Burmese girl

Today we wanted to go to the famous balancing boulder stupa at Kyaiktiyo. After asking a ton of ticket sellers prices, taking a local bus to the bus station, and some last minute bargaining, we got tickets for $1.50 each for the five hour trip. It wasn't luxury, but besides all the vomiting Burmese, it wasn't so bad. The bus was full and people sat and stood in the aisle, but the road wasn't too bumpy. There was some road construction on the way. This is done by people (a large portion who are women and children) laying stones by hand to cover the road, then a steamroller compresses them. Finally cans of tar are heated over fires, which people pour over the rocks. Very primitive. It's also a different world how people live. Farmers drive carts pulled by oxen and loaded with hay. Longtail boats loaded with people ply the rivers. The road is lined with bamboo shacks on stilts with thatched roofs. And there are golden paya everywhere. Many seem to raise funds with a guy chanting in a loudspeaker and women holding bowls to receive donations.

We arrived at our destination, and were immediately met by a couple touts and "hello banana" kids we did our best to ignore. We were annoyed to arrived in a touristy place after the bus ride. The town (actually a "base camp") is very primitive and consists of a dirt track complete with wandering pigs, dogs, and chickens, and lined with stalls selling scary looking snacks, and empty restaurants with dirt floors and no walls with pots of cold food covered with flies. After extensive haggling, Marie was able to secure a nice room for $3 each, then we went to look for food. There aren't that many tourists around. The place seems to cater mostly to Burmese making the pilgrimage to the paya. But the locals are well on their way to learning how to exploit foreigners. All five of them were at the tourist restaurant, so we picked one of the Burmese places at random. Turns out they had an English menu, and they made our vegetable fried rice fresh. Then off to another teashop.