Rice and Teak -- Main exports

In many places in Myanmar, two or three crops of rice are harvested each year if there's enough rice as it grows in water. As we've traveled along roads we've seen the steps. After a crop is harvested, usually the field is burned, and then plowed. It then lies fallow for some time and then flooded. At this time the oxen or in a few places water buffalo, pull a plow or harrow to prepare the soil under the water.

A couple of times we've seen this process done mechanically with what looks like a big roto-rooter, but it's usually done with oxen here.

Most rice paddies are fairly small with borders of caked mud.

Rice is first planted and the fields are very thick. Then it is picked and bunched to be put into rows by a group of women.

Here they are pulling the rice from the thickly sown field to be separated into rows.

It was amazing to us at how straight the rows are when the planting is done by hand. The women stand in water and mud and plant bent over.

Looks like back-breaking work to me.

They start early in the morning and work long hours. We are told that some are professional planters and go from village to village doing the planting.

Here's a group that came to the ceremony.

We haven't observed much rice harvesting yet, but each farmer keeps rice for their main source of food. Before rice is hulled it is called "paddy". This is a larget basket that keeps the unhulled rice for this family. As they need it, they take it to the mill.

This is the top of the basket that stores the family's rice.

We were also shown the process of chopping the straw left after the rice is harvested so that it can be fed to the oxen. The man pumps with his foot that makes the sharp knife cut the straw as he feeds it in.

These are peanuts that have been dug from the ground and are drying. This fellow spoke good English. He had a university degree in English and had worked as a hotel manager in Mandalay for 7 years, but had never been back to his village. So he had quit his job so he could come home for a month.

Teak is another major export from this country and we've seen wonderful wood carvings from teak. It takes nearly 70 years for a tree to mature and some think too many have been harvested. As we crossed the Irawaddy in a small boat we saw this barge pushed down river towards Yangon.

And we meet some trucks hauling the logs as well. The roads are narrow and these take up a lot of the road.

So these are some scenes as we've travelled along the roads of Myanmar.