We went to a local vegetable market in Old Bagan. Visits to local markets are always some of my favorite parts of any trip. You can see a general photo in the first picture. They had very nice looking produce and everything was very fresh. That makes sense as most of Myanmar is farming country and something like 75% of the people work in agriculture. In the first photo you can see some nice tomatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, and some nice crushed and powdered chilies in the pans in the center of the photo.

Several people have asked me what the women are wearing on their faces in my photos. It’s Tanaka, or Thanakha. It comes from a slow-growing perennial tree in central Myanmar. The tree must be something like 35 years old to yield premium Tanaka. Pulp of the tree is ground against a flat stone and pulverized into a light yellow paste with a mild fragrance. You can see limbs of the Tanaka tree in the second photo and you can see a woman grinding a limb against a flat stone. She then put the paste on Vicky’s face as you can see in the third photo. Burmese women have been using Tanaka like this for over 2000 years. It is a cosmetic, a cleansing agent, and a sun protector. Women sometimes put it on when they go to bed to cleanse their skin. Most women in Burma wear Tanaka. Most young kids, including the boys, also wear Tanaka.

You can see Vicky again wearing her Tanaka in the fourth photo. But I put the fourth photo in to show the woman wearing a bunch of bananas on her head, just to the left of Vicky. I told Vicky that I was drawing the line and would not buy her a bunch of bananas to wear on her head. Vicky told me I didn’t know what I was talking about, that the woman was only using her head to carry the bananas around. But if you can notice, the bananas have a purple bow on the back of them so I think I was correct – and the bananas don’t look too bad on her…. I would also be a fan of edible headwear, so this woman has that going for her as well.

You can see lots of dried fish in the last photo. There are always items other than vegetables in markets and in Burma, most places had fish, but more fresh fish than dried fish. We also saw food being prepared and sold in this market as well as such things as varied as pottery.