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Sailing on the river
The wind blew in the opposite direction of the current, making sails pretty useful for the locals and great for the camera toting tourists. To get from Mandalay to Bagan you can choose between a 7 hour bus ride or 9 hour ferry. Pretty simple choice given the quality of buses and roads in this part of the world.
The hotel staff didn't wake me me up at 3:15 as promised so I woke them up. After a hasty breakfast served by a bleary-eyed but surprisingly cheerful cook, I arrived at the ferry terminal at 4:30am for the 5 o-clock ferry.
Initially I had a bit of trouble purchasing my ticket because all I had was a USD20 bill which had a minute tear in it, and which all government agencies and government owned companies (such as the ferr company) were required to refuse. Eventually I paid USD10 and made up the other $6 in kyat at an exchange rate of 1500. Rather ironic given the government mandated "official" rate of 550 and the black market rate of 1300. Even the government understands money!
I was delighted to be assigned the best seat on the ferry - the forward starboard seat with the most leg room! As I waited for the other 199 seats to fill I wandered up to the dining
deck to have a look at the slow boat. This one takes about 16 hours, has bugger all seating, and costs peanuts. Foreigners are discouraged from travelling on it. The locals were spread out all over the deck in family groups with their picnic baskets and the inevitable stainless steel lunchboxes that seem to be
de rigeur for all locals out of the house during meal times.
A few waves and photos later I used the head (cleanest toilet I've ever seen on a ferry) and returned to my seat to meet the other passengers.
By the time we set sail, three other backpackers - Canadian, Japanese, and American - had found their seats and the four of us had the run of the boat for the next nine hours. With 50 seats apiece we quickly resumed our horizontal positions that had been disturbed at 3:15 and snored peacefully down the Irrawaddy.
We were all up for lunch and sat in the dining room playing cards while five of the crew watched a Jackie Chan movie in Mandarin. I recognised it as the same movie that was playing when I boarded and we were to be treated
to two more repeats before arriving at Bagan. When I asked for their movie selection they laughed and pointed to the Jackie Chan DVD. Although, they did have a karaoke DVD which they played sometimes between repeats.
I taught the others how to play shithead and asshole (two popular travellers' card games) and promptly lost, awarding me the honour of eating four large dry biscuits in less than sixty seconds.
When we finally arrived at the dock at Bagan, we found about ten taxis (motorised and horse drawn) waiting to take the four of us to Nyaung U, the cheapest area to sleep. For USD3 we got a room each with ensuite, aircon, and breakfast, then headed out for dinner. My dinner was $3.50.
Sleeping with aircon was a treat. It was still 33 degrees when the sun went down.
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