Myanmar Day 3 - Dala, the village across the river

Finally we arrived at the river port. Busy and hot. Good thing is the ferry cross the river every 30 minutes.  Ticket is different between foreigner and local. We had to pay US$ 1 per person.

Being the only obvious tourist group is both fun and annoying :p. First is the rickshaw drivers and beggars. They flocked and followed us all the time. We sort of ignored them and my ourself look busy. The fun part, as always, people likes to take picture with us. There was group of monks in holiday and they asked us to join in the picture. It makes nice picture with mixture of culture: monk, asian, indian, caucasian :D.

After waiting for 30 mins, our boat finally boarding. I thought it was gonna be 30 mins - 1 hour trip. Turns out, Dala is just across the river. we arrived there just less than 10 mins. hahaha.

Down the boat, group of rickshaw drivers flocking again. We said no, thinking to just walk and see the village ourselves. Until one driver offered us good price. Going around Dala for 2000 kyat. I thought it's cheap, but now as I'm reading http://www.yangonow.com/, I should've paid just 200 kyats.



Dala is a village island. Life seems simple here. Looks like clean water is a big issue. In most of the house, they have big pottery jar in their yard to store rain water which later on they use for daily consumption: drink, shower and cook. Weekly, there is donation from government to provide them clean water. On this trip i witness one long queue for the clean water, reminded me not to take my life for granted. There are people struggle for living.

people qeueing for clean water in Dala. It was looong qeue!

The first stop was a pagoda. I forgot the name, but it is the only main pagoda in Dala. We got in and the guard let us knock the bell. They said we have to knock it three 3 represent 3 wishes: for health, family and the world. doooong!! doooong! dooong!

after pagoda we went around the village, see the people and their life. as we passed a river, we saw a lot of boat. out of curiosity we asked if there's anything all along the river? yes: another village and monastry. oww, cool!! we want to go there!

We booked a wooden boat. it's quite expensive, cost us 25,000 kyats. the boat owner briefed us that area we'd pass are illegal for tourist. So we aren't allowed to speak to loud, no stop to the village - just see from the boat, and Davide being the only caucasian in the group has to hide under umbrella whenever we passed police booth. Quite thrilling :D. Off we sailed to the river. Not a clean one. Brown muddy water. Sometime, there's died pig on the river and we had breath.

Not too many things we can see. It's just an experience passing quiet river and sometimes see people jumping from the tree to the water. we sailed for about 2 hours. we wanted to go further but weather started to get worse. Dark heavy cloud up above. We asked the boat man if we can stop by at one of the village by the river. All the burmesse there said big no. But we insisted. Any risk, we'll pay. It just doesn't make sense we they have to avoid tourist. What so dangerous about having visitors?

We stopped by in a monastry. The people there's very friendly. In fact they invited us to get in and those little monks to be seemed to be excited with our visit. We entered the main building which apparently monk school. They learn reading and math. They said.. english, english. Aha.. probably what they mean is teaching english. I taught them simple phrases: How are you? Nice to meet you. My name is Nuning. What is your name. They all laughed excitedly.

 

Outside the monastery, Davide and Mr. Robin gathered a crowd and made noises. I went out to see what happen. People were lining up in front of the building. Apparently Mr. Robin had turned himself into Robin Hood. He exchanged our money into smaller amount and donated it to the villagers. Each of them got 2,000 kyats. Now I'm thinking 2,000 kyats is indeed a magic number. It seems reasonable for almost everything: donation, taxi, street foods, 2 cans of coke.

Rain started falling. We waved goodbye and jumped to the boat and sailed back to the main port. We were late behind rain. Now we're all wet. hehehe.