Once we made it across the Yangon River, there was a mad rush to exit the ferry. The area around the ferry terminal was a madhouse with people going in both directions and all sorts of activities going on. It was really hard to take it all in, particularly since locals and vendors were constantly vying for our attention to buy something, take a ride, or anything else you can think of. These photos will take us through our initial exit from the ferry building.

1. This is just one of the food vendors around the ferry building. Vendors sold hot food, cold food, drinks, smokes, fruits, juices, and everything else. Each vendor only took up a small space so there were lots of vendors.

2. You can see a ball-rolling gambling game played in the dirt in the second photo. You had to roll threes balls at once and get them into the small holes and each hole counted for a different number of points. Winning was sort of like a Craps game in that certain numbers of points won and amounts over or under those numbers of points lost. The game seemed to have mild interest as you can see in the second photo.

3. Then Vicky stepped up to play and the crowd swelled as you can see. Vicky is trying to impart some right spin on her roll. I’m not sure how many points she rolled but I know she lost her money.

4. Once we got past the vendors and games around the ferry building, we came to a parking area. This is just a small part of it in this photo. This section was mostly motorcycles, but other areas had busses, vans, and sidecar bicycles.

5. The last photo is going to take extensive explanation. Our guide said we could rent a chauffeur-driven bicycle with a sidecar for about $5,000 Kwat ($5 US) for 90 minutes. Being the shrewd businessman that I am, I bargained with a fellow and got it down to $3. I’m sure that you can see the genius of my deal. I figured I would put Vicky in my sidecar and then I would be saving $7,000 Kwat ($7 US) – since she would no longer need to rent her own. Before we agreed on the deal, the fellow wanted to see me take it for a spin to see how I did. I was in total agreement because I wasn’t sure that my legs would fit under the handlebars and allow me to pedal it. The vendor and his partners caught up to me after about 60 yards of riding. By that time, I had nearly run over a dozen people including several small children. I kept ringing the bell but there were some awfully close misses. Once they caught me, they rapidly and loudly explained something to me, only I couldn’t understand a thing they were saying. Eventually, I understood that they were showing me the brake lever. At that point, and knowing that my knees fit the bike just fine, I figured that I was good to go. Only by then, Vicky had climbed out of the sidecar and refused to go anywhere with me driving. Personally, I think she should have given me another chance. But at that point, my big savings had dwindled from $7 down to $2, so I decided to go ahead and rent a bike with a chauffeur for each of us. (though I know I could have done it)