Katha to Mandalay

After spending a couple of hours trying to find a) the pier and b) where to buy boat tickets we decided to catch the "express" boat (14 hours) to Mandalay rather than wait for the already 16 hours delayed cheaper slow boat (2/3 days). Up at 3.45 to pack and work out how to load tandem down the sleep slope onto the boat. Someone helped (in fact he carried tandem single handedly)

The boat and the villages we stopped on the way (early on when it was still dark someone had lit a bonfire on the banks as a signal for our boat to stop by) were a microcosm of Burmese society. Families ranging from elderly men (coughing or being sick?) to young (extremely young in some cases) mothers and their happy babies, young couples, monks, and in the villages, children looking after bullocks, fishermen, bundles of bamboo and teak piled on the bank, bulls and carts and all kind of goods being carried onto the boat: coal, rice, even newly made beautiful handmade tables, chairs, beds and cupboards to be sold in Mandalay...

The loo was scrupulously clean

And the tandem securely tied