To Taung-To

Thursday, February 8^th was our last full day in Myanmar,  so it was a full schedule.  Six of us (plus, Ye Ye of course – he was always on each outing) took an hour boat ride to the dramatic setting of the rotating market of in the town of Taung-To.

I know what you are thinking (if you still are at this point in the blog!) – Glen, you’ve already been to three markets (Yangon, Yangon spice market, and, oh shoot – somewhere near Mandalay) – how could this market be “dramatic?”  Isn’t that a little, uh, dramatic!?  (You: darn it, Glen, you  trapped me, the reader, into that!  Me: Yes, yes I did.  You: You could be a little less self-satisfied.  Me: Nods smugly.)

As the boats traveled the hour to Taung-To, we saw some dramatic looking gold and white pagodas on a hill.  Then we turned down one side path, heading towards the pagodas on the hill.  As we came closer, there were boats  packed with people and goods, especially firewood.  There was all sorts of boats, and quite the bustle and hustle on shore.  The market was on shore at the base of the hill, with an old series of tin (?) roofed open air buildings heading up to the temple.

A rotating market means it hits a different village each day, five out of seven.  The vendors take their wares (food, crafts, clothes, toys, knives, etc.) to five different towns in their boats, and set up for market.  Apparently, if I understand this right, one town also has a different specialty.  Taung-To’s is firewood. 

So, when we deboarded the boat (okay, so maybe I just made up that phrase) we were greeted by stacks and stacks of different sized firewood.  Boats were busy being loaded, and heading home with enough firewood to last for (well, actually I have no idea how long a boatload of wood lasts in Inle Lake – although anytime you can appropriately use a measure like “boatload” it’s a good blog post).

There were cows everywhere, and a young kid sitting on a woodpile.  Shortly after the woodpile fell, and scared him.  He dutifully tried to reconstruct the wood pile, but needed his dad’s help as the bundles of thin wood were bigger than he is.  We walked onto a bridge over a smaller stream, and got a good look at the many boats that had brought goods to market.  Up the hill, of course, were the dramatic pagodas. 

The market was spread up the hill.  We walked past a sword and knife maker (he made and sharpened swords and knives) – while his wife worked an ingenuous bellows like hand/foot operated machine (Myanmariacs use their feet for a lot of tasks).  We walked by a dried fishmonger whose product was in burlap sacks on the ground.  Stray dogs would walk right past and not even notice the food.  That either means the stray dogs have incredible discipline and know not to mess with the vendors’ food, or it really tastes bad.  Our dogs, Annie and emergency back-up dog Luna, would not show that sort of discipline or brains.

A woman was using an old, but well-maintained, sewing machine to make alterations there at her shop right on the spot.

There were bundles of cheroots for sale, 20+ for the Khat equivalent of about a dollar.  There were bananas (Minion alert!) and oranges, chili peppers and corn, cookies and cereal.  Ye Ye and Michelle both bought some fried rice cakes to share – they were quite good.  Carol declined, sticking to the Carol Plan of not eating street food.  No one got sick from it. 

Ye Ye took a bunch of us to the toilets, a bit like a kindergarten teacher taking his students.  It cost the equivalent of three cents to use the toilets.  While that sounds like a low amount, don’t fret for the local government/national government/businessperson who the money goes to – they clearly do not reinvest the money into capital improvements.  Nope, they keep every Khat as profits.  The toilet I used finished a close second to the ones in monastery in Yangon – and remember, in the monastery I had to go in barefoot. 

Sidebar: To be fair to Myanmar, most of the toilets we used were clean, and I think I only had to use the facili-trees (wait a moment for you to think about it. . .got it?  Good, time to move on) once or maybe twice.

Anyhow, Carol had wandered off somewhere, so I went up closer to the pagodas.  The craftsmanship of the, er, crafts that were for sale up that direction.  Alas, I had to turn around and head back down to the shoreline to catch the boat back.  Very cool market.