We went for a cruise on the Irrawaddy River (also spelled Ayeyarwady or Ayerawaddy) late one afternoon. The Irrawaddy is Burma’s main river and it runs through the center of the country. The entire river is within Burma’s borders and is 1,350 miles long. The river starts high in the Myanmar Himalayas near the border with Tibet. The name is believed to be derived from a Sanskrit term for “elephant river” but there are other ideas on the source of the name. After Rudyard Kipling’s poem, the Irrawaddy is sometimes referred to as “The Road to Mandalay”.

1. The first photo is just to show you how wide the Irrawaddy is in Bagan. At places on the Irrawaddy, the river is a half-mile wide. The average depth of the river is 30 feet.

2. We really enjoyed the river. It was much cooler on the river and really very pleasant. But even on the river in Bagan, you are still viewing pagodas.

3. As I looked closely at this photo, I counted some thirteen pagodas, but there were probably more than that in view.

4. There were all sorts of boats on the river but all of the boats in this photo are tourist boats.

5. We cut the motor on our boat and drifted in the river until after sunset. The boat in the last photo is a water taxi which takes people to work and back.