This morning is really the last day but we leave the boat straight after breakfast so yesterday was our last full day. We went on a walking tour of the city centre and were immediately aware of how much more prosperous and well preserved Yangon is than Mandalay. This is a much more cosmopolitan city due to it's long term role as the primary port of entry to the country. Also thanks to the British levy building in the colonial period the adjacent delta of the Irrawaddy (Ayarwaddy) is the main commercial rice producing area. There is a lot more adoption of Western dress but the longi is still prevalent as it is definately the most comfortable garment in the warm humid conditions.
I realised that I haven't talked about the traffic yet. Back in the 1990's the Military Regime decided to change from right hand drive to left hand drive. Just another abandoning of the colonial past but possibly also because Chinese influence was the main one when the western world was applying sanctions. However though the rules were changed finances did not allow for the vehicles to be changed. Thus in Mandalay almost all the cars and all thus buses were still right hand drive but driving on the right side of the road. Potentially dangerous but it was surprising how soon we stopped flinching because accidents are rare. Yesterday we were noticing a lot of buses here are new and left hand drive and it was pointed out by our guide that this meant that they could be operated by one person. All our tourist coaches had two men on board and the support person had a more important legislated role than we had realised. They were officially a non contact driver who was responsible for watching traffic and giving the instruction about when it was safe to pull out into traffic and when to overtake. The traffic here in the city is typically full on and there are a lot more LHD cars because the Govt has introduced a policy of taking vehicles off people if they are 20 years old and giving them a voucher to buy a newly imported one. Unfortunately for many people the gap between the voucher value and the on road costs of a replacement do not match so they are forced to sell their voucher to a car importer and rely on public transport. Also unless you a very rich the "new" cars are second hand Japanese models which have already done 100,000 kms. There is a flourishing business in spare parts and reconditioning for some.
Our second stop was the Pagoda of the second largest reclining Budda in Myanmar. It is 70 metres long and was the longest until recently when another city built a bigger one. It was completely destroyed by Allied bombs in WW 2 as the Japanese utilising it as a barracks and headquarters. This obviated the same protection as Bagan. It took two yeas to rebuild in the 70's when funds became available because of the supply of bricks required. From there we went back downtown to the tourist trap markets common to most cities. We were warned before getting off the bus that it was not a reliable place to buy Burmese rubies as they are often fakes and offered a free extra tour in the afternoon to a reliable retailer. A couple who we have become friendly with decided to test out the suppliers in the market and received two quotes for identical versions of a ring they fancied that varied by $2000. They went to the recommended retailer in the afternoon to make their purchase. A couple who also went there and who hail from a Cape York cattle station laughingly told us that her ring cost 4 cows.
So today we move to our downtown hotel to make the most of our last two days.
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