The weather has really suprised me. In the morning, it is cold. I had to put jacket on when I went to breakfast. It gets warmer throughout the day and by mid-afternoon the temperature rises into the high 80’s. I cannot imagine what it is like during the summer.
Although it is cool in the morning, it is hardly cold yet the natives are all wearing coats, sweaters and hats. They are dressed as if it is winter and I am in shorts.
The moring tour started out with archeoligical sites nceint Thiri-ya-kittiya, arheologiical site that is the former capital of Pyu civilization which existed from the fifth to eighth century. The tour guide told explained something that I had been wondering for years – the difference betweent a pagoda and a stupa. A Stupa is solid – like a potatoe, it is solid and you cannot go in it, a temple is hollow and a pagoda is like a dumpling – it has many things including stupas and temples.
Along the way we learned how they made palm sugar.
When we returned to the ship we sailed and as I watch the world go by, I realized that Myanmar was not what I epected. I thought it would be lush with vegetation, the river banks were sandy. I thought it would be humid. it was nothing compared to bangkok.
That night the tour group was taken around on horse and buggies. As I had seen before, the majority of people lived in bamboo huts. There were carts powered by oxen. There was some electricity but there were no TV’s, Internet or Xbox. I realized that the kids running out of their houses to wave thought we were a parade.
I wonder if it’s like that with no electricity near the river banks or if it’s like that in most of Mayanmar. I’ve always thought that Mayanmar would be mostly like a city with electricity, but really poor.