The Longest Day? April 6 20 hours

We left Yangon at 3:30 in the morning in this van--quite comfortable. It--the van--had just been returned at 1am from another trip and there had been no time to fix a window that wouldn't roll up, so until 9 am we rode with the windows down quite comfortably. We reached a city and stopped to see if the window mechanism could be fixed. While we waited we had a breakfast of an omelet, fried potatoes and fried rice. I had a coke and Dad had a sunkist soda

About 10 am we had gone as far as we could in the van and transferred to this truck. Dad and I sat in the front--a dubious honor--as the seat slid forward with every bump and we could see the ground through the floor, but we were protected from some of the dust.

West of the Irawaddy River there is very little development and very little water. This was the dryest part of Myanmar that we had seen. No rain since last October.

The soil is baked hard and cracked.

I'm losing pictures that I planned to include--don't know why. Dad is making a presentation speech for the well and water facility. The man in front is the one who makes all the arrangements. We couldn't operate at all here without him.

After a ribbon-cutting ceremony the women filled their bowls with water and took them to their homes.

I'm amazed that they can balance it without using hands and walk in the process.

So I though I'd try. No luck without the cloth wound around between the head and the bowl.

I still needed hands. I'm glad I don't have to get water this way!

Since the village is so isolated, they weave their own cloth and were eager to show us the process. We were presented several hand-woven bags and straw baskets at the ceremony. Afterwards, I was invited upstairs to see the process.

This woman is proudly showing off the thread she has carded from cotton they grow and the products she makes from then.

This is the wheel that they use to spin the cotton into thread.

A grandma holding a baby and presenting me with a hand-woven cloth.

We didn't see much that was green--only these banana trees. Their diet is probably very poor but they were gracious and welcoming. We left the village early afternoon, but didn't get back to Yangon until 11:30 that night after a number of stops. It was cooler to leave early, but drivers here don't use dimmers very often and when they did, the brights were usually put on before the approaching car passed, so the driver often had to slow down with each passing car--so the entire night driving was quite slow. Here in Yangon we're not often out at night, but at times see cars with no lights, people in the middle of the street and bicycles with no reflectors. I wouldn't want to drive here, especially at night. Needless to say we were glad to be back. A quick shower to rid us of the dust and to bed. We were going to leave on another trip in two days.