I was somewhat disappointed that the prospective novices were in a jeep, rather than on horseback or oxen.
We then drove a bit to reach another river, Lay Myo, where we boarded a boat and headed upstream, only to have the engine conk out almost immediately, forcing us to change to another boat.
The trip was relatively short (2+hours), and the time passed quickly because there was a lot more activity (possibly because it was a fresh water river).
The main activity seemed to be river rock mining...
in some cases with a scuba mask...
but there also was fishing...
sand mining (by Bengalis here)
cattle tending
boat repair...
bamboo log raft piloting...
and floodland summer farming.
There seemed to be quite a few Muslims, likely from Bangladesh.
Mr. MG had some bigoted things to say about them, not an unusual mindset for this area.
The Chin villages, which we visited in the company of other tourist boat groups, we're not that remarkable, other than for the presence of several tattooed women in one of them (note the stretched earlobe on the First Lady.
We visited a school, where Mr. MG did a flute thing to a greeting he'd taught the kids...
and D did a very well-received hokey-pokey.
We saw a woman weaving...
some guys playing what looked like a Parcheesi-type game using cowry shells...
grandmas sitting around with the kids who had just finished their exams...
and an urn storing cremation ashes for transport to ancestral land.
However, I felt that the whole experience had a contrived feeling.
We were pretty wiped out when we got back, but did stop for some pics of the palace ruins - quite ruined, by the Burmese, during an 1875 conquest.
and happened upon another novitation procession, this one with horses.
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