Vegas is Lying.

---

Allright, so where the hell is this Mandalay Bay? We're a couple hundred kilometers inland. I asked around and the explanation I got is that there is another Mandalay somewhere in the world with a bay, but I think they're wrong. This is it.

So Mandalay sounds like the most wonderfully exotic place ever, but its pretty much a dump. Its dusty and ugly (and when someone from OKC calls a city ugly that is a major BURN am I right? Just kidding, I love ya baby) It's heartbreaking! The power is out the vast majority of the time and as soon as the fan went off in our room we woke up from the heat. We were only there for two days but we spent a considerable amount of time just sitting in our hotel lobby trying to sweat as little as possible.

At Mingun Paya we found a girl who wanted to sell us tee shirts for 2,500 kyat each, we agreed on 3 for 5,000 and then as we were on the boat leaving Mingun we found out she ripped us off and only gave us 2 tee shirts for the 5,000 kyat. Yeah, we don't check our purchases too well. Anyways, I was this close to turning around and kicking her ass. If you see her, tell her that was very rude of her >😞

However, all is not lost. There are some cool Ancient Cities just outside Mandalay, we climbed up Mandalay Hill and talked to the English students, and Mandalay has some of the best restaurants in Burma. Mainly, the Nylon Ice Cream Parlor. Senti and I both reckoned we had never been to a proper ice cream parlor before. Well all we had to do is go to Myanmar to find one! We ate there far, far, far too often. Runners up include the chapati stand and Nepali food, very good places to fill up on thalis, chapati, and masala tea for less than a dollar.

Another cool thing is we met a guy who spoke out against the government. We didn't initiate the topic but he pointed to the people's desire sign and said, "No, not people's desire. Government desire". Amen, man. He also knew about Oklahoma City, he knew it was bombed. Yes, yes, one time a crazy white guy drove some doctored up cow shit into a building...

Strange world, huh?

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Photos

Monks galore
This is how the Burmese travel

Nylon Ice Cream Parlor
If you go there say hi to the neat kids that work there, we tried talking to them about Jet Li and they wanted to bring us a Jelly Ice Cream.

Mandalay cab
They drive on the right in Burma to rebel from their British colony days but most of the cars are ancient or cheap Japanese ones so they have right hand drives, makes it interesting to say the least

Ominous statue #2
NOT VERY ENCOURAGING.

Mingun Paya
World's largest pile of bricks. A king wanted to make this three times higher but he died too soon, much to the relief of the slaves building it.

World's longest teak bridge
at 1.2 kilometers

Internet in Burma
So Internet is available, sort of, except its all dialup so you're partying like its 1999, and then they have to go through all the URL bypasses for all the banned sites, and THEN as soon as I'd start typing something the power would go off and I'd lose everything. So I quit trying after a while. Senti was lucky, it popped back up after this picture was taken.

Oh, Benjamin!
I had a hell of a time getting rid of this bill because of that slight discoloration at the top. I even gave Mr. Franklin a bath but it didn't come out

Boat to Bagan
OVERPRICED, but better than the bus. Moths outnumbered humans 5,000:1

Vendors
They throw bananas to you while you're on the boat because they want you to buy them, I did they tasted like crap though.

Comments

[ablondon]

Burma?
Amazing photos. I can't believe I didn't see you while I was there. Weird. I'm in Chang mai heading to bkk then the islands. where are you?