Road to Mandalay

For some insane reason, I had booked the 6:15am Golden Myanmar flight from Yangon to Mandalay. Things started off in an eventful manner - woke up at 4, had a shower, waited for driver to arrive at 4:30am. Waiting, waiting, he didn't appear - turns out the bastard slept in. The hotel owner drove my luggage and I to the main road to flag down a driver. Thank goodness there is no traffic at 4:30am because if there was, the slow-ass mother%$#er would've made me moss my flight. He was doing 40km in a 60 - 70km zone, plus would slow down to 40km every time there was water on the road. Note these are all estimate speeds as his speedometer was broken.

The plane flight was pleasant enough, except for the snooty Myanmar lady next to me. She had tried to be elegantly dressed, but fob style. She had plonked all 2 bags of hers on my seat, then acted outraged that I wanted to sit down in the seat I had paid for. To top that off, she went to the bathroom 3 times in the space of a 70 minute flight - once right after the seatbelt sign was off, once during meal time and after the captain's announcement that we were due to land.

At the airport, I was feeling very sorry for myself with my bags and crutches. It cost me USD12 (10K kyats) to get into Mandalay and my lodgings at Smart Hotel.

I arrived at the hotel by 8am which was way too early for check in. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I resembled an old flame that the hotel manager had dated back in his younger days, so was able to get a room and breakfast within 30 minutes. Note that the hotel manager was about 70, had the shakes and would die at any minute. He joined me for breakfast, expressed how upset at my ankle he was and would get cream for my leg. This ankle is just bad luck all over. One perk was that I was driven to the Royal Palace, which I dreaded walking to due to the heat, humidity and the fact that it was about a 2km walk.

For USD10, you can obtain a pass to a bunch of pagodas and the Royal Palace. I bought the pass and merrily went on my way, hoping I'd find something interested. Inside I was thinking what a hole Mandalay was.

The Royal Palace was restored in recent times as part of it was destroyed. The layout and buildings reminded me of an old-school kung fu movie. Had I been with someone, I probably would've been doing Mortal Kombat impersonations in front of the buildings. Alas it would've freaked out the German group that I was shadowing. There is a tower next to the main royal building, with a set of spiral stairs. I climbed up this tower to get a decent view of Mandalay and its surrounds. The Germans also joined me at the top eventually, in which this was my chance to pounce and get to know them. They were a good bunch and we took photos of each other. An Aussie couple also came up to the top for the view and this is when my day turned around for the better.

After introductions and the obligatory photo taking of each other, I started chatting to them quite happily. Their names were Andrew and Di and were a good few years older than I was.

Long story short, they allowed a vagrant into their lives for one day and I tagged along with them and their drivers to all the main sites of Mandalay, i.e pagodas and Mandalay Hill for sunset photos. The pagodas varied from either having the world's largest book (each page of the scripture is on a slab of stone/marble), being old looking teak wood pagoda or a marble Buddha. At the marble Buddha temple, a 'monk' accosted us when he saw us and started telling us in rapid-fire shit Engrish about the Buddha, chants, gods, etc. He also shook our hands, which we thought was odd, because you are not allowed to touch monks. After about 20 minutes of his drivel (which may have been legit) and noticing the setting sun, we told him we had to go. The monk then asked for a USD30 donation so he could buy new robes. We refused to pay. He then proceeded to deride us by saying that we're from a rich country and how shameful we were to not donate for his time and services. Prick. 

The sunset was quite nice, despite the haze around the city. The guide book had said the walk up the hill was 30 minutes. Judging by the gradient and the crazy driving of our driver, I'd say the hill would've been a good one hour to get up. Luckily we didn't insist on walking up the hill - would've missed the sunset for sure!

After sunset, Andrew and Di also invited me to come have dinner with them, which was very nice of them. We ended up at a joint called Super 81, which had rave reviews by their friends. The friends weren't half wrong - the food was amazing (from what I ate anyway), reasonably priced and massive servings. I was dropped home safe and sound by their driver afterwards.

Great day in the end with great people.

Mandalay itself - I'd give it one day there. It's a pretty sleepy, slow kind of town. Just like the Lovable Mandalay lace bra that we always had stock of at Myer.

Photos to come later! Photos added Oct 4 - yes I'm tardy.

Entrance to the Royal Palace

Halfway down the road to the Royal Palace

These guys love using glass and mirrors

View of the Royal Palace from the top of the watchtower

At a temple built entirely out of teak wood

Temple built from a lot of marble. It was reconstructed recently, using the old foundations as a base

Andy and Di making their way up the stairs... because they can walk fast :)

Someone had time to use marble slabs as pages and etch the Buddshist scriptures

Example of one page. These are kept in a white structure behind bars

Starflower tree needs some help

If you see this 'monk', tell him to bugger off

Di pouring water on the Tuesday Buddha

View from the top of Mandalay Hill temple

Not often you see shocking pink tiles in a temple. Trust me. I've been in a lot of them by now

Sunset over Mandalay

The American's food list for Mandalay. Feel free to use if you ever go there

Rained out in Yangon

The second day at Yangon did not offer too much.

