Day 6 of our Myanmar trip started with a visit to the village of Min Nan Thu in Nyaung U. Village life proceeds more or less as it has for generations. The village has decided to welcome tourists in exchange for the opportunity to sell their handicrafts.
These are plums, I believe, harvested from the trees in and around the village. Here they are set out to dry.
Here the crushed seeds are sifted. The plum seeds are sold to China for use in Chinese medicine.
It's a big business. We saw 4 or five locations like this just in this small village.
These are peanuts hang next to yarn that will be woven.
Click to enlarge.
Here are links to earlier posts in the series if you missed any of them.
Day 1 - Yangon
Day 2 - Yangon and Inle Lake
Day 3 Morning - Inle Lake
Day 3 Afternoon - Inle Lake
Day 4 - Bagan
Day 5 - Bagan and Ananda Temple
Peanuts are important to the village. This is a press for pressing oil from the peanuts. We didn't see it in operation but I gather one of the oxen is hooked up to a harness that is on the other side and then walks in a circle around this device. The center post precesses around the cone area and squeezes the peanuts. The oil comes out the small opening at the bottom.
Remember what I said about smoking a couple of posts ago. I rest my case.
Margot thought these two were really cute.
This lady is preparing yarn for weaving.
This lady is spinning fiber into yarn.
Click to enlarge and take a look at her fingers holding the fiber.
There were ox carts everywhere hauling all sorts of agricultural products and occasionally people.
Looks like this guy has an empty cart.
These big baskets are used to haul the plums from tree to village.
Not sure what this is.
You could not turn around without seeing another cart.
This school is across the street from the village.
Notice the "Drug Free School" sign and the stupa in the background.
We asked our guide to ask the teacher if we could visit and we were quickly invited it. These younger students were studying English at the time and were excited to read to the foreigners.
They were excited to see their pictures, too.
This school obviously has had some foreign support. The facilities were nicer than most we saw.
After our visit to the village we started a road trip to Mandalay. Our group of 17 loaded into 3 large vans for the trip.
Shortly after we left Bagan we passed a road construction site. We were really past it by the time I got my camera organized but here is a glimpse of it. That line of rocks is the equivalent of the concrete Jersey barriers you see in the U.S. which separate the traffic from the construction crew. The women were using hammers to make small rocks out of big rocks and sorting and loading into small baskets for transport to the road shoulder. I imagine they will lay some asphalt once the rock base is complete. Not a machine in sight.
February is the dry season in central Myanmar. When the rains come this will become a river. In the meantime it is being cultivated.
As we stopped for gas and a bio-break, this local transportation truck pulled in. They filled up the barrel on the back with diesel - to provide a local supply back at their village, I suppose.
We stopped for lunch at a very local restaurant in Myingyan.
I have commented earlier that in Asia when you buy a chicken you get the whole thing - head, feet, internal organs, etc. No shop owner wants to accused of cheating you.
Believe it or not I ordered chicken not pork. I chose not to eat this piece because I couldn't identify it. No one in our group could identify it, either.
I have my guess but can anyone say for sure what this is?
You have to look at it as all part of the experience.
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