – not peddling a tri-shaw more miles each day than Lance Armstrong on his way home from the pharmacy].  I can only confirm that yes, today the mummy’s eyes are open.  Sort of.

 

I think he just winked at me.

Further along, the road passes a collection of fisherman’s huts hugging banks of the Dala River.  One room, bamboo and corrugated tin construction, these huts sit suspended above the banks of the tidal river.


Fisherman sits beside his home mending fishing nets.

There’s also a fleet of river taxis beached in the mud.  I guess this is the home port of a lot of these boats.  In addition to carrying passengers across the Yangon river to downtown, these boats connect both Yangon and Dala to the town of Twantay, about 90 minutes by boat along the nearby Twante Canal.  Twantay is widely known as a center of pottery production with over 50 traditional pottery works.  I’ve not been yet, but its’ on my list and likely the topic of a future posting.



Taxi stand.

Later, we also rode past a local cemetery.  Wealthier “residents” get a headstone while many burials are indicated only by a pile of overturned earth temporarily marking the grave until the next rainy season levels the ground.



Unmarked earthen graves in the foreground.

 Nearby, our arrival at another collection of huts was heralded by a swarm of children who obviously don’t see a whole lot of visitors.

 

 

This kid is so excited to see us, he forgot his pants.

During my first visit, my tri-shaw driver invited me to visit his home.  He lives down a lane too narrow even for his tri-shaw so we had to approach on foot.  Similar to the fishermen’s huts we’d passed earlier, the home is of bamboo construction, erected on stilts less than a foot above the level of the water.  He was undeniably proud that he possessed two rooms.  Rooms shared with his wife, father, and two children.  This is the lifestyle that being a tri-shaw driver can afford.  In fact due to his modest English skills, he probably earns more than most.  Within moments of our arrival, a gaggle of neighborhood boys followed us in to check out the action.  Interestingly, when I showed them the photo I'd snapped of them on my iPhone, one of them quickly took it from me, knowingly scrolling through the other photos I had stored on the phone.

Gaps in bamboo floor probably make sweeping up a breeze..

Some sort of gang salute no doubt.

There’s also a monastery along the route with a pretty darn big seated Buddha that was worth a visit.  I didn’t note the name, and surprisingly it’s not identified on any of the maps or Google Earth. 

He must spend a fortune on manicures.



Craftsman using a tiny little paintbrush to put the finishing touches on some new stonework.



Looking out from the Buddha

Heading back to the pier, we passed the main fresh water supply for the neighborhood, a single hand pump that residents use to fill plastic buckets.  These buckets in turn are carried home and emptied into the ceramic urns that sit outside most homes.

Neighborhood water source.



Ceramic urns hold water for each home.

Water urns lining the back wall of a restaurant.

There is a UN project now underway that is laying water lines into at least a part of the community.  It appears in this phase at least to only be along the larger, more (relatively) affluent thoroughfares, so most residents won't see too much benefit; though maybe they won't have to walk as far to fill their water buckets.

New pipes awaiting installation will begin to provide fresh water to parts of the community.

In June of 2013, the government announced a joint project with South Korea to build a "Friendship Bridge" connecting Dala to downtown Yangon.  The response was an immediate skyrocketing of Dala property values to near Tokyo levels.  So much so, that within weeks the government reacted by freezing plans for the bridge indefinitely while it assesses how to cool down the property market.



Heavily laden cargo vessel beginning its journey up the Yangon river. 

Downtown Yangon skyline during the return crossing.

 In closing...

Sun setting on Inya Lake near our apartment.