Mandalay lies about an hour's flight north of Yangon. The city essentially surrounds a 1.5 km square (no, literally, square) military installation (formerly the palace grounds) that is divided from the rest of the city by a similarly square moat. It is a dusty but vibrant town on its own but one of Mandalay 's chief attractions for tourists and pilgrims is Mandalay Hill and its environs. Zoë and I took a pick-up-styled bus to a stop just below the top. There we removed our shoes, climbed to the temple on the peak, and walked all the way down barefooted. The entire path is treated as holy, so shoes and socks are not allowed. Vistas and Buddhas were plentiful. On the way down we stopped to eat fried noodles that the pathside vendor heaped onto our plates with her fingers. Once down, we wandered through the pages of the world's biggest book. (And no, J. K. Rowling is not the author.) The Kuthodaw and Sandamuni Payas gain this honor by housing each slab/page in its own white "templette." Row after row of these monuments to believers' adoration, contain both the text of the Tipitaka (Theravada Buddhist scriptures) and a thousand-page commentary on the original. (The parallels with the Torah and the Talmud are difficult to ignore.) They are beautiful, regardless of belief. We then went in search of a taxi. We found a close approximation, in the form of a Toyota built to resemble a Jeep Wrangler, and driven by kindly Co-Co. Zoë insisted on riding in the back seat, which required her to repeatedly step on and over the rear tire. With Zoë serving as tour guide, Co-Co drove us to visit a gold leaf workshop, a weaving shop, an ancient teak temple and monastery, and the acres-big holy site, Mahamuni Paya. There male pilgrims relentlessly apply gold leaf to an ever more distended Buddha statue. Frankly, women might have shown more restraint. Finally we joined a minor throng to view sunset at the U Bein bridge, an enormously famous and scenic (mostly) wooden bridge over the Taungthaman Lake. Then back to the hotel and out for dinner. Mandalay deserved more time, but early the next day, we had a boat to catch. Check out the photos below. Blog to you later!