It’s hard to believe we did all of these things in just one day. We’re STILL on day 6 of the trip.

We visited another Buddha in a cramped temple at the Manu Ha compound, where the closed-in feeling of the place evokes the stress of captivity at the hand of a brutal Burmese king. Later, we paid a visit to the U Ba Nyein Lacquerware Workshop. I never paid much attention to lacquerware before, but now that I know how it is made, I have a much greater respect for it. The finest pieces can take two years to make – drying and applying the lacquer layer after layer – up to 24 layers deep!