With trying to save money and make the most of our time, Amelia and I decided on another night bus to reach our next destination - Mandalay. Again, we arrived way before the ETA and were dropped in the middle of the city. This time we did actually have a hotel booked, but we were pretty sure at 3am it was quite possibly before an acceptable check in time. However, we had a back up! With the memory of our early arrival in Kalaw lingering heavily in our minds, we chose a hotel with a 24hour reception - hoping the lobby might have a couple of comfortable chairs to rest our heads on!
Getting from the bus station to the hotel (5km away) was easier than we expected. Firstly we were approached by very eager taxi drivers trying to charge relatively absurd amounts. Then, by trishaw drivers. After a few minutes of negotiations we got onto a trishaw and with our big backpacks strapped to the small bicycle rack off we went. To be honest, I felt a little sorry for the trishaw driver as he struggled to get going, but fortunately the 5km journey to our hotel was fairly flat.
It took just over half an hour to reach our hotel called 'Royal Yadanarbon'. When we arrived and walked into a very dark '24 hour reception' we were welcomed by a man who'd clearly just awoken to our entrance. We were expecting the weary eyed man to inform us of a long wait, but to our surprise he handed us a room key and told us we could check in - what a result!

Having a few hours sleep before getting up at about 9am was all we needed. It really felt like we'd gained a free nights accommodation!
Feeling much more motivated than we'd anticipated that morning, Amelia and I decided to hire bikes and peddle around the city.
I'd read that the jade market in Mandalay is an interesting morning visit and worth a trip to see something a bit different. On the way we stopped next to a monastery to eat some corn on the cob - sold to us by a very sweet little old lady, who befriended us and even fed us up with some sort of root vegetables too! Along with our freebees we were plenty full enough to carry on along the very dusty, bumpy and busy roads.
The jade market was fairly easy to find, at least easier to find than to park that is. It seemed most of the parking attendants wouldn't accept our bicycles! Once we'd found a place to park up, we paid a small fee to the attendant and entered the gated jade market.
Inside there were plenty of men wheeling and dealing their precious stones. All of their customers were seemingly other local men examining the stones closely with torches. Besides watching what looked like dodgy dealings, we were also able to see a fair few workers cutting, grinding and polishing some of the stones too.
Upon our exit and out the back of the market we noticed a vast amount of jade in its raw form. One particular elderly lady had tons of the stuff, so we went over to take a closer look. The smiley old lady straight away took a liking to Amelia and offered her a small hand carved jade elephant! We offered her money for the gift but she plainly refused. Eventually she accepted Amelia's persistence, only to offer Amelia more jade in the form of two small polished stones! We have no idea of the value, but it was very touching and something I'm sure Amelia will treasure.
The most revered Buddhist image in Myanmar is not exactly where you would expect. After cycling around we found it somewhat hidden off a side street in the suburbs of southwest Mandalay. The 2000 year old bronze sacred Buddha called 'Maha Muni' is visited by literally thousands of pilgrims each day. As expected the place was heaving with pilgrims worshipping and adorning (by men only, women can't touch) the big seated Buddha, which is now only just recognisable! Lets just say the generations of uneven adorned gold leaf (apparently 6 inches!) gives the Buddha a somewhat knobbly and irregular appearance! The only recognisable part is his gleaming face which is ceremonially cleaned and polished each and everyday at 4am.
The 'Mahamuni Pagoda' is also home to six Khmer bronze statues with supposed miraculous healing qualities. It was quite comical observing the many men and women approach the statues and then rub a body part on one of the statues - the hope it will cure an affliction in the corresponding part of their own body. It has to be said that the crotch area on most of the statues was possibly the most burnished!
Finding a place to sit and eat lunch after 1pm proved challenging, but eventually we stumbled across a small eatery serving 'late' lunch.
It has to be said traditional Myanmar food is generally quite oily and in our opinion not on par with its neighbouring countries cuisines. However, for lunch we did have a very nice mango and pork curry, although still oily it was packed with some good flavours.
The afternoon was filled with visiting more popular Buddhist sites, including 'Shwe Nandaw Kyaung' - a very intricately carved teak monastery. And also 'Kuthodaw Paya' which contains the world's largest book! Each 'page' from the 'book' contains Buddhist teachings and is displayed upright on marble slabs (not a light read!) in their own small white stupas!
Mandalay Hill is probably the most popular tourist site in the city. Most people, whether it be locals, monks, novices or tourists like to visit late in the afternoon to watch sunset. The hill being 240m high has a decent vantage point over the surrounding area, however reaching it is no easy feat. Unless willing to part with a bit of cash for a motorbike taxi, one has to 'climb' one of the four entries (north, east, south or west). With time running out, we picked the nearest entrance, parked up our bikes and followed some spritely young novices up a set of covered stairways.
It transpired that monks and novices predominantly visit the hill to improve their English by speaking to us 'foreigners'. Not before long did some burgundy robed novices latch on to us to practice their conversational skills. Despite our hearts pumping out of our chest and lungs gasping for air we managed to have engaging conversations with the novices - Amelia found it especially interesting as normally (especially in Thailand) the monks don't even make eye contact with women. The 'Hill' is not just scattered with many staircases, it's also home to an abundance of pagodas and monasteries. When we finally reached the top pagoda we were a little underwhelmed by the view and hazy sunset, but as they say 'it's the journey not the destination that matters' this saying was especially true for us that evening.

