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Yangon and Mandalay, Myanmar
Wednesday, Dec 31, 2003

On the road to Mandalay

David Murray
2007-02-21 18:39:33

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Back in 2000, I had to decide whether to go to Myanmar or stay on Koh Tao. I stayed. Maybe it was a mistake, only time would tell.

Things had changed since 2000, FEC's were no longer needed so, once through customs and we had our bags, we were swamped by taxi drivers offering to take us into the city. We found one, and as he was driving us to our hotel, he did the hard sell, wanting us to do a tour of Myanmar in his car. We considered it, but decided to go our own way. On the way in, we did see Shwedagon in the night all lit up, and we couldn't wait until the morning walk all over it. In the morning, we changed our US dollars in the markets and then walked up to the Paya. It was as good in the day as it was the previous night. It was huge, with loads of little payas spread over the complex. Eventually, we left as we were hungry and we needed lunch. After lunch, we walked over to Chaukhtatgyi Paya. Home of a huge reclining Buddha. We had seen Wat Pho in Bangkok, but this was larger. We made our way back to Shwedagon to watch the sun go down and then we went back. At the airport the next morning, we jumped onto our plane as we were flying to Mandalay. The Stewardess, gave us her speech, here are the seatbelts, here are the air vents. I looked at the card and it stated that in event of a water landing, use your seat as a flotation device. We are all going to die, rushed through my head. The food was good on the plane, so this made up for it. We dumped half the passengers off in Bagan, and then flew to Mandalay. From the airport, we jumped in a taxi, which would go no faster than 40 Klm/ph and eventually made it in to town. Dumped the bags off and started to walk the city. There is a fort in the middle of it. Each side is approximately 2 klm long. We walked all the sides, looking at various payas. There were some amazing ones to be seen, including one which held the worlds largest book. All the pages were held in separate little payas. After walking over 10 klms, we went back into the city and arranged a tour of the 3 ancient cities. We normally don't do this, but, time was not on our side, and this was the quickest way to get around. Mandalay City was great. Little tea shops everywhere and the only place to eat food was off of the street. US0.45c for 2 people. This was the only place to eat !!!!!