We resumed cruising early the next morning and by 8.30 were at our mooring in the village of Danaphyu.
The boat moored nose in and we went up onto the sundeck to watch the crew prepare for our safe passage up the river bank. They even 'swept' a pathway through the scattered rubbish that is everywhere.
We met Terry (blue group guide today) on the shore. He gave us a rundown on where we were off to and then demonstrated the safe and correct way to get on and off a trishaw. Then we walked a short way to where our trishaw drivers were waiting. Michael and I were both looking for a strong man but the drivers chose their passengers not the other way around.
My driver offered a pile of cushions but I assured him that 2 would be enough.
I remembered Terry's talk and climbed aboard. Wow, the seat was very narrow and very hard. Luckily we didn't leave straight away so I signalled to the driver that I would take those extra cushions after all. The trick is to sit above the metal rim of the seat, at least if you have a european bottom rather than a skinny one it is.
Michael was in a similar situation and he too had 4 cushions.
Then we set off. It wasn't only our drivers that had to get off and push the trishaws up some of the slight hills on the road out to the monastery, everyone of the drivers dismounted at some point.
When we got to the monastery Terry assured us that the drivers would remember us, we didn't have to try and remember which trishaw was ours. It would have been easy for me, my driver was the only one in a hot pink T-shirt.
The monastery was very, very quiet as the monks were at prayer.
We took our shoes off and waited to meet one of the monks.
The serenity of the place was shattered by the constant voice over the loud speakers (which were everywhere). One monk reads the scriptures aloud all day. (not the same monk, they do take it in turns). After a short while though, the sound became background noise and wasn't as intrusive a some commercial radio stations that I know.
Terry was used to one of the novice monks coming to meet with the tourists and was very respectful and almost nervous when one of the senior monks came to meet us.
The monk explained and demonstrated how they wear their cloth, in winter time and cooler mornings they are wrapped up more than in the summer heat. It's all a matter of folding and twisting, no pins or ties.
Then we went to visit the mausoleum of General Maha Bandula who was killed in action in 1825 when he led a famous Burmese defensive against the British during the first Anglo-Burmese War. (1823 -1826). This is the man that the park in central Rangoon is named after. The mausoleum is in the centre of the monastery grounds.
Then we met the abbot and his cat, the abbot was very jolly, smiling at waving at all the tourists but the cat was, as cats can be, quite cool and aloof.
Then we put our shoes on and went back to our waiting trishaws.
Our next stop was a local cheroot (local cigar) workshop.
Terry faked how to smoke one and we saw the ladies making them. The cheroot is made from tobacco, bark, stems and roots, and banana juice, the outer casing is corn husk. The yellow colour is from turmeric, the ladies must have permanently yellow fingers.
One of the ladies in the workshop did demonstrate how to smoke it, but there was more flame than smoke.
We left the workshop and walked along the local streets, through the market, which was quite quiet, back to where our trishaws were waiting patiently to take us back to the boat.
We had a nice cool shower and then as we cruised along to our next destination we enjoyed a divine lunch.
Our overnight stop was on the river bank near Hinthata. We moored next to a small hut and enjoyed another wonderful sunset. The sun set on the port side and the moon came up on the starboard. It was a perfect end to the day.
Day 4 Sunday Dec 3rd.
Having set sail at 6.30am we spent the morning cruising. After breakfast we went up to the sundeck but it was too windy to stay long. We went down to the cabin and opened up the double french windows, pulled up the armchairs and sat watching the world go slowly by. Watching life on the river bank - ships passing, small boats, people fishing, people doing the washing and people tilling the fields.
Some large dredgers went past - apparently they dredge the river then take the rocks downstream for processing: possibly for gold extraction.
We both had a 'nana' nap before lunch.
After lunch we docked at our afternoon port of call - Myanaung.
A town of 30,000 people. The crew once more prepared the river bank for our safe departure, and we stopped to count the number of steps: only 30.
We were getting used to the departure procedure - take hat, water, voice box, hand in keys, get boarding pass,then take a deep breath and climb!
I adopted the method of being hands free, putting my arms out for the crew to hold, haul and steady, in the meantime I would look down to make sure that my feet were on firm ground. All the time saying 'Mingalabar (Burmese for G'day) and Jezubar (Burmese for Thank You).
A new day, so blue team had Thomas as the guide.
We set off on our walking tour of the town.
We walked a short way along the old levy bank which the British installed all of the way along the river during their time in Burma.
We then walked through a small park, which to be honest did not look as if it was used a lot by the community although it was quite well maintained.
We visited a small Catholic church, St Francis Xavier. This church had been built as an Anglican church and had fallen empty for a number of years, it was then taken over by the Catholic church where the one monk and two nuns now ran an orphanage and school for about 20 Catholic families.
It apparently costs just 5,000kyats ($5) to educate a child for one month: (we left a donation of 5,000kyats, but now as I type that it really doesn't seem much).
We walked on to the rest of the town, passing a Hindu temple.
We found it hard to guess when the buildings were actually built. Some which we thought to be old colonial buildings were in fact dated from 1960s or 1970s! The monsoonal weather must be responsible for the rapid aging.
We walked around a huge pagoda on our way back to the boat, but didn't go inside. Michael was pleased to spot an old vehicle in the street outside the pagoda - an old Blitz truck, when he was last in Burma that was the type of vehicle used as buses in Rangoon.
Then we were back on board - our walk taking just one hour, and we set sail.
We sat on a long table at dinner and enjoyed chatting to new friends until well after the documentary movie on Burma had started so we just headed back to the cabin.
Our mooring tonight was somewhere on a river bank near HtoneBo.
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