Myanmar Day 6 Thant Kyi Hillfi

Our mode of transport changed yesterday from coaches to mini buses. This was because the Panhwar tied up to the river bank at a small village that had a long,  narrow, dusty access across to the bitumen road. We were taken past quite a lot of light industry on the way which we found out was a government petroleum drilling set up. As well we saw some small tripods on the hillsides which were private small scale drilling rigs. The villagers on this side of the river are poor because they have rocky hills instead of alluvial flats and can grow very little. So they drill the oil which is only about 20 metres down and produces betwen 20 and 45 gallons per day. There is only very crude processing available to them from which they extract poor qality diesel for local use and wax which they send to Yangon to make candles for the temples. Even the government has outdated technology to process the oil so it is shipped out of the country for processing and then they have to buy fuel. Our guide made a case for engineers to invest in the industry here so they can process the oil themselves.
We eventually reached the bitumen road to the temple at the top of the hill. The view was spectacular in both directions; over the river and into the hilly heartland which is desert. How they managed to transport the materials for this rich temple up here was difficult to imagine. The story is that Buddha visited this place and foretold the development of the city of Bagan across the river. There is a statue of Buddha pointing toward Bagan. Then a king returning from the conquest of Ayruthia (wrong spelling) in Thailand riding a white elephant said he would settle where ever the elephant chose. And he chose this hill top overlooking Bagan. The rest is history as they say.
In the afternoon we tied up at the village of Salay for a walking tour. This naturally included stops at a temple and an old monastery which is now a museum. Along the way though we saw lots of colonial buildings because this was a centre for the British Burma Oil Company. Many of them have faded beauty now but this village is still quite prosperous. The temple, Shinbin Maha Paya, has a laquerware Buhdda which apparently was washed down river to this village in the monsoon floods. It is huge and has been dated to 14th Century. The story goes that the villagers tried to drag it up onto dry land but couldn't manage. Then a rich woman whispered into the Buddha's ear that if it allowed them to take him from the river she would build a temple over him. And so it happened . The plinth of the seated statue has been recently beautifully decorated  with cut glass mosaic. We were able to peer into a trap door in the base to see up into the hollow bamboo construction of the statue. Defitiely unique because although there are smaller lacquer Buddhas this one is huge. This was also the first opportunity we had to see native turtles which were in a pond in the temple grounds.
Last night was the 2nd half of the film "The Lady". Very sad, well acted depiction of her years of house arrest and the emotional struggle when her husband was dying of cancer and she knew that if she left to go to him in England she would never be allowed back. It was clear that he shared her vision for Burma and supported her throughout.