InDiEMoNkEy: Through My Lens

Bagan, Part II

So, here I am writing about this magical place again. I was so fascinated by this place that I had to capture everything I saw. There is so much history and it is not easy to document everything in one sitting.
Our second day we head out of town to visit a local palm candy/palm liquor facility. The country side is beautiful with rice fields on both sides of the road and life in these parts moves at a very slow pace.

Yes! this is where they make the palm candy and palm liquor. It took us 45 mins from our hotel to get to this place and it was a really warm day. They make their own peanut oil and we had a chance to see how it was made.

Fresh peanuts grown on the property and they use the peanuts to make peanut oil.

Curious as to how they make the peanut oil??? Talk about organic everything...

The method is pretty simple. As you can see these people don't

have fancy machines.

They use an ox driven mill to make the peanut oil. This is located in central Bagan. We stopped here on our way to Mt.Popa. Truly an amazing experience. Here's a video:

After watching how the peanut oil was made we went to see how they made palm candy and liquor. First off, The sap is extracted and collected by a tapper. Typically the sap is collected from the cut flower of the palm tree and a container is fastened to the flower stump to collect the sap. The white liquid that initially collects tends to be very sweet and non-alcoholic before it is fermented.

Palm sap begins fermenting immediately after collection, due to natural yeasts in the air. Within two hours, fermentation yields an aromatic wine of up to 4% alcohol content (woohoo!!!), mildly intoxicating and sweet.

The wine may be allowed to ferment longer, up to a day, to yield a stronger, more sour and acidic taste, which some people prefer. Palm wine may be distilled to create a stronger drink.