which I discovered I was sharing with one of the monks when I panned around. He was chanting softly - hard to pick up on the video.
An aside: Again with the duck!
I really want to respect the religion here, but it's making it tough to forget the national title game.
We started down into the valley after a nice breakfast on our platform, enjoying views of the Danu fields along the way. Turns out Cookie is Danu.
As we arrived at the valley floor, it quickly became obvious that the Danu are highly dependent on farm animals.
An aside, for golfers only...
it's not easy, but if you aim a bit left and open your grip to get a slight fade....
Our first destination was a Danu village, Hin ka Pin. The walk was very pleasant, with a flat road and perfect weather.
The intensity of the Danu agriculture was evident, even though not that many of their crops were in the fields (yes, that's cabbage, and they were huge).
Cookie knew a family in the village, and so we dropped in for a visit.
He had, I believe, attended this woman's wedding.
Dana coerced Cookie to join in a hokie pokie, which our hosts seemed to like.
Our final destination for the trek was a large town, Aung Ban, where a 5 day market was taking place. The abundance and variety of food was again impressive, with different types of bamboo shoots (the pink and the white)...
lotta dried fish...
and different kinds and sizes of eel (excuse the finger in the video)...
The hats were kind of cool...
and there were quite a few Pa'o people (in the black dresses).
There was a woman selling pine sticks, used for starting fires because of the heavy pitch content...
and one selling yellow sandalwood, used to make the thanakha powder worn on their faces by many Burmese people.
And three young novices collecting alms in a really big basket.
We said farewell to Cookie and rode off in our rather sleek, chauffeured sedan (odd transition) to Nyaungshwe, at the north end of Inle Lake. After checking in, learning that our hotel wifi was bad, and grabbing a lunch, we rented bikes and road out to a teak monastery...
which frankly is about the only thing of interest to do in Nyaungshwe, other than touring the lake, which we are to do on day 15.
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Videos up!
ReplyDeleteTeak monastery sounds cool. We're on our way to Wyoming to ski. No monasteries around here. Can't believe we can communicate so easily from so far away.
ReplyDelete