I had a late morning, enjoyed the scrumptious breakfast and left Bike World by 10:30am.

Caught a taxi to the Bogyoke markets (formerly Scott's market) in the hopes of finding a longyi. For those not in the know, a longyi is a long piece of cylindrical fabric that you wrap around yourself. Both men and women rock the longyi in Myanmar. Bogyoke market is the main market in Yangon, and there is meant to be over 1100 stalls - so should be a good chance to find a longyi, right? Wrong - I'd gone on a day where Bogyoke market was closed.

Undeterred I walked along Bo Gyoke road and came across another main road called Shwedagon Pagoda Rd. 19th Street is meant to be where all the good eateries and pubs are, so I made my way there from 32nd Street. The street life was bustling with street sellers trying to entice their wares, old men sipping their red ochre betel leaf spit into the pavement cracks and the wet, warm feel of approaching rain. The heavens opened when I arrived to 22nd Street - luckily I had the foresight to duck under a bus shelter. The rain showed no signs of letting up, so I made my way to 19th Street between intermittent heavy downpours. 19th Street showed no signs of the eateries I'd been told, so I walked down slowly when the rain had lessened. Either I had the wrong 19th Street or the places were closed because I could not find a damn place to eat.

I walked into the adjacent street to check it out, but by then the rain was starting its backlash again. Luckily there was a small eatery so I sat in there and had lunch. By this time (1:45pm) I'd had it with the rain - I was soaked and my feet were turning a burnt orange colour, thanks to all the betel leaf spit in the street mixing with rain. My ankle support is now a patchy mustard orange colour due to this rainy day. I caught a taxi back to Bike World, where I did some bits and bots online until the rain subsided.

At 4:30pm, the skies were still overcast but had finished their rumbling. I walked out to Pyay Rd and crossed the busy road to walk alongside Inya Lake. This is where Burmese young couples go to where daring sleeveless shirts and shorts, plus to slyly make out. It was quite pleasant to look out across the lake and see little islands dotted about in it. At the end of the lake, I was back onto Pyay Rd, so I caught a taxi to check out The Strand Hotel. Peak hour had hit Yangon, so the journey took about 30 minutes. It didn't help that the driver took me to Central Hotel instead of Strand Hotel.

Strand Hotel costs about USD300 a night in the low season. Upon entering, I could see why. Strand is located on Strand Rd, which is along the port side of Yangon. It is a very colonial English building and the inside has been restored to its former glory. I could very easily imagine a bunch of stuffy monocle'd Englishman boasting about their jungle adventures in a setting of cream walls and dark woods, sitting in leather overstuff chairs with G&T served to them by the Burmese maid.

As I couldn't find the restaurant, I settled for a Strand sling and some peanuts at the bar, then made my way home at 8pm.

Yangon

Arrived to Yangon safe and sound. I had bonded with another priority customer on the plane - a guy by the name of Chen, who had busted his shoulder at the Full Moon party by jumping through a fire hoop. Upon disembarking, we agreed to meet up for dinner near his hostel that night.

It took me about 40 minutes to get there since the taxi driver took forever to arrive, plus I was about 15 minutes away from the Chinatown riverfront area. On top of that, the hostel was poorly signed, in amongst a series of one way streets which meant I had actually passed by the hostel 3 times but not realised. An Aussie named Ryan joined us for dinner at a local restaurant just up the street.

Plans to meet up for the next day were briefly discussed. Basically we would meet at the ticket counter at Shwedagon Pagoda to check it out. Little did we know that there are 7 ticket counters around the Myanmar's oldest pagoda. There is a USD8 fee to enter and have your shoes minded.

We also went to see the Sule pagoda, which is in the heart of Yangon. The heart of Yangon is the zero point where all directions are started from (within Myanmar). Sule pagoda is nice, but not as impressive as Shwedagon. It also cost USD4 (USD3 entry + USD1 for shoe minding).

We had lunch at a local dive, then walked about 21 blocks back to the hostel that Chen and Ryan were staying at. They had a long nap of 1 hr, whereas my nap was interrupted by the monk's chanting in the streets below.

By now it was about 2:30pm, so we decided to go eat at the same local restaurant from the previous night. The young kid recognised us which was cute. He was just so smiley and happy to give us our meals. Since it was a tea house, he even went across the road to get us massive bottles of Myanmar beer. A cool breeze kicked in, which meant that the rain came thick and fast moments later. It gave us the perfect excuse to just chill and drink.

By 5:00pm we'd called it quits and I headed back my digs at Bike World. I caught a taxi which had two women in the front seat - one to drive, the other to navigate. It was funny yet worrying to hear them bicker over which ways was the right way to go back to my accommodation. We made it in the end, which is all that matters :)