Irrawaddy River and Pagan

The next morning, I caught a converted rice barge down the Irrawaddy river to Pagan. The trip was supposed to

take 10 hours, but in the end, took 22! The dry season dramatically reduces the size of the river and in February,

it is at its lowest point during the year. (Later in the day, we were passed by a boat carrying 50 French tourists,

who refused to wave and sat back haughtilly lounging on teak deck chairs. Three hours later, we passed them, as they had

rammed a sandbar and were stuck, forlornly, as a chorus of 'merdes' could be heard across the water...) We also got stuck,

even though the boat was built to stand up to the low water level and for two hours on full throttle backwards the boat finally

got free.... It was an interesting ride. The top deck was divided down the middle, Burmese on noe side, all foreigners on the other. Plastic chairs

were scarce and luckily as Id gotten there early, I got one. Wire mesh was strung across the deck and for 22 hours we were stared at and laughed

at by babies and young children as their parents looked on in wonder. (It was quite a contrast as foreigners soon plugged into walkmans and gameboys and

even laptop computers to pass the time while Burmese sang songs, played cards and just stared off into the distance to make the time pass)We spread

out our bags on the ground and quickly the boat filled up with people, and it was only 4 am. by 5 we had left Mandalay and within 15 minutes, we were in the middle of rice fields, mountains, and yellow earth,

exposed by the retreating water level. About noon, we stopped at a market, not unlike the Amazon or the Congo, where oxcarts unloaded rice bags and took off cans of gasoline and cooking oil to

the village, we made quite an impression on the locals who could barely contain their interest in the blonds foreign women on board....

soon after the market we got stuck, one of three times we got stuck on that voyage. several military boats passed us on the way up and they were

bristling with guns. The day passed VERY slowly, and I chatted with some German students, some italian teachers, and even some Swedes. We shared books too, to pass the time.

Eventually, the sunset across the water and it was spectacular.... the air turned very chilly in 15 minutes and we were blasted by wind all the way to Pagan... eventually

at 2 am, we arrived at Pagan, and trudged up the hill, exhausted, choking on dust from heavy footfalls. I found a guesthouse and checked in,

falling asleep quickly. The draw of pagan is Pagodas, it is Burma's Angkor Wat. Thousands of temples are scattered across the dry dusty

plains and are deserted. You can hire a bicycle and ride around the pagodas, leaving your bike propped up against a 1,000 year old wall while you walk around the

empty rooms, full or offerings (Some still burning) and bats. The larger pagodas have stalls selling Burmese Days in English and laquerware, tshirts with the long

necked women and, of course, Titanic posters (what every traveller comes to Burma for. It was painted in Burmese across a huge square in Rangoon and they were showing it in several

theaters across the country) for three days I rented a bicycle and rode around thecountryside, inspecting gold leafed ceilings, as local Burmese ingored the foreigners and

worshipped. The food in Pagan was wonderful and restaurants are scattered across the cliffs overlooking the Irrawaddy, where you can sip beer and

talk with locals (who for once were friendly and open about how bad the government was) I met a tour guide who was a student in Rangoon University during the riots and using his French skills

now showed French and Japanese tourists around his country; also, on one pagoda, a man when he was out of earshot, asked for jeans, t shirts, anything I had to sell; he had contacts in

Rangoon who would pay top dollar for anything western. Overall, I found Pagan to be the easiest place to meet locals, it was the space that made it this way; on a day tour to Mt Popa, one of the spirit shrines in Burma, the guide talked openly about her

support for Suu Kyi and said how her friends had been jailed, or even imprisonned. set, and we were still