Mandalay, Myanmar

Mandalay, