On the banks of the Irrawaddy, pale logs are stacked by the hundreds in front of the warehouses: this is thanaka wood, from which Burmese people have for centuries made the golden paste that protects their faces from the sun. Pakokku is one of the country's major markets for it, and this activity sets the tone for a stop devoted to everyday Burmese life. River boats linking Mandalay and Bagan moor at the foot of the town, on the western bank of the river, about thirty kilometres upstream from the great temples.

The market of a thousand smells

The central market overflows with stalls where tomatoes, peanuts, chilies, dried fish and giant tobacco leaves mingle, the latter a regional specialty destined for cheroots, the Burmese cigars. The vendors, their cheeks powdered with thanaka, weigh goods on old pan scales, and customers ride off on bicycles with overflowing baskets. It is a market for wholesalers and families, not a showcase for visitors: you move through it with curiosity and discretion, and every aisle holds a scene of daily life.

Cheroot and weaving workshops

Excursions often lead to a workshop where women roll cheroots at an impressive pace, leaf after leaf, chatting and laughing. Elsewhere, looms clatter in teak houses: the region produces blankets and cotton fabrics sold throughout the country. These simple, direct visits are all about the encounter: here, no one plays a role for the camera, and a smile opens every door.

A town of monasteries

Pakokku ranks among the great centres of Buddhist study in Burma, and its monasteries are home to many monks and novices. Along the streets, the morning processions of saffron robes, alms bowls at the hip, set the rhythm of the neighbourhoods. Golden stupas rise above the tin roofs, and the neighbourhood pagodas, often modest, offer moments of shade and calm in the heat of the central plain.

The surroundings also preserve old religious complexes, including carved wooden monasteries and ancient monastic towns on the plain, which some programs include depending on the time available. These dusty, endearing stops complete the portrait of a region that has remained true to its traditions, among peanut fields, sugar palms and potters' villages set along the dirt roads.

By tuk-tuk through the lanes

The most delightful way to take in the town remains the tuk-tuk or the local cart: you ride between wooden houses, noodle stalls, watermelon carts and schoolchildren in green uniforms, in a cheerful concert of horns. The visit pursues no major monument, and that is precisely its strength: Pakokku shows everyday Burma, industrious and smiling, the Burma the major sites do not tell about.

The river itself is part of the show. Here the Irrawaddy unrolls its shifting sandbanks, its net fishermen and its convoys of floating bamboo; in the dry season, pilots read the water like a map to avoid the shallows. From the deck, at anchor, you can watch the riverside families' evening wash and the herds returning home, a peaceful scene that is worth many an excursion.

When the boat picks up the river again toward Bagan and its thousands of temples, the contrast takes on its full meaning. The images that remain of Pakokku are made of gestures: a hand rolling a cigar, another grinding thanaka, a greeting called out from a bicycle. It is an unvarnished port call, and those who like to understand a country through its people often count it among their best memories of the Irrawaddy.