The road to Mandalay

Our visit to Yangon was a brief one. We planned to return later to apply for our Indian visas, so we put the sightseeing off until then. Our first ‘real’ destination was Mandalay, the second largest town in Myanmar. After a night bus ride we reached the city exhausted and quickly retreated to our guesthouse for a rest. At a first glance, Mandalay appeared as a giant village, where a multitude of trishaw drivers peddle their trade on the streets and overloaded pick-up trucks chug up and down the streets. It looked interesting, but not particularly appealing.

In Mandalay the scarcity of tourists was readily apparent. In three days in the city I saw less than 20 people, of which 8 were a German group on an organised trip. Myanmar doesn’t seem to be on the tourist radar. Asking around, we discovered it is also low season; between November and February there are far more tourists. As a result, competition between trishaw and taxi drivers was rife, and hassle from vendors was becoming rather annoying. It is understandable, though. As I wrote in my Cambodia post, vendors and drivers at highly touristed sites have an easier life; there were hundreds of tourists in Siem Reap, against 20ish in Mandalay. Of course locals will try harder. I was followed by trishaw drivers begging me to accept a ride as they had no fares for the whole day.

In our quest of minimising our support to the government, we decided not to buy the combo $10 Mandalay ticket. This meant we couldn’t see most of the city sights, such as Mandalay Palace, which was built with forced labour in the 90’s in preparation for Visit Myanmar Year 1996. Never mind, though. The real appeal of Mandalay lies in the ancient cities in the countryside surrounding it; Amarapura, Inwa and Sagaing. We hooked up with a friendly taxi driver named Put Put who drove us around for the whole day, promising to avoid checkpoints where we would have to buy the combo ticket. The first stop was Maha Ganayon Kyaung, where we witnessed the monks’ lunch. The monastery is home to hundreds of monks, between 3 and 78 years of age. After the morning alms collections monks gather into the refectory to consume what they have; the sight of hundreds of monks eating lunch in silence was one of those ‘camera-candy’ moments. We stayed and talked to a young monk who briefly told us about his life in the monastery, and we told him about our life in the UK. Many people in Myanmar are interested about foreigners’ life; asking what we do and why we travel. Many are just willing to practice their English, asking standard questions like ‘What country you come from?’ and ‘How old are you?’ then replying with a smile and welcoming us to their country.

We spent the rest of the day visiting Sagaing Hill, home to 500 plus stupas and monasteries. It is a tranquil place, with covered walkways which we named ‘the Great wall of Burma’joining stupas on the hillside. The views from the top of the hill were of a vast expanse of golden stupas, with the Irrawaddy river on one side. We walked around in the afternoon sun, taking in the views and the atmosphere, joined by dozens of smiling monks, nuns and Burmese but not one other tourist. Same for Inwa, where we took a horsecart tour of the main sights. The countryside setting was what I loved about Inwa, rather than the sights themselves. We were followed by groups of children who wanted their picture taken posing like superheroes, then giggled looking at themselves in the camera. However, we also discovered that horsecarts are not the most comfortable way of travelling!

The day was drawing to a close with U Bein Bridge, the longest teak bridge in the world at 1.3 km. Once again, the bridge was not spectacular, but it provided a snapshot of life in the Burmese countryside. Men and women rested in the covered areas whilst vendors sold samosas and pakoras to the crowd. Others crossed the bridge back to their homes, whilst all around children played with kites and threw rocks at stray dogs. A small boy approached us with a smile, wanting to have his picture taken, then proceeded to challenge Nick in a rock-throwing competition. A few middle aged men advertising their ‘Maths BSc’ on laminated posters were in reality astrologers or palm readers, and seemed to attract a sizeable local clientele. They asked whether I wanted them to read my hand, but I replied I like surprises.