yandabo village

Beneath a tree on the Ayeyarwady riverbank at the village of Yandabo the treaty ceding lands to British rule was signed in 1825 and marked the end of the first Anglo Burmese war. This the first of three Anglo Burmese Wars resulting in the annexing of Burma as a province of British India on January 1st 1886.
The tree was washed away but the village remains accessible only by river.

Men fish and farm onions, beans and rice and the women make storage and water pots from a mix of red and yellow river clay. Wheels are pedal powered and it is very much a family affair.
Each family has a particular pot decoration applied with scored teak paddles and a collective firing occurs in a garden yard when 3000 pots have been made.
There are no permanent kilns and the burning of driftwood laid on a bed of sesame and rice straw, on which pots are layered in a conical mound over which more rice straw is piled and fired, reduces to ash which seals the ‘kiln’, smouldering for a couple of days.

Fired pots are sold locally to nearby villages or bought by ‘middleman’ who transport boatloads to markets in Mandalay and Yangon and everywhere in between.
Locally they sell for a princely 500 kyats (50c!) and after trip down the river to towns and cities they sell in markets for $1.00.
Take note our local Aussie garden centre!