Myanmar Day 13 Yangon

It was down river to Yangon yesterday. We stopped at Maubin which is quite a large town and went for a walk around. We started at the market that is perched on top of  the levy bank which is mainly restaurants for local people and ready made products. Across the road was the large square market building which was primarily the tailoring centre. There were fabris and decorative fashion items everywhere. Women and men were using sewing machines that were like table models that predated my mother's Singer.
When we had wandered the market area we walked away from the river and found the residential area of the "well to do". The houses were substantial and stylishly decorated if they were new. In amongst them were the traditional wooden houses.
We then went down river to berth at Yangon. We are tied up to our sister ship the APT boat which we walk through to get to the wharf. From there it was coach to THE Pagoda, Shwedagon. This pagoda is known for the modern elegance of it's stupa (spire) which has a decorative ball studded with percious gems and the fact that the surrounds cover 5 hectares. This includes glass elevators on three sides and escalators at the fourth entrance. The surrounds are made up of prayer areas for the different days of birth, numerous Buddha representations,  prayer halls and a huge Banyan tree said to be a couple of hundred years old. The surrounds were relatively quiet when we arrived at 3-30 pm but the crowd gradually increased as we walked around taking it all in. Most conspicuous was the huge numbers of high school age monks who streamed in. Apparently they have been in nearby monsteries taking exams and now came for a visit. San, our guide for the afternoon asked a group if we could take their photo and when they agreed engaged them in conversation to take the stiffness from the scene.
Then it was back on the coaches and a terrifying trip back to the boat through peak hour traffic, Noone wanted to let the coaches in and it was a tussle of size verses determination. I was waiting for the crunch at any moment but our driver was very experienced. One of the other groups took 20 minutes longer to get back. Bob observed that he didn't think we would hire a car!