From Bagan we took the bus to Mandalay in the morning. We’d read a few bad reports about Burmese buses, but the first two that we took were just fine, as good as anything we’d had in Asia so far. My recognition of the name Mandalay comes from Mr Robbie Williams and his song “The Road to Mandalay”. For more cultured souls, it is famous from other works by sometime-residents Rudyard Kipling and George Orwell.
Mandalay has some of the most important Buddhist sites in Burma, is surrounded by ancient cities and is flanked by the Ayeyarwady (Irrawaddy) river, so there’s plenty to do there for a few days. On the day we arrived we met our friends Bonnie & Tim for dinner, having previously met them in both Yangon and Bagan before this. One of the best things about Myanmar is that you see the same people in different places, so you feel like you always have friends around to dine with or go for day-trips. It’s great to spend so much quality time together as a couple, but when you spend every minute together for 6 months, sometimes it’s nice to have other people to talk to!!
Our first tourist stop the next morning was the village of Mingun, on the banks of the river. Its main attraction is an old, incomplete stupa. When completed, it was supposed to be the largest stupa in the world, at 150m tall, but the king apparently scrapped the project as his astrologer told him that he would die when it was completed. This is the result, referred to in our guide book as a contender for the world’s biggest pile of bricks!! I’m sure the king died at some point anyway.
lots of bricks…
two monks taking in the scenery from the top
Other attractions in Mingun included the world’s largest ringing bell, and a beautiful white temple. We spent a couple of hours there with the group then took the boat back to Mandalay in the afternoon.
That night we went to climb up Mandalay Hill for sunset. The views were nice, if not spectacular, but while we were up there we were approached by a young couple who wanted to practise their english with us. We found out that they are both studying tourism to try to become guides, and they offered to guide us round the city the next day on their motorbikes FOR FREE, just to give them some experience. In every other country in Asia we’d have laughed at this and thought it was a scam, but the people here are so honest and friendly that we agreed to meet up with the girl – Haney – and another one of her friends the next day.
Diana with Haney & friend
After Mandalay Hill we met up with the people from our boat for dinner, then all of us went to see a comedy show called The Moustache Brothers. These are not just any old comedians – all 3 of them have spent many years in prison in Burma for questioning and “insulting” the government during their political comedy shows. They are now banned from performing in public, and are unable to do any work in Burmese for fear of being sent to prison again, so they are restricted to putting on shows in their house for tourists. These shows have to be marketed as traditional dance shows, and about 45 mins of the hour-long show had this sort of thing, with only 15 mins of cutting political comedy about how life in Burma has really been for the last 30 years. It wasn’t the greatest show I’ve ever seen, but it’s worth paying the money just to show respect to these people who have spoken out about and raised international awareness of the situation in Myanmar.
the english-speaking brother, and his beautiful wife!
The next day we met up with Haney and her friend, and the tour worked out great for us – they took us first to a huge teak bridge over the river, then to a monastery where the monks were lining up for their main meal of the day. It felt a bit like a zoo with 40 or 50 tourists watching the monks lined up to eat, so we didn’t stay for long.
monks lining up for their main meal
After the monastery, one of our guides found out from a local that there was a festival going on in the local villages, so we went to take a look. I’m all for respecting people’s beliefs and religion, but it was hard not to chuckle when we saw what was going on. Inside one of the village shrines, we saw a transsexual older man, heavily made-up and wearing traditional female dress, dancing around drinking whisky (johnnie walker no less) straight out of the bottle while the local people pinned money onto him/her. The nat then distributed the money around those there as she saw fit. We were told by our guide that the Nat is representing or embodying a spirit, and that the richer people in the community believe that they will receive good fortune and their businesses will prosper if they give money to the Nat. Very interesting stuff, and it had a real party atmosphere, with people of all ages, music, food and plenty of drink, even when we were there at 11am!!
the “nat” knocking back some whisky
We finished up the tour by visiting the Mahamuni, one of the most important buddhist sites in the country, where men are continually applying more gold leaf to a statue of the Buddha.
Mahamuni from the outside
the Buddha itself, with pilgrims applying gold leaf
Overall we really liked Mandalay. It’s a far more vibrant city than Yangon, and the people there were so friendly and willing to help, and love a chat to practise their English skills! I hope the future continues to look brighter for them. For us, it’s onto the night bus to Kalaw, and trekking to Inle Lake.
From Bankers to Backpackers 