Flight to Heho

While the rest of the group was off hot air ballooning this morning I got up early too and worked on my blog. While I regret the decision not to go with the rest of them I really needed this time so it worked out pretty well.

After they returned and had breakfast we transferred to the nearby airport. Airport security was a lot more "relaxed". Our stuff did get x-rayed but things were not near as stringent as at home. Sat in the waiting room for our aircraft to arrive.  We were transported by bus to the aircraft. We laughed because it was a rediculously short distance. The ATR commuter plane, a twin engine turboprop was actually pretty comfortable. Especially since the flight was not near capacity. The short flight to Heho was smooth and comfortable. After arrival we found our coach and finally our luggage was brought out and loaded on the coach.

We then traveled to Kalaw and our hotel, with a stop for lunch at a really interesting restaurant/nursery. I was particularly impressed with the scale of the nursery operation. Large areas of seedling and drip irrigation systems. Got a few nice shots of the ladies in the kitchen.

Next stop was an out of the way village where we got some great photo ops. Lots of kids, folks doing interesting things and of course some monks. Pretty soon it was very common for someone in the group to sound the "monk alert". You might feel sorry for them being chased by all these foreigners with cameras, but the young monks, are really just kids and they loved it. They liked hamming it up and Nathan always made a contribution to the monastery in our behalf, so we were not taking advantage of them and there was always a senior (adult) monk on site.

Soccer - Universal Sport

Our Gang!

Chopping Straw

I nicknamed him "dimples"

Gotta love the kids!

Bath time for Bessie

Continuing on to our hotel, Dream Mountain, we checked into our really nice  rooms. The grounds are really pretty and the restaurant was really nice.

Bagan Sightseeing

It's 5:00 AM and we are all on the bus headed out to another pagoda chosen for the sunrise shot. It is still dark as we arrive and we are not alone as evidenced by the zipping about of beams from flashlights (torches for you Brits) looking like a bunch of angry oversized lightning bugs (wonder if the British call them torchbugs?). At the base of the steep steps leading up the outside of the pagoda, it's off with the shoes again and the feel of the cool brick is rather soothing. But the steps are steep and it is a bit laborious making your way up carrying 25 lbs of camera gear on your back. Per Nathan's suggestion, we do not go to the top most level, where many are going, because the best photo will have something of the foreground in them. Going too high and all you get is the sunrise, which looks pretty much the same all over the world. Doubt that I would have thought of that.

We each stake out a place for our tripod and mount a long telephoto lens. Setting the focus to infinity gives a great starting point as it is still very dark and impossible to focus on manually or automatically on anything. Now it's just waiting for the sun to appear.

The sky starts to change from an almost black to much lighter rose and yellow as the sun begins to rise. Clouds start to form in the previously blank sky, adding character and then the hot air balloons make their appearance, slowly drifting from my left to right. I don't feel any breeze at all and their progression is pretty slow, but what a sight! This is really cool!

Finally it is completely daylight and we pack it up and get back on the bus, back to the hotel and breakfast! After breakfast, the adventure continues as we mount our individual rides, electric scooters, and head out looking for all the world like some anemic motorcycle gang. But listen to the beep of my horn! Maybe, horn is too strong a word for the sound coming out of this thing. Of course we look like a bunch of overgrown kids zipping around the parking lot trying out our new steeds. No helmets of course. Big brother hasn't got eyeballs here yet. But don't worry, I think these things max out at about 15 mph and you definitely cannot do a wheelie with them.

So we head on out, "looking for adventure", and some neat photo ops. Nathan in the lead and Ko Ko bringing up the rear to sheepdog any stragglers. A few of the gals opted to take a horse drawn cart instead and so their driver pretty much knows where we are going. It is good to get off the main road and onto a back road, though there is occasional loose sand which can be a bit tricky on the two wheel devices. We found some cool pagodas with few tourist and a really interesting photo op where some people were harvesting peanuts. A man plowing up the field behind a pair of brahmas and women hand picking the legumes after they have been uprooted.

There are these private pagodas everywhere and we stop at one that looks like it may make a good photo op. Of course, anywhere that tourists might appear, there are folks selling souvenirs.
These sites, built hundreds of years ago, still show the intricate detail and care that was taken in constructing them. Some of the interior work is just phenomenal.

We stop at a major religious site and have a refreshment and use the loo before going inside. As I am leaving the toilet, the lady custodian shouts that I need to pay. It is 200 Kyat (about 15 cents US). I don't have anything small than a 5000 K note and she does not have change for that. As I trying to figure out what to do the guy next to me (Burmese), hands her the money and motions to her that that is for me. A complete stranger, to whom 200 K is perhaps significant just did that for me. I thanked him and he gave me this big toothless smile.

