Chamonix, Courchevel 1850, Crans-Montana, Davos, Megeve, Meribel, St. Moritz, Val d’Isere, Verbier, Zermatt Kings Avenue Sàrl 14, Rue de Rhône, CH-1204 Genève Switzerland +41 22 819 94 07 www.kingsavenue.com contact@kingsavenue.com
IMAGE©LIGHTMEDIATION 800 years ago. We followed a local woman who was carrying two fi ve-litre cans of water on a pole back to her family and came upon Min Nan Th u Village which had a roadside café made of wood and thatch and little open-sided houses on stilts. Th e villagers were amused to see us, sold us beer and let me look around. One old lady even off ered us the enormous cheroot she was smoking. Its fi lling of woodchips, tobacco, tamarind and maize smelled fi ne in the night air. Th at night I ate on the boat and gloried in the air-conditioning. Th e banks of the Irrawaddy were very dark but the stars above were a riot of light. Occasionally there would be a distant silent fl ash of lightning on the horizon, but otherwise it was incredibly peaceful. A balloonist called Lee came on board to talk about the fl ight we would take the following morning. We were at the end of the monsoon period so it was all weather-dependent, but at 5am, an old battered motor coach of the kind I remember from my childhood picked up the Road to Mandalay party and chugged to an open fi eld in front of a sandstone pagoda. Here Lee was preparing two balloons for a fl ight and in the blackness bursts from helium burners dazzled those of us waiting to clamber on board. Half an hour later we rose with the sun, the pagodas below us turning pink as we rose to 700m. On the horizon hammer-headed storm clouds were forming, but fortunately we drifted away from them and away from the river too. Th e best moment was the rare fi ve-sided Dhammayazika Pagoda complex, its crown and vane reaching up to us like a golden rocket. As we came in to land, children in the villages below abandoned their walk to school and joyously chased our balloon as we sailed over the peanut fi elds. PRIVATTRAVEL Th e best moment of the balloon trip was the Dhammayazika Pagoda, its crown and vane reaching up to us like a golden rocket as we sailed over Seventy-Five Five-sided Dhammayazika Pagoda is unusual in having four surrounding temples to the Buddhas who have already attained enlightenment – plus a fi fth to the future Buddha, Metteyya We returned to Th e Road to Mandalay, and the gracious old ship fi nally lifted anchor and chugged north up the Irrawaddy. People sat out on the top deck watching Burma pass slowly by. We are not used to landscapes untouched by modernity, and the shores of the Irrawaddy that day seemed timeless. Pakokku, Myingyan and the confl uence with the Chindwin river fl oated by, a landscape of pagodas, thatched villages and trees. Th e pattern repeated endlessly. No bridges, no power lines or telegraph cables. Th e occasional log drifted past and lapwings and wagtails fl ew overhead. Sometimes the best thing about a journey can be its slowness. Th at night the boat laid on a special treat for us as we moored in the darkness. It is a Burmese custom during Th adingyut (the end of Lent) to light candles. Our ship had arranged for local boats upstream of us to light 2011 candles and release them down the river. We passengers were taken up to Captain Myo Lwin’s bridge and music played as this carpet of light came slowly downriver towards us, breaking up into individual clusters with the current and fi nally passing the ship in little fl oating baskets. Th e next morning I was awakened by the sound of small motor boats. Outside my cabin the river was full of families fi shing, working with nets and poles while tiny overloaded river boats took people upstream. Further north we encountered our fi rst sight of modern Burma, a great river bridge constructed of steel and brick by the British. We were arriving in the village of Shwe Kyet Yet. Th e eastern bank of the river was lined with a temple complex that rose up dramatically from the Irrawaddy and culminated in a large golden pagoda.
Change language