Day 21, Ava: A Sour Aftertaste.

(Posted by Andrew about the events of Jan 1; Ava, Myanmar.)

Happy New Year, everyone. (I realize that it'll be Jan 3 or later before I find an internet connection to get this onto the blog, but still...)

Our last shore excursion was to an area that sadly, though perhaps fittingly, is clearly in the process of losing its innocence to the tourist trade. As our support boat approached the shores of Ava, there was already a large crowd of locals waiting on the shore to try to sell more necklaces, bells, and other trinkets, and once they latched onto you it was hard to get rid of them. Annoyingly, as we went from site to site the locals hopped on bicycles and followed us around trying to badger us into buying the same stuff we told them we didn't want just ten minutes earlier. (One shipmate of ours thought she was be nice and hand out the toiletries from the ship to the young boys, and was immediately swarmed and mobbed by dozens of them pushing each other and her while aggressively trying to grab at her bag. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.) A little unfortunate that this is our last encounter with this country but we won't let it spoil the memory of the week previous.

Instead of the bus, we toured around this area in a series of little two-person horse-drawn carriages.

Tomorrow we leave the ship and fly back to Yangon then out of the country to start the next leg of this adventure...