Burmese Days : Life on the Water

We took a peaceful and relaxing trip on a beautiful teak house boat down the Irrawaddy river from Mandalay to Bagan. On the way the ship stopped at villages on the shore - no harbour needed: the ship's ropes were simply cast ashore and fastened on branches and sticks dug into the sand bank. Then steps were carved out of the sand and we could get on land. Floating down the river, we saw many picturesque village scenes of strange beauty anywhere between a medieval Breughel painting and the 21st century. People use the river for bathing, washing clothes, cleaning, fetching water ...

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I never encountered an unfriendly face towards my cameras and being photographed. Most people smiled back and were curious and engaging.

My daughter was asked on three different occasions by complete strangers to pose for photos together with their women. On any of our travels we had never experienced anything like that before - why would someone want to have a stranger on their family pictures? And we had seen many tourists in Myanmar, at least in the tourist spots where we went. It may have been, because it was the time of their winter vacation.Villagers from the countryside, where tourists cannot go yet, come down to visit the pagodas or for family festivities, so a western woman for some may still be quite a sight. Or maybe they mistook her for a celebrity on a UN mission?