Friday, October 17, 2014

Mandalay, Myanmar

Happy Birthday Tim!

Today was a rest day but I did manage to see a gold pounder and women working with gold leaf.

This man was like a machine.  He just didn't stop.  He's using a sledge hammer to hit a stone which is in the middle of the wooden frame.  Under the stone is gold that he's flattening into leaf-


These women prepare the final product-


She takes a square of yellow construction paper, and spreads the gold onto it like butter, then neatly piles them up.  You can buy packs of 5, 10 , etc as souvenirs.


The streets are named in an interesting manner.  This was the intersection of 80 Street, running north and south and 33 Street. running east and west.  A typical address might be 80 St. 32/33 which means the place is on 80th Street between 32nd and 33rd Streets. It makes sense and it's easy to find an address.


Lots of people have been sick today.  We're not sure if it's something we ate, if restaurants used tap water in food preparation, if it's heat exhaustion or just plain exhaustion.  I threw up in the sink of a restaurant - I couldn't make it to the toilet  I felt a lot better afterwards.

Tomorrow we're off to Bagan!




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