Mandalay - Burma/Myanmar

May 25th - 28th, 2016

Leaving Bagan on a minibus in the early afternoon we soon realised we should have gotten up early and taken the train instead! Although not overcrowded, the aircon was insufficient to cope with the bodies on board, the roads were mostly unpaved and incredibly winding and there was nothing to do but look at the uninspiring scenery passing by as we had both recently finished our books and there was no other entertainment on board. Time passed slowly and the 5 hour journey to cover about 150 miles was tedious and uncomfortable, but at least when we arrived in Mandalay they dropped us off right outside our hotel meaning no fighting with local taxi drivers, a real bonus! By this time it was evening and after settling in we went out for dinner before returning to our nice cool room in what felt like a very posh hotel compared to what we've been used to so far.

Our first day in Mandalay and we had to get back to being used to the heat...Inle and Bagan had been hot but so much less humid! We started off by trying to do some laundry, following the directions given at our hotel we arrived at a little place, not much more than a hole in the wall crammed full of bags of clothing and a timid girl behind the desk. When we asked about getting our washing done she said it would take 2 weeks!! Unsure of whether she had made a mistake with her English or not we showed her a calendar to demonstrate 2 weeks as oppose to 2 days or even 2 hours, but she was correct and it did indeed take 2 weeks to get your laundry done!! I can only assume most people wash their clothes themselves or have a vast amount of clothing to cope with the delay! I ended up washing a few items in the sink back at the hotel, enough to see us through until Bangkok in a few days time.

Finally going out to look round the city we headed to the heart of it....Mandalay Palace, built as residence for King Mindon, it is surrounded by fabulous crenellated walls and a wide moat more than 2km on each side. Starting at a corner we plodded along through the heat, trying to dodge from one patch of shade to the next before eventually reaching the East Gate, the only one foreigners are allowed to enter from, bought our ticket and entered through the walls. There are signs telling you where you are allowed to go and where you may take photographs, this is because apart from the palace complex itself and the road leading up to it, the rest of the site is a military base and strictly off limits, although there is little to stop you looking...no fences, walls etc.

We followed the shady, tree lined road to the palace, which is actually a reconstruction built in the 1990's as all the original wooden buildings burnt down near the end of WW2, where from a distance the whole thing looks rather grand, but up close not so much. There were a number of visitors to the palace, some school groups, at least one tour group, but only a few other tourists like ourselves wandering around, trying to make sense of the place with the very limited information around. You would think with the price of the entrance fee they could provide a bit more detail in English, but most of the signs are in Burmese with only some of them translated, perhaps it would have been better to have a guide but we didn't see any around to ask or tag on to. The highlight of the complex was not the lofty wooden structures with their bare interiors, but a watch tower that looked like a helter skelter which we were able to climb to get great views out over the walls and beyond to the city scape surrounding us. We spent some time here, relishing the breezes that reached us above the treetops and admiring the close by Mandalay Hill with its pathway snaking its way up to the top via various temples and golden topped pagodas amongst the vivid green of the surrounding landscape.

After leaving the palace complex and heading back out the way we had come, we found ourselves almost at the foot of Mandalay Hill where there are a couple of noteworthy sights to be seen. First we entered Kuthodaw Paya, which is home to the world's largest book, 729 marble slabs inscribed with the Buddhist scriptures and each one set in its own small stupa. Quite a sight to behold, rows upon rows of gleaming white stupas surrounding a central golden pagoda, it almost looks like a graveyard until you see the greying slab of marble covered in flowing rounded script hiding underneath each stupa. We walked all the way around barely encountering another soul until we went to look at the central pagoda where there were a couple of attendants reclining and fanning themselves in the shade.

Leaving this unusual sight we crossed the road and entered one completely different, Kyauktawgyi Paya, where an enormous Buddha, carved from a single piece of marble resides and where the feel of the place is almost like a theme park! There are several buildings, some look newly constructed, others being freshly restored, all of which seem rather over the top, super colourful and with gaudy green rope lights adorning different features...it just felt like you would turn a corner and jump onto a rollercoaster or a log flume, such was the décor and ambiance of this complex. Having had our fill of the sights we left to begin our long walk back to the hotel, we had considered climbing Mandalay Hill as the guide book suggests you must, but to be honest it all seemed like rather too much effort, especially knowing that the whole way is lined with stalls where we would get pestered to buy things we don't want all the way up and back again! So instead we just walked alongside the palace walls, enjoying the fact that the heat of the day had dissipated and the late afternoon light reflected in the moat gave them a dreamy kind of look. A long day, with a lot of walking, we went to a local food stand that sets up each evening and that we had eaten at the previous night, to order some chapatis to take away back to the hotel to devour in the comfort and coolness of our room.

Our next day was an enforced duvet day due to Andy being unwell, from what we don't know as we'd eaten the same foods. Late in the evening I packed our bags ready for our departure in the morning to the airport for our journey to Bangkok.