I swear, it's not a skirt

We decided to brave the tourist crowds to visit Mandalay's #1 tourist attraction, the ancient city of Mingun, site of a huge half-finished brick paya. It was constructed in the 1800's, but damaged in an earthquake in 1975, so now it's possibly the world's largest pile of bricks.

When my alarm went off at 6:30 I felt sick and tired and wouldn't have gotten up if Marie wasn't coming. Marie talked me into wearing my skirt, er, longyi, and the guys at the hotel showed me how to tie it. Then we took a trishaw to the tourist jetty (round-trip $1), bought a ferry ticket ($1), and a ticket to Mingun ($3). Today is an expensive day.

Mingun is tourist central, and as soon as you get off the boat people start trying to sell you tee shirts, parasols, hats, and beer. It's annoying and telling them "no" is a waste of time. The only thing that works is avoiding eye-contact and walking away.

Supposedly the $3 entry fee pays for "restoration," which seems to consist of white-washing the huge doorways. This is a shame, since it looks really tacky. It turned out that after 12:00, the guy taking tickets left, so if you wait until then, you can avoid paying the $3 to the military government. We took off our shoes and climbed the scalding-hot steps to the top. Some friendly Burmese up there offered to take our picture. Then they wouldn't go away, and tried to lead us around, help us climb over piles of bricks, said "slowly, slowly," and brought leaves for us to stand on. It was pretty obvious that they would expect a donation for the "services," so we went away from where they were directing us and ignored them. Eventually they went away. This, and my continuing stomach problems, made the day less enjoyable than it should have been.

River life

Back in Mandaylay we went to the crowded, dirty, smelly, fly-infested market to buy provisions for our respective trips tomorrow (Marie is going to Bagan). I needed blankets for sleeping on the deck of the boat for two nights, but there seemed to be a conspiracy, and all of the blanket sellers were playing hard ball, not reducing their prices much. I ended up paying $2 for two blankets. Then we bought fruit and mysterious snacks (remember: if it looks like chocolate, it's not, and will squirt grease all over you when you bite into it). Then ice cream at the Nylon Ice Cream Bar, then some Mandalay Beer. We also tried smoking the cheroot cigars wrapped in dried leaves everyone smokes here. Not our cups of tea. Then off to bed. I have to get up at 4:30 tomorrow.