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Whilst our flight from Chiang Mai to Mandalay, Myanmar wasn’t until the late afternoon, we spent the whole day preparing. Bangkok Airways markets itself as Asia’s Boutique Airline. At the point of packing we weren’t sure how accurate that could be, but we were much less than impressed with their ‘boutique’ travel allowance - 20kg checked and 5 kg in the cabin... total. That is, not a 7kg cabin bag and a sneaky 3-4 kg of ‘personal item’ - where we usually stash the heavy hitters - iPad/kindle/phone etc into a separate small bag. Sigh... So there we were, loaves and fishes in reverse, late checkout of 1 pm arranged and desperately figuring out how to get our usual 30kg+ of gears into no more than 25 kg worth of luggage.
Despite 2 pairs of trousers and a top all falling apart simultaneously and hitting the rubbish bin (finally!), I still have more than enough clothes, we’re also carting 2 paperbacks that are ‘in process’, and all sorts of other jazz - including a big pharmacy stock up in both Vietnam and Cambodia. The internet is our friend and we googled ‘how strict is Bangkok Airways on luggage?’ Let’s just say it’s been asked before. The only answers we received were ‘it depends...’ Sometimes they charge for every over-kilo at US$8 per kilo. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they make you check overweight cabin bags, sometimes they don’t. (We can understand that - the ATR barely has room for overhead storage compartments... putting anything in them is a challenge at all.) Then, when it was looking particularly dire, we found the correct way to skin a cat on a blog about Koh Samui (a popular destination of Bangkok Airways). Turns out, if you join their frequent flyer programme, FlyerBonus - you get an automatic extra 5 kg of checked luggage, immediately, at their lowest status level. BINGO! We shunted weight from place to place and ended up with exactly 25 kg in our checked luggage and 5 kg in our cabin bags. We joined the programme online and eventually, about 4 layers into their website, found the artfully hidden detail about the extra luggage allowance. In the end we didn’t need to throw much out at all, we had a good sort out, checked out of the hotel and spent our last 100 Baht on lunch - pad Thai and iced coffee smoothies at our fave spot in Chiang Mai, The Funky Monkey. We’re back to using Grab again - really works like a dream in Chiang Mai - ended up costing less than A$9 for an air conditioned ride to the airport and no trouble at all checking in our weighty bags. They even had ‘Priority’ which is our FlyerBonus status level on the tags. What a system.
Airport security has gone mental again, incidentally. A tiny, harmless Victorinox knife/scissor thing I have carried for years and all over the place has once more become illegal. Last time we quizzed an airline in Ireland we were told a 5 cm blade or thereabouts is the limit... this is less than 3 cm. I must admit to being tempted to find out how lethal it could be when they wanted to throw it away. We’d just stood in the security queue for 15 odd minutes and the thought of returning to the check-in desk to check the little knife was ridiculous. (Chiang Mai airport is some sort of Asian conscientious objector and apparently doesn’t ‘do’ air conditioning.) We stood our ground and eventually a member of the airline staff came to collect me and the lethal weapon and retrieved one of our checked bags from the system. I put the harmless gizmo into the checked bag and tootled back through security - no queue thankfully. Well that certainly filled in the waiting period. Quick scoot around the shops, a squirt of perfume, and it was time to get on the plane.
The boutique nature of the airline came to the fore again inflight. We had actual hot meals (chicken satay and noodles) and a drinks service - beer, wine, juice, tea, coffee etc - on a 1 hour 30 minute flight. Wow. It’s lucky the inflight service was brilliant as I was almost roasted by the time we reached Mandalay - the sun is very hot (go figure) and the air along the sun-side window seats of the cabin was super heated, even with all the vents open and the window shades down. We can only assume it must be something to do with a cruising altitude of 20,000 feet for the ATR72 puddle jumper instead of the 35,000 or so feet a jet would be cruising at.
The sun was setting when we landed in Mandalay, Myanmar and it was still 35 degrees. No getting around it, and without complaining in the slightest, it was hot. Taxi to town was accomplished quick smart and we eventually checked in to Myanmar’s very own Fawlty Towers - Hotel Ruby Myanmar Mandalay. Suffice to say the bloke checking us in and keen for us to pay couldn’t actually use the credit card machine, couldn’t give us change for cash and despite having booked a room with a hot tub and been assured in writing that it had one... turns out there is only one room with a bath in the whole complex and it was taken. ‘Hot Tub’ according to management seems to refer to hot water generally and, possibly, the hand basin. Can only presume he’s from Barcelona.
