To Hpa An by Ferry
Beez Neez now Chy Whella
Big Bear and Pepe Millard
Sun 10 Dec 2017 23:47
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To Hpa An by ‘Luxury Cruise’ Ferry
  Breakfasted and sitting in reception
by eight, expecting the ferry taxi to pick us up at ten past for our river
cruise to Hpa An at half past. Beginning to fidget by a quarter past and ready
to pace by twenty past, the chaps in reception assured us the ferry wouldn’t go
with out us as we were on the list. Not reassured but relieved to see a vehicle
arrive and others aboard going our way. Six of us and several rather large
backsacks, our case and a sholley hurtled through the
streets for ten minutes. One of the passengers had had a bag failure and
now happily sported and trundled a ladies sholley but in a
manful pale blue. The (what we thought was)
stewardess ensured all the bags came off our trusty steed and pointed to the
jetty.
 One of our
tickets.........
   Our ferry –
well it did have drinks holders and a nice name badge............
  Nine of us settled, the stewardess told us there was a stop in an hour
to see a pagoda and promptly left us to our driver and his friend. Twenty to
nine saw us heading toward the bridge, wiggling in
and out of fishing nets.
 As we neared the bridge, Bear
particularly like the dangling electric wire that fed
the island monastery and a few houses.
  Passing the island
shrine and a few minutes later the monastery.
  We stopped for the pagoda and watched
the other passengers bump off in tuk tuks, we wanted a break from being shoeless
and sold to so we stayed and enjoyed the boatmen play about
with their engines. Two teenaged girls appeared on the jetty and were
just about to tip their sacks, spotted us and walked down the bank a little.
Said sacks contents tumbled into the river, Styrofoam,
plastic bottles and all......how sad.
  We enjoyed watching bananas being thrown from a boat to shore and had a peak of
jealousy when the next tourist boat came alongside with car
seats, luxury. The others came back saying the pagoda was alright but the
tuk tuks had tried to fleece them for more money (the transfer was included in
our ferry tickets, was this recompense for the slight difference in the picture
on the tickets to what we got ???). On we went and spent the rest of the journey
taking in the river traffic and scenery for the next three hours. Happy as
jaybirds bobbing along on the water.
                                   Safely docked, we picked our way through the
rubbish, pleased to see our case following.
 Ten minutes off the main road and up
six sets of ten stairs to our hostel room. Power cuts every six or seven minutes
made for a disco feel. We moved the table and bed over for me to have a runway
and Ohhhh, that hadn’t been moved for a while. Woke to be accompanied by 408
ants (Bear did a head count, he’s good at that. (One
quick ant whisper and they lined up so I only had to multiple the
formation......). The three nest lines of
marching ants I hair lacquered in place on the wall........but we did love the
curtains.
ALL IN ALL REALLY ENJOYABLE
TO SIT AND WATCH THE SCENERY GO BY
LOVELY AND
RELAXING |