by Mike
Wandering around the dusty roads of Bagan, we took a turn toward the river and discovered a thriving little shoreline where women washed clothes, kids splashed and others bathed modestly. As we strolled past gardens that hugged the sandy bank, we met a little boat pulling to shore, letting passengers off. Three kids paddled people across the river to what must have been a small village on the other side (though, as you can see in some of the pictures, it doesn’t look like there’s anything there. I suspect the town was far back from the shore, out of the way of floodwater).
We waved the kids over and asked if they’d take us on a little tour down to the gold-covered pagoda that commands the river’s bend.
Read More
The kids were young. They appeared to be managed by another young man on shore. I don’t remember exactly how much they asked for the half-hour ride there and back, it was something like one dollar, but we decided to pay five. We immediately regretted it. On the one hand, spreading the wealth is good, but on the other we were encouraging them to be reliant on (and to rip off) tourists, which can ruin a culture in the long run.
When we handed the kids the money they didn’t really give a look of “Thanks!,” rather they seemed to look at the money and say, “How do we hide this from our manager so he doesn’t take a cut?”
You might remember that kids from Bagan were the ones who served us at a tea shop in Yangon when we were contemplating child labor. So I guess, when I put the two situations in perspective, I’d rather give money to the boat kids who can remain home (even if working with tourists) than to tea shops who have taken kids from their families to live and work in the big city because they have no apparent prospects.
Obviously the better solution would be that the government provide adequate education, but that’s not the case right now.
(Then again, if I wasn’t so obsessed with money then maybe it wouldn’t be a central part of this story. That, itself, is counter-productive, I think.)
People fished. Another boat appeared to be dredging the river, its pump making a tremendous noise that didn’t travel too far in the humid air, but was plenty loud close up.
Throughout the trip I worried about my ankles being exposed to mosquitoes in the bottom of the boat, so we lathered up in bug repellent. Myanmar hasn’t rid itself of malaria and dengue fever, so we were constantly conscious of risky situations. Though it’s easy to look back at the pictures and romanticize the trip, a lot of energy in third-world travel is spent on minimizing risk and paying attention to your body. Am I just a little dehydrated, or is this the start of an illness? Though I’m hungry, is this food safe? Can you catch anything from drinking river water? And so on…
Posted on July 6, 2010 at 12:16 am.
Bagan, Myanmar.
by Mike
What’s intriguing about this picture is the question, “Where is that plane going to and coming from?” If you look at a world map you’ll see there’s almost no other cities on that longitude, from pole to pole in that hemisphere. The only possibility I can see for a direct north-south flight might be Lhasa to Yangon. If it’s actually going at a more southwestly trajectory, then the origin might be Kathmandu or New Delhi with destinations like Yangon, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur or Singapore.
Posted on July 2, 2010 at 9:26 am.
by Mike
Early morning in the back streets is quiet. It smelled like smoke and fried foods – for breakfast I had a little doughnut thing that was cooked by a lady on the street with a small crowd around her. It was greasy-good.
Posted on June 25, 2010 at 8:33 am.
Is this photo-op worth a dollar?
by Mike
We took a horse-drawn cart to tour old temples in the arid Bagan surrounds. The driver took us to a little village – smaller than a village, even, maybe just a collection of homes – where we finally found a bite of something to eat. Rice, veggies, an egg. Pretty much all you can expect there.
Anyway, without asking, this young lady started to take us on a tour of her village. She showed us the loom, their cotton products and so on. At the end of it she asked us for some money and we refused out of principle: she hadn’t asked us if we wanted a tour, she just started towing us around. In retrospect I can’t believe we didn’t just give her a dollar or something, it would have been a lot for her, but it goes to show how money can warp your mind in a place like this. I think we sometimes treat beggars like they’re pets to be trained, and we forget that – hey – how about sharing something we have enough of?
Yeah, so I nailed this picture. Won’t it be ironic when I profit off of it?
Posted on April 30, 2010 at 10:26 pm.
Flower girl in old Bagan.
by Mike
Thought I’d do another little breakdown of the details. After the clicky clicky
Many of the people in Myanmar wore this face paint, which doubled as sunscreen. Some wore it in very exact patterns, some wore it messily (as this girl is), others would just put a line, and some people didn’t wear it at all. All the little kids wore it, but of the adults only the women wore it, for the most part. The people on TV didn’t wear it, and I wonder why that is. I’m sure there’s all sorts of codes and implications having to do with the design people make out of the stuff. I forget what it’s called. The paste is made by rubbing a piece of pigmented wood against a stone and adding some water to the powder. It’s hella charming.
As Azure said, “SHE doesn’t have to worry about GMO seeds!” In fact, in Thailand they found a field “contaminated” with GMO plants. That’s the word they use, contamination. Anyway, I like the touch of the girl having tied her flower stems together with a little palm frond or something.
Wrapped in some big leaf for easy carrying. Notice the plastic bag hanging from her finger? There was plastic everywhere, and at one point we watched a cow eat a plastic bag. It was quite a scene – A cow innocently eating, which elicited an alarmed response from us three big white people, which elicited a confused response (“why do they care so much about that cow?”) from the dozen kids who were following us around the village. Good times.
Posted on April 28, 2010 at 8:12 pm.
by Mike
I’m not one to toot my own horn*, (*that’s a lie) but this here’s an incredible photo of river life in Bagan, Myanmar.
In the details isolated below you can see what makes this place special. (click here)
There were a few kids splashing around just out of frame. This kid just made it into the picture, warped by the corner of the lens. I think, in the larger picture, you can see he’s checking out the lady on the rock, and she’s looking back.
Isn’t it beautiful how kids can turn anything into a toy? This little girl was playing with the bucket. I love how you can see her trail through the water.
There was a community that lived on the other side of the river and they took boats to get home. I WISH we had visited, but we didn’t. It appears that this guy is heading back home. There was a group of kids who ran a little ferry across the river (one of these same small canoes). Az and I paid them to take us up to the pagoda and back.
A lady washing in the river.
This girl is about to step into the river to bathe. I don’t know which they do first – bathe or launder their clothes. On the left you can see the clothes with a bucket and bar soap. I love that the pattern on her longhi (the sarong around her waist) matches the reflection in the water.
You would think this was a spectacular site right? Well, it is, but this is just one of 4,000 pagodas in this small area, and you kinda get used to it.
A little structure on the other side of the river, probably for waiting for the ferry or fishing or something. There are also two people on the shore to the left.
Posted on April 24, 2010 at 4:18 pm.
