Myanmar Madness

Myanmar Madness
We land in hot and steamy Yangon (Rangoon) after a 4 hour flight from Taiwan. We are feeling a little tired after the 4 am wake-up at our Taipei hotel, so the splendid Governor's Residence Hotel with its shaded grounds and immense pool is a soothing delight. Sadly, our scavenges will immediately send us off in all directions. We start with a taxi ride into the local market to arrange in-country travel. So many choices: Mandalay, and/or Bagan/and/or Inle Lake, but no flying allowed between them. Ground or river transport is possible, but glacially slow (e.g., 18 hours by train) so quite the challenge. An equal challenge is that while US dollars are widely used, the bills must be absolutely pristine. Microscopically torn or dog-eared bills are firmly refused, as are any bills that have simply been folded! We soon discover that our fund of US money is about half the size we thought. Oh, credit cards not usable, and ATM's don't exist here. We later hear that almost all teams ran out of money on this leg. One additional challenge: we arrive during the New Year's holiday, so many many places are closed for the week that we are here. Imagine trying to get a last minute flight across Canada on Boxing Day, or use a bank, store or post office on New Year's Day. But the massive Shwedagon Pagoda is open, so we walk around it at sunset, watching its jewel encrusted spire sparkle red and  green. We return to our hotel to discover a happy group of teams in the bar. Joining them we get far better aquainted over beer and dinner. This looks to be one of the most convivial groups we have had on these scavenges: I suspect that we will sample many more local beers with this bunch.
So, having learned all that, we head off at 4 am to Mandalay vis KGZ air ("flying you beyond expectations"). We worry this means that we will land somewhere other than Mandalay, but 90 minutes later we arrive in the new but austere Mandalay airport. We find a taxi to take us to to the iconic U Bein bridge in Amarapura and walk across it. Then, a stop via ferry at Inwe, a former capital of Burma, but now a rural village where transport is by horse cart (at least for the tourists - a few motorcycles and satellite dishes are visible around the grass mat huts. We are dogged by a few small children peddling trinkets, and figure that subsequent tourists will encounter larger crowds of hawkers as tourism increases here. One more pagoda stop in Sagaing, then on to Mandalay and our hotel. A quick check-in, then we are off to find Mandalay Hill, a pointing Buddha, the world's largest book, and a monastery covered in fabulously carved wood panels. It's now sunset, and our energy is flagging despite the boost we got from chewing betel nut. Fortunately, the red stains on our teeth have faded so our hotel doorman doesn't laugh at us as he escorts us directly to the bar. The waiter brings Tiger beer, and keeps refilling our glasses the instant they empty, so we soon feel much better. Shower and dinner and bed beckon, after only 8 hours of sleep all told in the previous 2 days.
At 4 am, after 5 hours sleep, we are wide awake. Our bodies are clearly still in another time zone. Breakfast sitting down!  Taxi through the bustling streets of Mandalay crowded with vehicles of every type: trishaws, mopeds, motorcycles, carts, hoodless trucks spewing exhaust fumes, and all blaring their horns as they go. The sidewalks are lined with food vendors and tiny shops selling everything one can imagine. We go in search of pancakes, then reach the ferry "terminal" on the bank of the Irrawaddy River.  There is no pier, just boats rafted together or pulled up against the bank, with access via gangplank (usually a rail-less 2x6 plank balanced unsteadily on the gunwale. We head upriver to Mingun to climb a giant pile of bricks - the remains of a massive stupa built by a megalomaniac king. Rephrase that: hot bricks in the hot sun, barefoot. Nearby, a massive bell (world's largest uncracked bell) is our second scavenge, then we repeat our river cruise, downstream this time, to Mandalay. Our flight to Yangon is in 2 hours, so after only a brief stop to find some  "to-moh", we "taxi" in the back of an open pickup truck to the terminal. It's dark as we arrive in Yangon, and apart from the odd pagoda, most sites are closed, so we find a hotel. Kit cleverly found and booked it online, so that it could be prepaid with a credit card, thus preserving our precious and rapidly dwindling cash supply.
Our final day here, and we decide to deal with numerous Yangon-area scavenges. We've arranged to visit a boy's school (orphanage) so swing by the local market first to buy footballs, pricing out some rubies, sapphires and jade at a nearby jewelers (for us, of course, or not). We arrive at the school to hear the loud sounds of an unmistakable Kiwi accent leading  about 40 small boys in a rendition of Mary Had a Little Lamb. It's Shane, carrying on like Robin Williams on speed, and the boys are loving every minute of it, and him.  We and a couple of other teams help Shane out with more songs and play Statues (the boys are very, very good at this) and then go out into the blazing sun and humidity for a rousing hour of football. Everyone has a great time, but we're all relieved (and soaked with perspiration) when the teachers say it's time the boys went back to class.
A few hours left before this Myanmar leg is shut down, so we cruise around town, find a couple more pagodas, check out the Buddha's hair, ride the circular train as it crawls through the city, sample samosas and biryani, and check out the fresh meat market. A very much-needed pause at the Sakura Tower for both the air conditioning and the view, but mainly the beer. Heading towards our hotel (the colonial Strand) we finish by taking the Dallah Ferry across the river. It is rush hour, and the ferry is packed with passengers headed home to dinner.  One fellow cradles a live chicken in his arms like a beloved pet, but we suspect that its hours are numbered. Merchants from the market carry vast bundles of unsold goods, small boys try to peddle food and drink, and all manner of boats, from punts to longboats to freighters negotiate the river. We perch on child-sized plastic chairs on the deck and watch the commotion as twilight descends. This is a fascinating country, on the very brink of massive change, though the locals we encountered have been on the brink of change before, and have seen it change for the worse. But still, they smile at strangers, perhaps unable to anticipate what may come if the doors to the outside world open fully.
Back to the hotel for shower, laundry & beer (not in that order) before the check-in time for this leg. Our bus will leave at 7am for the airport and a flight to ..........
Bangkok