From here, we walked to another monastery where we made a donation, of I don’t know what. The plan was to take horse drawn carriages to a market nearby. My friend, Ayla, and I got into one of the carriages. The ride was pretty smooth, and I was surprised that the horses behaved so well, considering there were large vehicles moving right past them and honking.
The market was pretty good. I did not get to see all of it because we only had 30 minutes there. I did buy this cream called Thanakha. It is used to keep your face cool and protect it from the sun. A lot of people used it and said it worked pretty well. My only concern is that I’ll sweat it off. I bought a small container though, and it was not even a dollar! The cream comes from a tree’s bark. You take a small log of it and rub in on a table like thing with water, and the cream is formed. People said the real stuff was better than the packaged product, but that both still worked well.
Next, we hopped into rickshaws! They were two person bikes, where one person petals and the other is just a passenger. This took us to a coffee and tea house that many locals stop at. The tables were so low to the ground that even my knees were sticking up! I tried this drink which was water flavored with lychee for nutrients or energy, or something. It was too sweet for my liking though, so I just drank water. Ayla went off to a nearby shop on a motorcycle and surprised me with a paper mache elephant as a gift when she returned! It also just so happens to have Alpha Gamma Delta colors on it! It’s adorable and is named Peanut.
The last stop on the itinerary was to a local village. We walked through a lumber house which had a table saw that had an uncovered blade in a table of wood. The group walked past many houses in a narrow street that constantly had motorbikes driving through. We were not able to see inside any of the huts, but one of them was rather large and we stopped to look at wood carvings there. Of course they were selling them, so a couple people bought something. Ayla bought so much that the family gave her two carved beetles as a gift.
On the bus ride, the guide told us some things about life in Myanmar. Back in the late 90s a cell phone was 25,000 US dollars, because the country was so poor. A used car also cost 3-4 times the price of the new version in the states. Most of their cars are used from Japan. I do remember the guide in Singapore saying that they send their left over cars there too. The Myanmar guide said that schooling is terrible. To go to University, you have to have a lot of money. They are also built so far from the cities, making it hard for people to get there. This was done to keep students from protesting in the cities, because that is what students do. The cost and the distance make it very hard or nearly impossible for someone to go there.
By the time I got back to the ship I was exhausted. The weather was so hot that I sweat the whole time, and we were walking around in the heat. I came back and took a nap after I showered and ate. I slept for about three hours, and when I woke up I really thought that it was the next day and that I had missed my next trip. Lucky for me, it was not true.
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