Kyaukmyaung Myanmar
Myanmar
Frequently Asked Questions
Against the sandy bank, with no terminal: a gangway, a few steps cut into the shore, and the village begins. Landing is often on a slope, so closed shoes are recommended.
On the bank of the Irrawaddy in the Sagaing region, about 74 kilometres north of Mandalay.
Its jars. Hundreds of honey-coloured glazed vessels dry in the sun along the bank, the largest holding 200 litres. The town has lived on clay and fire since the eighteenth century.
The old name for the region's large glazed jars. They travelled on merchant ships across Asia to store water, oil and grain, and they still stand in front of Burmese houses holding cool water offered to passers-by.
Yes, at Ngwe Nyein, the largest of the potters' hamlets, where much of the population works with clay. Potters shape the giant pieces with several pairs of hands before firing them in long wood-fired brick kilns.
Yes, the small pieces — cups, pots, money boxes — fit easily into cruise luggage. Purchases are paid in kyats in small notes, and bargaining stays courteous.
An hour and a half to two hours to combine the workshops, the morning market and a walk through the town without rushing.
Yes, but always ask first. Permission is almost always granted with a nod.
The morning market with its mounds of tomatoes and Irrawaddy fish, teak houses on stilts, the monastery where novices' recitations echo, and ox carts passing Chinese motorbikes.
A passage upstream of Kyaukmyaung where the great river, so wide elsewhere, threads between close-set hills. If your itinerary continues north, stay on deck: it is one of the finest moments of the journey upriver.
