Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 2:00PM 
The transport options were pretty diverse and you definitely had to be in no hurry.
Push bikes, wooden public buses that dated back to World War 2, horse drawn carts, and even the traffic lights were unusual!
Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 5:48PM 
It was fascinating to learn about their gold and gems industry when we visited gem cutters studios, a "gold leaf" makers home and Mandalay's Jade Market.
The men manually hammer the pure gold into finer than paper thin leaves and they still cut the tiniest gems with unprotected saw-wheels.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 5:26PM 
The food was tasty with Chinese and Indian influences.
While we were moving from town to town, the choice of what to eat became limited, so we went according to "when in Rome........." for better or worse....
On the river boat journeys that lasted two days we became even more stuck for choice.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 4:49PM 
Many children become novice monks and nuns. Some are orphans and others are put in the monasteries by parents who are too poor to take care of them themselves. They are brought up and given schooling by the monks and nuns.
We visited one such orphanage and met with the head monk who explained about his orphanage. For their everyday needs they get offerings from the village, but their building was badly in need of repair. They were trying to fix it up themselves, but had no money to buy any materials. We donated what we could at that time, but before we return to Burma next summer we plan to organize a special Burmese dinner event at Hibernia one evening as a fundraiser for this orphanage.Here are some videos.....
