The Ayeryarwady flows smooth as oil, dark as coffee, wide but shallow, with occasional ripples and tucks where the sandbars nudge the surface. There is none of the hectic frenzy of river traffic that smothers many of Asia's great waterways in fumes and oil slicks -- Myanmar moves to a different rhythm, as it always has -- but there's movement nevertheless.
In irregular groups, flotillas of aging junks drift downriver, tethered together to save fuel. From time to time, a two-tiered ferry groans upstream, laden with passengers and stacked high with lacquerware and ceramics. Small teak sailboats putter about near the banks, casting nets for butterfish, and occasionally huge rafts of bamboo float into sight bearing small thatched huts. It will take them up to four weeks to reach the southern delta, where they will be dismantled and sold.
The banks between Bagan and Mandalay are sparsely populated -- Myanmar is home to just 44 million people, despite covering an area roughly the size of France. There are small fishing villages, temporary shelters erected by gold panners, gem gatherers and river-sand collectors and, of course, rice fields laboriously irrigated by hand and plowed by buffalo. Pre-war Burma was the world's largest exporter of rice, and for the largely vegetarian population, rice is still the staple. Fish, crabs and prawns from the river supplement the diet.