Yeah, a boat

[The_Traveler]

This was taken on the outskirts of Mandalay, in a cove off of the Irriwaddy River. We were only there because Thiha, a member here and a resident of Mandalay, gave us a tour.
From looking at Google maps satellite view, I think it is somewhere here (red arrow on map) because the bridge was in the background (not many bridges there) and a closeup sat view showed the wide area of sand and where we parked the van.(yellow arrow) (map doesn't show sand bars)

 

[pgriz]

Your back story emphasizes that what you leave out is just as important as what you leave in. If you had shown the second set together with the first without comment, I would not have connected that the two are in the same place. Well done. (aren't you tired of hearing that? )

 

[Bender]

I did bob and weave some to get a better view but the physical situation wouldn't work.
I was standing on the very end of an oil-soaked sand spit in a cove where lighters filled with diesel oil are unloaded. The crew pulls hoses across 150 yards of beach (and up a hill) to pump the diesel into 55 gallon drums. Exhausting for them, enlightening for me.
I just didn't want to stand deeper into the oily water and ruin my Teva sandals at the very start of my trip for shots that I'm not good at.

In other words, "this ain't the local swimming hole".

Nicely done. The stick and the bridge might make it less perfect a shot, but it's easily overlooked (and perhaps not really seen unless pointed out) due to all the things that really work well.
I wonder if the reality of the scene impacted your hesitation to post this. The beauty is clearly an illusion.

 

[The_Traveler]

Your back story emphasizes that what you leave out is just as important as what you leave in. If you had shown the second set together with the first without comment, I would not have connected that the two are in the same place.

The second set were just an 'I was there' pair of pictures that I took to illustrate an upcoming blog post on that area and the people who work there. They aren't close to picture pictures.

Well done. (aren't you tired of hearing that? )

I have had several wives and consequently have an immense store of 'you did this wrong, you jerk' so the occasional 'Well done' takes a bit of the sting out of life.

 

[The_Traveler]

I wonder if the reality of the scene impacted your hesitation to post this. The beauty is clearly an illusion.

Quite an astute observation. As I mentioned I was struck by several things about the situation. The incredibly hard life that these people are living, pulling those heavy hoses across the sand and up a hill day after day, living in hovel conditions on the barges as the barges get pulled up the river with virtually none of what we in the first world think of a bare necessities. Young women working at pick and shovel jobs building roads. Yet they seemed happy enough and certainly pleasant and cordial.

They allowed us to clamber all over the barges; women preparing a meal on one barge even invited the female in our group to sit and have some tea. I can't even speculate on what they thought about us, the gap between our lives was so great.

As you can tell, these kinds of experiences, even more than seeing 'things', are infinitely more meaningful to me than postcard views.