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To my great disappointment, I woke with a sore throat. Usually if I'm going to get a respiratory infection, it happens just after I arrive or when I first get home.
Myanmar 2001 - Part Three - Mandalay, 3 Ancient Cities and Mingun
Dougburnett2003-11-23 19:18:10
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Mandalay, Thursday, February 15
To my great disappointment, I woke with a sore throat. Usually if I'm going to get a respiratory infection, it happens just after I arrive or when I first get home. I have always blamed this on the hours spent in the poorly circulated air of a crowded plane. Anyway, there was nothing I could do about my throat then: I had another plane to catch.
I arrived in Mandalay at around 9:30. The first thing I noticed was how new and modern the airport was. Outside I found out what that was going to mean to me: the taxi tout told me that the fare to Mandalay would be 3000 Kyat and not 500 as I had expected. It took a few minutes to digest this, but in the end I could see I didn't have any other option. In the parking lot we got into a car with the driver and headed off.
The tout spoke excellent English and while he was pitching me on his tours, he also told me a lot about Myanmar. He said, or example, that it would be completely safe for me (meaning a white man) in Myanmar because the criminals knew they would get in big trouble if they bothered a tourist. He said, "Every now and then a thief will mistake a Japanese tourist for a local Chinese and pick his pocket." He claimed the police make a real effort to catch those crooks. Actually this bears out my observation that the more repressive the government, the safer it is for tourists.
While we were talking he got out a list he had printed that listed his service. He had city tours as well as others into the area surrounding Mandalay. I was, in fact, interested in visiting the three so-called "Ancient Cities" of Mandalay (Amarapura, Sagaing, Inwa) so we talked a little about that. He wanted $20 for a full day tour. This sounded like a good price, but I wasn't quite ready to sigh up yet.
At first the highway was new and wide, but it soon deteriorated into the standard
...
See photographs from:
Burma (Myanmar) Gallery
