Mandalay

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26/11/2010 - 29/11/2010

From Bago I took the overnight bus to Mandalay. Luckily someone already warned me about the f* cold airco which is on all night, still caught a cold though.. To the contrary of most people I actually liked the city with its dusty roads. Okay it has a more busier atmosphere, mostly because of all the motorcycles (opposed to Yangoon where only government people are allowed to have a motorcycle). However i's a nice city to explore with a bicycle and so I did.

I rented a bicycle from Morris, local guy always hanging around outside the guesthouse. Morris turned out to be more then just the bicycle rental guy, he became more my personal local guide taking me to the cheap local good street restos, having tea with the locals, helping me to find the best place for buying souvenirs, etc. He was a very energetic, enthousiastic and..funny person. E.g. he would actually end every sentence with "yes, good idea!" even when "I have to take piss now, ..yes, good idea!"😊

I paid a visit to the main city pagoda, Mahamoni pagoda, which holds a big massive golden boedha. Next I continued my way more outside the centre to check out Shwe In Bin monastery, which is made completely out of wood; strangely I lost my way somewhere, but no worries. If you take out your guide to check the map, after 10 sec someone will come up to you and provide you with directions (now someone guided me all the way on his motorbike).

While sun was setting down I hurried to get to Mandalay hill on time to see all Mandalay bading in the red sunset light. And the extra sweat paid off, the view was amazing. It's also crowded with monks who like to approach you and practice their English.

Next day I went on a day trip to explore the nearby villages. I met some people in the morning and we (2 girls, BE and SWI,and 1 guy, FR) shared an unconformtable blue taxi bus (dated from the 60's) for the whole day. First we went to Sagaing to visit (again) some pagodas and a monastery where monks were enjoying their breakfast (enjoying....eating while big groups of tourist taking snapshots). Afterwards there was a very short visit to Inwa, and than to Anamapura to witness the sunset at the famous U Bein's bridge, world's largest teak bridge at 1,2 km. I think this was one of the niciest sunsets I have seen so far, perfect for picture taking. That evening we all had a nice dinner at a Nepal restaurant with a good cold beer.

Third day I met Morris again and he took me to several handcraft shops to get souvenirs. Tip: when you go to Myanmar take these free parfum samples with you. They absolutely love western parfum (works well with the ladies) and in the end got me a good deal. Quite funny when saying goodbye to the three salesmen, they were all glowing and already smelling of Paco Rabana (for sure they re gonna get lucky)

While the majority of the tourists go to Bagan afterwards I decided to go more up north...looking for some cooling off up in the mountains!

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Photos

mahamoni pagoda and its golden boedha
gets cleaned and layered with gold leaf every 4 hours

'the golden land'
..everywhere golden pagoda's..