Not happy at all... and that was before 5 coachloads of Chinese tourists arrived, checked in, went to their rooms, left their doors open and proceeded to screech at the top of their voices from one room to the next and from one end of the corridor to the next. We found out in due course that the owner has contracts with many Chinese tour companies - obviously explains why every room in the hotel starts with an 8. For instance our first room was 8217 say (2nd floor) and we moved to 8106 say on the first floor. Can’t say we were overly impressed with Mandalay. At all. Hated the joint. Lunatic traffic - and, remember, we know of what we speak having spent 2 months travelling in Vietnam. We looked up ‘things to see’ in Mandalay and pretty much decided a day with earplugs in and reading could be a nice way to spend the following day. Then we went to bed. And that was our first exposure to Myanmar.
We woke up shortly after the hordes of Chinese tourists - more efficient than alarm clocks. We fired off a couple of emails to private taxi drivers with good reputations on Tripadvisor and went down to breakfast. By the by, many years ago we visited Mudgee, NSW in Australia for a long Easter weekend and a tour of their amazing wineries. They had a plague of locusts come through when we were there. Suffice to say the scene in the Breakfast/Dining Room was identical. We managed to get some breakfast by following the staff as they came out of the ktichen and getting food on our plates as they were putting it into the display trays - dangerous times indeed. We got in touch with a driver and he was downstairs waiting for us at 9 am. The original plan was to see the sights in the city - but we said we actually couldn’t face too many people and he said - ‘Yes - there will be many, many Chinese’. That settled it - we pulled out our list of far distant sights which we hadn’t had a hope of seeing - a 90 minute drive out of town - and settled into air-conditioned comfort to venture forth far, far, far from the madding crowds.
We had the bestest day in the end - visiting the stunning Hisinbyume Pagoda (big, white and like walking on clouds - pictured), the Pahtodawgyi Pagoda (big square and unlike any other pagoda - which is saying something - there are sooooo many pagodas in SE Asia), the Mingun bell (the second largest bell in the world at 90 tonnes - Still functioning well despite being cast in 1808 - we both gave it a whack just to check), the giant lions (though not as impressive as they once were, having suffered in the last major earthquake), the U Min Thonze caves with 45 large, seated buddhas, the Sagaing Pagoda on the hill (oh the views!) We were pretty much tuckered out from the heat by then, so lunch was a good idea and our driver took us to the Sagaing Restaurant - just us and many other foreign tourists. We thought US$20 for a great lunch and drinks was not bad - but we are very conscious that US$200 a month is a standard salary here in Myanmar. Funnily enough we ran into a lady who’d taken our photo at the Hisinbyume Pagoda... then ran into her again 2-3 more times as the day progressed - not sure who was stalking who. We’re pretty sure our drivers were friends and were stopping at the same spots in the same order for a good natter at the tea shops.
Rejuvenated we continued on, wending our way back to the city via Inwa. This stop came as a complete surprise to us - we piled into a boat that puttered across to an island - then into a pony and cart combo for a clatter around 4 very different places. You’d think you’d be safe enough with a pony and cart and minimal actual traffic (aside from lots of ponies and carts). But ours took fright when it overtook a large cart with two oxen being driven by a pair of 8 year olds. (We’re still not sure if our skittish pony is more afeared of oxen or 8 year olds.) In any event she panicked big time and ran over a parked motor cycle. Thankfully riderless or he would have been a goner. Nerves in shreds we continued on. Nice pagodas. Nice watch tower. Nice monastery. Nice to be alive. Did we mention it’s nice to be alive?
Eventually back on the boat in one piece and off to the final stop of the day, Mandalay’s famous U-Bien bridge - a 1.2 km wooden bridge that’s absolutely world-famous in Mandalay. In fairness we think it is the longest wooden bridge in the world. But we still hadn’t heard of it before yesterday. Must be world-famous in China though as there were easily 20-30 coachloads of tourists pulled up and waiting for sunset. We walked on the bridge. We walked back. We’ve seen enough sunsets lately and didn’t want to hang about for another hour in the heat - not to mention the sunrise scheduled for early tomorrow morning when we take the slow boat from Mandalay to Bagan. We called it a day with our driver and managed to make it back to the hotel before the hordes. We had a quiet dinner, just us, rice and noodles in the restaurant and an early night. Bags packed, clothes ready, shoes next to clothes. Cab ordered. A well oiled, if stuffed, machine. Bring on Bagan.
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