Nathan leads us to a cool place that looks like a market but is actually a religious site (i.e. no shoes!). But is is a nice smooth floor. Pillars supporting the roof let light in in a regular pattern that looks like it would be great to photograph in. He has done this before with some young monks as subjects, but there is not a monk anywhere in sight! So he gets some poor watermelon vendor to act as our model, while Ko Ko arranges for some novice monks to come.

Finally we return to the hotel for lunch and some free time before heading out (on the coach), for our sunset shot location. As you can see these shooting locations are very popular with the tourists and can get quite crowded. I manage to squeeze in next to a gal from Ireland who is nice enough to move her tripod over a bit to let me in.

Pakokku and Bagan

Last night, we realized there was a group of perhaps 300 high school age students in the resort with us. Hard to miss them! Strangely, most spoke very good English, and like students of that age in the US were complaining about having to walk so much. It was hard to believe the were from Myanmar. Wish I could have gotten more specifics of who they were. In any case we were told that breakfast would start at 6:30. As Luck would have it I went over early, 6:00, and the staff was already setting things up. Thank Buddha! Because here they came. The horde descended upon us all at once and the folks in my group who had waited for 6:30 had a hell of a time getting into the buffet line. Even worse, these kids were on a field trip and guess where they were going this morning. The Phowintaung Caves, with it's myriad Buddha statues. The exact same place we were headed!

My suggestion that we slash the tires on their buses was rejected!? So plan B, Ko Ko discovered there was another set of similar cave about the same distance. As it turned out this was great because we had this set of caves all to our selves. No other tourists at all! Must have been good karma! So, off came the shoes and socks and ooch, oww, jikes these little rocks are biting my tender tootsies. But once inside the caves the floor was relatively smooth and the sites were really worth it.

Leaving the caves, we were on our way to get on the boats that would take us down the Ayarwaddy to Bagan, when we had to stop and get a few pics of this woman herding her goats down the road.

Finally arriving at the river's edge we grabbed our camera gear and headed down to the boats while our main luggage was hauled down by women on their heads. It was unbelievable to see this young women carrying my 50 pound suitcase on her head down the slippery slope to the boat. I paid her twice the going rate (1000 Kyat) and thanked her profusely.

We were running a bit late so instead of checking into the hotel first we went directly to the spot Nathan had chosen for the sunset shot of Bagan. There are over 2000 temples and pagodas scattered about the general area. At one point in time there were over 10,000. Ko Ko informed us these were built as private worship sites by local residents, whose wooden homes have long since disappeared. But the temples being of brick have lasted the centuries, though many have also been destroyed over the years by earthquakes. They are a bit like the towers in Italy. The richer the family, the bigger pagoda or temple they built. Each is still considered a holy place and again we get to dance about bared footed before entering or ascending one of them.

Gratefully the steps leading back to ground level were lit, because after taking the shots and packing up it was really dark going back to the coach. Hand iPhone Torch to the rescue. Finally we checked into our Famous Hotel. Honest, that its name.

Monywa

Immediately after breakfast we load the coach and are off to Monywa and sites with thousands of Buddhas and some really gigantic ones.

Along the way we stop at various locations offering interesting photo ops. The riverside is alway teeming with activity. Well, almost always! It appears that the place where we could see lines of women carrying loads of gravel on their head and loading it onto barges is empty. The ladies being replaced by mechanized conveyor belts. Technology puts some more folks out of work. But, still there are some interesting shots to be had.

Several times we stopped to photograph carts drawn by brahmas down the road while we play "frogger" with the highway traffic. Photography can be hazardous to your health, but sometimes well worth the effort. We also have to be careful not to scare the poor animals into the roadway.

Stopping for coffee and a nature break we found a nearby market with some great photo ops too.
                           

After lunch we continued on to our hotel, the Win (notice only one "n") Unity, which was a very nice resort. Since our "superior bungalows" were a fair distance from reception our luggage was delivered and we were given a ride to our rooms.  No rest for the wicked, so we grabbed our gear got back on the bus and headed out to a couple of special locations with our "rent a monks" for some more photography. The first location was an old wooden temple, which almost looked abandoned. The carving of the walls and windows was very intricate and interesting, which greatly added to the ambiance of the shoot. Here are a few examples.   

Then we took our young friends to another location where there were literally hundreds of buddha statues, all identical and arranged in perfect order, like headstones in a military cemetery.

