Embark at Pyay (Prome)

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Geo: 18.8099, 95.217

Got in to Pyay around mid-day and boarded the Cruiseco Explorer. There are 29 passengers and the ship has a capacity of 56 - I guess this will not be a very profitable cruise for the company. Our cabin is on the main (lower) deck and it is very spacious and comfortable, with a large juliette balcony. With a little more design effort it would be excellent, but we'll be fine here for a week. Complimentary coffee, draught beer and soft drinks all day, plus quality wines with lunch and dinner. There's a total of 36 staff and crew.

After lunch on board we had a quick look around Pyay. Saw a 1,500 year-old brick stupa and visited a UNESCO archaeological site where an ancient Pyu city (Sri Ksetra) is starting to be excavated.

Schooling is compulsory in Myanmar and all children learn English. But it is only grammatical English from books: few of the teachers can speak English themselves. The people seem warm and hospitable. If you show some interest in what they are doing they are just as likely to invite you in and offer you a drink. Apparently it is an honour for them if you accept.

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Photos

Road stop
Typical village scene along the road to Pyay. Our coach drove faster than nearly all of the other traffic, sometimes up to 100kph.

Morning tea stop
Our guide admonished me when I bought a pork bun and put chilli sauce on it. She stopped me eating it, saying the sauce would make me sick, and got me another. I'm not sure if she thought it would be too hot, or if the hygiene of the sauce making was dodgy.
The face makeup is ground bark of the Thanakha tree that the Burmese use universally as sun protection and as a face cream.

RV Cruiseco Explorer at Pyay
Only five months old, the boat has 28 cabins and is 58m long with a shallow draught of 1.1m. It has a mini gym, a spa run by two ladies for massage and facials, bar, lounge, dining room, etc. The port facilities are somewhat lacking!

Introductions and safety brief
In the lounge.

Cabin 204
Very spacious and the French balcony is perfect. It has an insect screen door too. 26sqm, more or less 5m x 5m.

Cabin 204
The entrance, bathroom and clothes cupboard are around the corner. A pity they didn't provide more clothes drawers - it would be easy to add drawers under the suitcase stand, for example.

Functional, but snug bathroom
The hot water comes and goes but luckily the cold water is not too cold.

Sri Ksetra Museum
Various artefacts are being unearthed, some dating to 200BC.

Comments

[Morag]

Ow how simply delightful, me that just adores the olde worlde, and wouldnt worry me that it didnt reach capacity booking, prefer smaller. And quick glance thru earlier, the cabin is just gorgeous.

[Morag]

Accept comments, sometimes the obvious to us, isnt to others, but then we live with it, particularly as the surrounds are so my cuppa tea.

[Morag]

Am such a sponge, absorbing all that is around and trying to believe what you see is as ancient as it is and digest the culture and lives of that moment and space in time in which you are standing.

[Eric]

Cabin looks luxurious . On the road to Mandalay did you see any flying fishes play, or the dawn getting getting up like thunder out of China cross the bay.

[robselclark]

Those cheeky flying fish!