Across to the Ayeyarwady Delta

The Yangon River flows through the city. While the four young ones were visiting we took the $4, 15 min trip over the river, followed by an hour in a local van into the Ayeyarwady (Irrawady) River delta.

The ferry ride was a fascinating experience where hawkers jostle and vie for positions to sell everything from sunhats, fruit, bags and paan (the betel nut concoction that the locals enjoy chewing on).

There's a busy market off the jetty on the other side where our guide negotiated with local drivers for a good deal to take the five of us to Twante. The roads are long overdue for pothole repairs, so we chugged along at a slow and very bumpy pace.

The British dug out the 20km Twante canal between the Yangon and Ayeyarwady Rivers to connect the rivers to save the journey down one and up the other via the Andaman Sea.

Twante is the main town and most famous for it’s pottery industry. By trishaws we visited a few potteries where we watched the whole process from preparing the clay, moulding pots with human-powered wheels and firing the way it’s been done in the past. The pots are used for storing rice, water and for growing plants.

There’s rarely a trip without a visit to a pagoda and the important one in this area was first built 2,500 years ago and is said to contain two hair relics of the Buddha.

A girl needs to have her shoulders and knees covered to enter temples, pagodas and stupa complexes. 

A beautiful temple we stopped at is built over a pond with bridge access from north, south, east and west is home to many boa constrictors. They come and go and generations of them live comfortably in this unique home. Thank goodness they were in sleepy mode, because a couple of us were not keen on a close encounter. Look closely amongst the branches and the golden images.

Another stop we made was at a rice farm where we saw farming families harvesting their rice and removing the husks ready for storing and selling their crop.