To get from Mandalay to our next stop Bagan, we go old-school and take a ferry cruise down the Irrawaddy river. I wouldn’t use the imposing “Mighty” to describe the river so much as a friendly “Oooh, you’re a big one, ain’tcha?”
Irrawaddy is actually calming in its length and breadth. It helps that the weather is great, the ferry is leisurely functional, and everyone else on board is a laid-back European backpacker type (one Italian tour group that we met had actually been to Jolo; for the pizza, no doubt).
The cruise meanders along for eight hours, with dozens of hillside temples providing NFW moments at the start and the end of the trip (the middle part was hypnotic for the consistency of the landscape on either side of the river: flat for miles, scattered trees, and not a power line in sight). The travel time is so long that there are lots of opportunities to nap, but as our protocol guide (who had never been on the Irrawaddy before either) actually said: "I don't want to close my eyes. I don't want to miss a thing."
Channeling Aerosmith on the Irrawaddy. Cool.
Daybreak on the Irrawaddy, which I almost missed because of the ROOKIE MISTAKE of leaving the office cellphone and laptop in the hotel room just as the convoy to the ferry is about to leave. Our van had to wait while the rest of the motorcade sped off to the ferry without us. I literally almost missed the boat.
You don't see this on "Cribs"
"Look! What's that just over the horizon? Why, it's ASEAN economic integration!"
Eight hour ride, and this is the only other boat we ever see
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