Day two in Mandalay saw us hire a moped to explore a bit further a field and visit Myanmar's famous bridge in 'U Bein'. Unlike other countries in SEA hiring a motorbike in Myanmar is comparatively expensive. For instance, in Vietnam we were paying approximately one US dollar a day for our scooter, in Mandalay we paid fifteen USD! However, it was still cheaper than an organised tour and definitely worth it for the independence.
We started the day visiting a gold leaf workshop inside the city. Gold leaf appears everywhere in Myanmar so we wanted to see how and where it was made. It turns out creating wafer thin gold leaf is a sweaty business! The workshop we visited had several men hammering away in a rhythmic fashion and stopping frequently to wipe the sweat off their brows and catch a breath. We'd read it's one place you can go without being bombarded with sales pitches and luckily the Lonely Planet was right for once! It was a refreshing experience and interesting to see the different stages of the process. We were even gifted a small piece of gold leaf that a young kid insisted on sticking to our foreheads!
Situated in the centre of Mandalay is 'Mandalay Palace' - encompassed by a walled fort and moat with only one gate accessible for foreigners it's not easy to access. Due to army sensibilities we had to dismount the scooter to pass through the gate and then stay on a direct access road to reach the palace grounds. Because of the strict rules in place to enter and adhere to once inside we found it fairly quiet and picturesque, especially the views from the watch tower.
On our way out of the city, we managed to find ourselves scooting through a grand monastery. The monks wandering around had some enquiring looks, but fortunately one helpful monk was able to put us back on the right track.
'Inwa' was once an imperial capital, only after a series of devastating earthquakes in 1839 was it completely abandoned. Known for some still standing ancient monasteries and temples we thought it'd be shame to miss, especially with its close proximity to U Bein Bridge. The roads to get there were mostly peppered in potholes and at times unsealed, so inhaling in lungfuls of dust and obtaining sore bottoms was unavoidable. Still it was all in aid of seeing... more temples!
Getting from Inwa to U Bein bridge wasn't easy either, and to make things even more adventurous Amelia decided to direct me along the sandy banks of 'Taungthaman Lake'. I'm pretty sure it wasn't the conventional route, but we like to get 'off the beaten track' one way or another!
U Bein Bridge is a 1.2-kilometre bridge, built around 1850 and is believed to be the oldest and longest teakwood bridge in the world! When we arrived we were prepared to see large amounts of people swarming the teak bridge - Sam and Jen (from our trek) had forewarned us that the area gets busy around sunset. As we were there a couple of hours before sunset, we were able to enjoy a nice walk (rather than a confined waddle) along the bridge and suss out a good place to view the sunset. After some wandering along and wondering where to sit, we decided (along with two other backpackers) that the best place to view the bridge for sunset was from the seats of one of many boats dotted around.
Hiring the boat and driver for sunset wasn't as extortionate as we envisaged. For the four of us it was just 12,000 kyat (just £1.50 ea). It definitely paid off, we had the best seats in the house to watch sunset behind the incredible U Bein Bridge.

A bus.. a pickup truck.. We'd read and heard different things, so we left our hotel early the next day not knowing exactly what form of public transport we'd be taken in for the journey to Pyin Oo Lewin...