Road to Mandalay

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Next stop on our Burmese journey was Mandalay. Having read some reviews I was pleasently surprised to really like the place, was much more intereresting that I was led to believe.
We had arranged a pickup through a very helpful travel agency in Bangkok. This brought us into the mountains to visit Myanmo, summer home for the British to get out of the oppressive heat of Mandalay. About 2 hrs drive north east of Mandalay there was lots of local life to see on the way, the workers in the quarry being the most astonishing, they were breaking the stone with hammers! Backbreaking no noubt.
Back to Mandalay and a visit to the U Bein Bridge at Amarapura, a 200 years old teak bridge, very pretty. The water levels in the lake were quite high. Was lovely to see all the school kids in their green and white uniforms (apparently this is the same throughout Myanmar) boarding their canoes to cross the Irrawaddy for the trip home from school.
The traffic was organised chaos, at times we were driving on the left hand side of the road and at others the right, it seemed to be a free for all?
Time for an early night as we had to catch an early flight next morning to Bagan.

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Photos

Not quite BP or Shell
Roadside service station, watch out for drivers who leave engines running, while taking a smoke break!

Schools Out
Kids catching a ride home from school across the Irrawaddy