Our third tour in Myanmar was our favourite. It was a three and a half hour tour that was the perfect amount of time. We drove to Thanlyin that should have taken about 30 minutes but with all the road work construction taking place it was probably an hour.
Just talking about the roadwork for a minute, the thing we have noticed in Myanmar is the amount of new infrastructure taking place around Yangon. The port where we docked has four brand new container unloading facilities that have not yet been opened. Not far from the port is an area set aside as industrial. It is many, many hectares and companies like Ryobi have set up distribution centres. The road construction is everywhere but it is a slow process without the machinery to build roads that we see in Australia. Everything is done by hand, even the pouring of bitumen. Concreting is laborious with the framework built, once again by hand, before the cement is poured. No such thing as mass produced concrete slabs.
The minimum rate of pay for workers in Myanmar is $3US per day so it is probably cheaper to employ locals to do the jobs than to bring in expensive heavy machinery. Philip and I have both commented that we would like to come back in about ten years to see the progress. Oh, by the way, there are no fast food outlets anywhere in Myanmar. I guess that will also change....
Back to the tour. Once we arrived in Thanlyin we walked through the fruit and vegetable market that was packed with both tourists and locals. I loved this walk. There was such a variety of vegetables, and many that I could not name.
After the market we stopped at a local school where I guide asked the teacher to bring the kids out to the verandah so we could all practice the Burmese greeting “Minglabar”. We were greeted with “Hello’s” and “Hi’s” from the children who wanted to practice their english on us! By the way, one of the guides suggested to us the best way to remember the greeting is “Mingle In The Bar” - Minglabar....
Once we had walked through the markets we took a horse cart ride to the Bon Pyan Teak Monastery. The young monks gave us a demonstration of how to wear their robes in different ways. It is really very complicated they way they twist the robes to cover different parts of their bodies. We wandered around inside the stark teak monastery where meals are eaten, lessons are learnt and meditation takes place.
After the monastery we were taken on a trishaw bike ride to visit Thanlyin Village that seemed to us a much more affluent part of Myanmar. The guide informed us that to purchase a home in Myanmar is well over $1million US. As you can imagine not many own their own home. It is much cheaper to rent. On our ride we passed a group of female “monks” in their pink robes. It is sometimes hard to distinguish male from female with their shaved heads.
And so we say goodbye to Myanmar with hopes of one day returning to this country of beautiful smiling people.
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