Mandalay

Asia » Burma
May 10th 2006

Published: June 24th 2006

Edit Blog Post

Jill and Roy

The Tuk-tuk

We left Inle Lake earlier morning on the 10th on a minibus heading to Mandalay. What a disaster of a ride - it was hot and sweaty and I couldn't fit in the seat, no leg room. The aisle was full of bags so I couldn't stretch out sideways. This was not a fun ride.

We arrived in Mandalay and it was dusty and steaming hot. The two French (from our bus) who had put their bags on the roof found that some items were missing from their bags; always have to keep your bags next to you. Jill was insistent on this.

More importantly, I quickly realized that there was no bay in Mandalay. No water and definitely no bay. There is no Mandalay Bay (as in the huge casino in Vegas). This definitely occupied my thoughts for a few days. Why name a casino after a city that has no bay? Not to mention that it's hot, dusty and isn't very pretty. This makes no sense to me.

More importantly, and contrary to many visitors opinions, Jill and I really enjoyed Mandalay. It is hot and dusty; and there is more poverty than elsewhere in the

Shwe In Bin Kyaung (Monastery)

Patrick showing pictures to girls who live in the Monastery

country but we liked it. We enjoyed the sights and the aura of culture rarely found in a city, at least not in Yangon. And, additionally, since a huge focus of our days is finding quality food, we located this amazing chapati stand on a corner of a nearby street and had our dinner their everynight. Night after night, the tables on the sidewalk were full eating super cheap chapatis, biryani and curry. The food was excellent and cheap; you can be sure that we packed it in each and every night. Our enjoyment of Mandalay might be strictly attributed to this chapati stand.

As for our daily activities, we (Jill, Patrick and I) arranged with a Tuk-tuk to take us around the city sights the first day and the following day to sights out of the city. There is an all-inclusive admission of $10 that cover most of the sights but the most intriguing sight was Mahamuni Paya; unfortunately, we visited during a festival day when the place was mobbed so it was hard to roam and takes some photos. Cool thing about this Buddha is that it's covered in 8 inches of gold leaf (placed by worshippers)

Festival at the Mahamuni Paya

so you can't see the original statue any longer. On the day we visited, so many were up at the Buddha placing gold leaf, we could hardly see the Buddha at all. Next time.

As for the sights around Mandalay, none were very memorable except for attending the monastery to observe the monks' meal time and U Bein's bridge. The former sight was a weird scene with quite a few tourists standing and milling around hundreds and hundreds of monks (and nuns) eating their one meal. It seemed strange that this was a tourist attraction. For me, I was more interested in the actual idea that tourists were here taking pictures than the monks eating. Nonetheless, the monks did not notice nor appear to care for our presence; they continued about their business as usual. The latter sight is a teak bridge spanning a lake - I think the longest teak bridge in the work at 1.2 km. It was a nice place to stroll and watch the locals crossing from either side of the lake, especially before sunset. (I just realized that my pictures from our time at the bridge - 95 of them - are not on