Myanmar (Burma)

It has been 12 days since our last blog.  Some people have asked if we dropped off the earth.  Perhaps!  We apologize for the silence.  During this time we took a 10 day cruise down the Irrawaddy and had no WiFi access.  This was particularly annoying because I hadn't checked our checking account prior to boarding the cruise and had no idea if we had enough money in it to cover autopay payments.

Our stay in Burma began with a tour of the city of Mandalay, initially on our own and then with the cruise company's assistance.  On our own we visited the old royal palace, a center piece of the city.  We ate Indian food at a vegetarian restaurant and saw a marionette show (a popular form of entertainment here) at our hotel.  Burma opened to tourism just four years ago.  It's lower-priced hotels (still quite expensive by SE Asian standards) are often not in the cleanest or best neighborhoods.  Ours was no exception.  However, the hotel rooms and staff were very nice and we had no fear walking around the neighborhood.

Kathy got sick just as the cruise tour of Mandalay began, so she missed it.  But Roger saw the pagoda (a Buddhist complex of solid shaped structures called stupas (picture a huge Hershey kiss) and temples which usually have Buddha statues inside) atop Mandalay Hill, a marble carving district, a wood carving area, and the oldest teak monastery in Mandalay.  He then boarded the ship for the start of our downstream voyage.  Kathy joined him there for lunch.  In the afternoon, Roger had an excursion to Amarapura, where he took a sanpan on the lake to watch the sunset over the longest teak bridge in the world.  It is about 3/4 mile long. That evening, Roger saw a beautiful Burmese dancing performance by students from the cultural university.

Our ship, the Irrawaddy Explorer, was brand new.  It's first sailing was in September.  It had 27 spacious cabins with a window wall out to the river and the best king size bed and pillows we have experienced so far on our travels.  We were served beautful breakfast and lunch buffets and a sit-down dinner each day.  And we normally had morning and afternoon on shore excursions.  More detail on our next blog.