We all piled into th coach once more for our final location, Bodhi Tataung, where there is a standing Buddha 424 feet tall. The dark specks you on the statue in the picture are windows. You can climb up inside it to the top. We did not do that! remember once you enter the religious area of a temple, which may include the surrounding grounds, it's no shoes, no socks. Also notice the huge reclining Buddha. It is 333 feet long.

Fun Shot

Notice the monk

Finally! a reward for a long hot day

Mandalay Day Two

Early morning departure, 5:45 AM, no breakfast for you! We are off to see if we can get some cool pics of the iconic U Bein Bridge at sunrise. This is the world's longest teakwood bridge, about 4000 feet or .75 miles, and spans narrow section of Taung Tha Man Lake. Being a foot bridge it is used by people rather than vehicles and at sunrise and sunset can make an interesting silhouette depending on who is traversing it at the time. Only problem this morning is that it is a bit hazy and we are hoping it will work out.

Arriving at lakeside we get into small wooden boats rowed by locals who are familiar with getting photographers in good positions on the lake to get good shots of the bridge. Now if only someone interesting will walk across, a monk or a woman carrying a load on her head or someone with a bike! Traffic is light at this hour, a few folks go by.

U Bein Bridge

But then while we are waiting some fishermen appear casting their nets from a boat and so we maneuver into position to photograph them.

 This is really cool! We have to take many pictures because we are moving, the fishermen are moving about in their boat and we want to get the best composition with the sun which is also moving, rising.

Then turning our attention back to the bridge, it is starting to get pretty light and we have to keep changing camera settings to get the nice silhouette that we are looking for. This photography stuff can be a lot of work!


Back on shore, Nathan unloads the boxed breakfast the hotel prepared. Very interesting! No fish soup with noodles but two types of bananas, the normal kind we are used to and then a short fat one that has a slightly different texture, a hard boiled egg, white bread and butter and what appears to be a hot dog. I skip the bread, eat the bananas and egg and wash that down with some instant coffee that was surprisingly good. The hot dog goes to the dogs, two of which were patiently sitting waiting.

Boarding the motor coach we are off to Ava, once the Burmese capital, where there are some interesting temples and great photo ops. Arriving at the river's edge we board a boat to cross where we transfer to horse carts for the trip to Ava. Two passengers per cart. I jumped into seat next to the driver so I could shoot while we moved along. The area is pretty over grown in places with ancient temples peeking through, which make them all the more intriguing. Life goes on along the roadside, we see typical open Thai style houses, livestock, kids playing, men fixing their vehicles, women cooking breakfast on open fires. One funny incident occurred when Nathan stopped the caravan because he saw a great shot of a baby sitting in this very open house. So we all jump out of our carts, rush over with cameras at the ready only to find out it was a friggin' doll propped up!

Arriving at the first temple, we see this beautiful setting with pagodas off in the distance. But before we can enter the temple itself, it's off with the shoes and socks. This tenderfoot was glad to move from the stone entrance onto the smooth teak planks. We meet the monks, who Nathan has arranged to "pose" for us. There are four, an adult and three young boys, presumably his students. We get several good pictures, in different locations within the temple, but my favorite is the one where one of the boys is taking the senior monk's picture with an iPhone. Apple should use this in their commercials!

On our way to another site we passed a goatherd.

Then we did a "model shoot" within the foundation of a beautiful old temple shown in the next photo.

Our next stop was one of my favorites, it is a school for nuns and monks. Both have shaved heads so the main way to tell the difference is the color of the robe, pink for the nuns and dark red for the monks. This is in reality a way for the sons and daughters of poor families and for orphans to obtain an education they would not otherwise have access to. And while I am sure it is a serious endeavor, they are still very much children and you can see in the photos.

Lunch line

Helping younger ones

And girls will be girls!

Boys will be boys!

Back in Class

Our last stop was a large market in town. The amount of commerce going on and the variety of goods available was a bit overwhelming. Here are just a few examples.

Lady separating debris from onions

Basket Vendor

This young lady was selling something that looked interesting and agreed to let me take her picture. Then she offered me some of it, which I tried and found to be good but REALLY sweet. Later I found out from our Cathy, who is from China that it is winter melon preserved with palm sugar. Any way you can see from these pictures that once I start to engage the lady in conversation, even though we don't speak each other's language her demeanor changes drastically.

After she agreed I could take the picture

After I tried a sample

After joking a bit

I wanted to pay her for what she had given me and asked how much. She handed me a small bag of the fruit and said $2. I pulled 2000 Kyat from my wallet, but she refused to take any money. She was as sweet as the fruit she was selling. A great experience, hopefully for both of us.