Here is what Bella wrote in her blog about Burma:
I think Myanmar is my favorite port so far. It will probably be yours too when you read this.
It is a developing 3rd world country. In the morning it is fairly cool, the noon is very hot, then the afternoon and night are a lot better. I'm going to start when we were arriving in port. The water of the river we were arriving into was very, very, very muddy. The way it moved, it looked like it was mud! Only it was actually water.
Our port was a cargo port, so there was no terminal. When we arrived I saw the famous comedy character Mr. Mustacheman. He was chasing a girl, but he couldn't catch her. Some drummers were drumming while Mr. Mustacheman and the girl danced. I really like Mr. Mustacheman's bright green parasol. We soon docked but we had to get our passports because we wouldn't come back to the ship till the end. We wouldn't need our passports in Yangon, but in Bagon we would. It would take a few hours to get our passports, so when we were done looking at the port, Ricky and I watched a movie. Finally the passports were ready, so we got them and left the ship. Our driver and our guide Hong were waiting for us, and they drove us to the hotel. The hotel was called Green Hill Hotel. It had a really cool shoeshine machine! You could stick your feet in and it would shine your shoes. Then we went into our room and got ready to eat. We ate away from the hotel, and I was really tired, so I couldn't really enjoy the meal. Then we went to bed. In the morning we went to the Sue Pagoda. There was this huge gold stupa in the middle. We walked around. The stupa was beautiful and because of the way the light hit it, it looked like it was glowing.
All around us people were praying. It felt very holy. After that we walked around and went to an art gallery inside a hotel. They had some really neat paintings. I think my favorite was a painting of a water drop. There was an umbrella with a similar painting, but it cost 28 USA dollars. Then we visited a reclining Buddha. It was huge! A reclining Buddha is a buddha that is lying down. Its feet had very complex designs carved on it. The Buddha had really long ears and a golden outfit. Once I saw birds perch on his eye lashes and go up his nose!
Then we went to look at the house of Aung San Suu Kyi. It had a big wall around it, so we couldn't see anything, but it was still really cool, knowing that she lived there and stood where I had stood. Then we went to a really big pagoda with a golden stupa. I learned that I was born on a Friday, and I washed my Buddha in the Friday corner. We walked around and saw a replica of Buddha's tooth. Our guide told us that Buddha had 40 teeth. Then we ate dinner at a place that looked like a castle on a boat. It was on the water and a dancing show was on. We even saw Mr. Mustacheman again! We had to wake up really early to fly to Bagon. When we arrived in Bagon, we met our guide Win and our driver Hong. They drove us to the Shweziagon pagoda. He talked about the history of the pagoda. We walked around looking at the buildings. We saw some statues about the life of Buddha when he was a prince. There was a huge golden pagoda. I learned that the children who lived in Burma have a 3 month summer break. All of them were pointing at us because we were foreigners and we looked very different. Once I saw this very cute little girl and her mother. The little girl had traditional make-up/sunscreen. She offered Sara a butterfly pin. It was so cute! Then we drove to another pagoda. This one had another market surrounding it and so many people wanted me to buy something. Then we went inside the pagoda. It had really big golden statues of Buddha inside. It was cool inside, which felt really good after the heat. The walls had faded paintings and you could tell that they used to be very colorful.
Later we sat outside and bought a few things. I was going to get some elephant pants, but we had to go soon. I asked for some in my size, and they brought out a ton of them just as we were getting into the car. Our guide closed the door, and they were left behind. We stopped at another pagoda and when we got out, the same sellers were there. We asked them how they got there, and they said they followed us by motorbike. I bought some elephant pants, and then we drove to a group of brick pagodas. We were all hungry and hot, so we ate, went to the hotel to rest, and when we were done we went to another pagoda. There were gigantic golden buddhas in the main rooms. One Buddha's face changed from happy to serious when you looked at it close, then far away. The hallways to the statues had shrines and little niches with mini Buddhas in them. We walked outside and took pictures of the pagoda. There was this really nice reflecting pool showing the image of the pagoda in the water like a rippley mirror.
Then we went to a temple where we climbed these really steep stairs to get to the top. By really steep, I mean so steep that to go down I have to sit on one stair and slide down so my feet touch the ground. Then I had to repeat the process. When we got to the top we watched the sun set. There were a lot of SASers (ship people) around. I took as many pictures as I could, but my battery in my camera died soon.
On the next day we went on a 1½ hour drive to another town. On the way we stopped to see a novitiates ceremony. That's when the boys get to shave their heads and go to a monastery for monks. Many families have a ceremony for their sons, and everybody gets involved. The boys may or may not become monks but they stay in the monastery for a while. At the end we saw a dancing man "riding" on a really big turtle. He was actually wearing it and there was a set of fake legs coming down from his stomach.
Then we stopped at a really small village. All the people came out of there woven bamboo houses to see us. The fences were made of bamboo. The children of the village and followed and started to play with us.
Then we drove for a while. I saw goats, crops, and drying red chili peppers. We stopped at a monastery for a while and looked at the temples and where they lived. We saw a golden Buddha made of sawdust. It was like paper mache. We ate at a restaurant by a river and saw a beautiful blue, green, and orange bird. Jon and Sara told us that it was called a green bee eater. Then we drove around and went to a lacquerware shop. Nothing was done by machine. I was allowed to go into the workshop and I saw people carving, painting, and making the items. I found it so cool that some of the kids looked only a little bit older than me. Then we drove back to one of the temples we saw the day before, where there was a really nice market. I bought a horse puppet.
On our last day we woke up really early to catch the plane. On the way we saw hot-air balloons in front of a beautiful sunrise. We stopped to take some pictures. When the plane landed in Yangon, we went straight to the ship.
