Today, we spent the day drifting northwards on the lazy Irrawaddy. The 5 am departure from the hotel meant a quiet and subdued taxi ride as we passed the ghost like pagodas en route to the ferry landing at Nyuang U. We did smile however to note that some of the temples are lit up like the Blackpool illuminations or the Vegas strip!
We rolled our bags down the steep sandy banks to our ferry whilst it was still dark. It's a little rusty, a tad tired but really welcoming little metal boat, made in China in the distant past and named Sun Far. We set sail just before 6 am for our twelve hour schlep. Dawn came quickly over the broad wide flood plain. The Irrawaddy was much wider than we expected, probably about half a mile of slowly moving brown waters. The sunrise reflected bright red on the waters surface and we were grinning like children. Not for the first time on this trip. After the sun had risen Ant and David continued their night's sleep on the rickety seats in the "saloon".
We shared the boat with maybe 15 other people, (officially it could take over 100), all Westerners, at $30 US, it was probably too expensive for the locals or maybe they aren't allowed, who knows? We spent the day snoozing, reading, blogging, lounging and watching the world go by.
There wasn't so much village life on the sandy river banks, as the river was low and obviously floods during the wet season Some of the sand banks were being used for fast growing crops, others had temporary fishing settlements, with waving children. We loved watching the small fishing boats, the tugboats hauling teak, bamboo or fuel, and we pulled into the bank occasionally to let a crew member off or to collect a new one.
We had lunch that was produced from the bowels of the boat, hoping it doesn't reappear too urgently from ours.
The afternoon passed slowly and lazily, finally after 12 hours, we sailed beneath a couple of broad span bridges, saw some temples on the hills and so knew that we were arriving in Mandalay as the sun was setting, a magnificent red ball of fire. The journey had taken from dawn to dusk. We were really excited and had loved the smooth trip. There was the usual scrum at the jetty to get a taxi that wasn't charging a fortune, we agreed on 6000 kyats, climbed into the back of a pick up truck and headed through the dark, smoky streets of Mandalay to our accommodation, the small Mandalay View inn, which is an unusual name for a hotel where most of the rooms don't have windows...
So why Nellie the Elephant? Well....
Nellie the elephant packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus,
Off she went with a trumpety trump
Trump trump trump,
The head of the herd was calling, far far away,
They met one night in the pale moonlight, on the road to Mandalay.
