Wine tasting above Inle Lake

We're now in Inle Lake, or at least on our way to there.  Apart from the requisite monastery and temple stop, we hit a cultural museum before doing wine tasting at the Red Mountain winery.  The wines weren't very mature and weren't great. There was one Late harvest white that was passable.  Still, it's an experience tasting wine in Myanmar.  The industry is only ten years old so maybe they'll get better.

The Aureum Palace Hotel in Bagan

This hotel totally deserves some screen time.  It's a complex and resort.  The Mandalay Hill Resort we stayed at in Mandalay felt like a cookie cutter resort, complete with buffet dinners and evening shows. It didn't even merit a post. But this hotel is much better. It's tastefully done, evoking the style of the local architecture. There's an infinity pool that looks out onto a small river and a set of pagodas.  There's a thirteen-story viewing tower that gives you great views of the area -- we saw hot air balloons take off from nearby at sunrise one morning.  The overall ambience is excellent and I highly recommend this place. You can see the hotel in the pictures.

Slice of life stops

Along the way today we made a few stops that got a glimpse of local life.  We first visited a betelnut farm. The leaves were winding about bamboo poles in a wooden greenhouse.  The locals chew the betelnut and it stains their teeth red. You can see the stains all over the ground where they spit out.  From the guide books, I expected it to be more prevalent, though.

We also visited a blanket factory -- just a small horse with a couple of rooms really. They do it all without machines using a wooden loom.  The blanket were big but not especially fine so I didn't get one.

The final such stop was a slipper factory -- really these were flipflops.  They used cow and oxen hide and rubber. I bought a velvety one for about five dollars. I bought the second largest size and had to pay extra for the larger size!

The market

We'd been to a few markets along the way but I never did talk about them.  Today's been a slower day and I have time on the boat, so markets get their due.

We went to a town near Bagan to visit the market.  It's pretty big, with stalls winding about like in a maze.  All sorts of fruits and vegetables are for sale -- tomatoes that would be heirloom back home, dragonfruit, okra, chilies, eggplant, etc. You can buy eggs, fish, and meat. Though nothing appears to be refrigerated. Best not to dwell on that when you consider the provenance of what you've been eating.... Rice of all sorts us available ad well as peanut and sesame oils.  Suffice to say, it's somewhat chaotic there.

Pagodas, Bagan style

We moved on to Bagan today. There definitely was a change in the type of pagodas here. These were from the 11th to 13th Century and were made of red brick.  There were still a multitude of them -- you look from a vantage point and you can see a dozen in all directions.

We climbed up to the top of one.  It was quite steep, although not as tall or steep as Angkor Wot or Chichen Itza.  I wasn't great with climbing it but I made it to the top.  There were some nice panoramic views from the top at least.

After lunch (Burmese curries and Mandalay beer) and some time resting up at the hotel, we took a horse carriage around the back dirt roads of the town, seeing more pagodas.  We finally saw sunset atop a pagoda, fortunately with easier steps to climb.

Wandering about Mandalay...

Very few pictures today. My phone's screen was being pressed in my pocket and reset itself. I reloaded everything in the evening but lost all pictures for the day.

We saw more pagodas, including one that is the world's largest book -- each of 1000+ umbrellas has a slab in it that represents one of Buddha's teachings.

The main part of the day was spent on a boat as we cruised up and down the river visiting ruins of old capitals as well as some active pagodas. I liked seeing a bit of local life. I played a point of badminton with some local kids. We saw an impromptu dance performance by kids on a sidewalk. I clambered inside an old twenty foot bell.  But a lot of what we did was just relax on the boat. The river was mostly quiet. A few fishermen and maybe a few birds but otherwise quiet.

We rode a horse carriage to some pagodas at Inwa. It was very bumpy.  We saw more insistent locals selling their goods but it wasn't quite as bad as some countries.

The last stop was to visit the world's largest teak bridge. It's nearly a mile in length crossing a lake for foot traffic.  There were no railings oven the eight foot wide bridge.  You'd never see that in the U.S.!

We're heading to the airport now for an early flight to Bagan. More pagodas there!

Some more Mandalay pictures

Before we head off on our riverboat cruise, let me upload a few pictures.. That's sunset from the Mandalay Hill pagoda and the ogress who became king.  There's a view from our hotel, too.