The public ferry from Yangon to Pathein takes 24hours and you probably only ever do the journey once. Even though we had an upper class cabin it didn't mean a lot. The door of the cabin could be open in two parts, upper and lower, unfortunately the lower part was missing. We shared the one toilet (with no water) with others cabin holders and perhaps 100 people sleeping out on the deck. I won't go into details but suffice it to say after 30 mins you didn't want to go in there again. During the next 23 hours I become quite inventive with a bottle and plastic bags.
But it wasn't all grim. Waking up in the morning on the mighty Irrawaddy as the ship slowly passed sleepy villages and vendors scurried in their small boats to sell breakfast. Banana leaves stuffed with sticky rice and fresh pineapple were hoisted up on pieces of rope let down from the ship, the Kyats were tied to rope and let back down. Delicious!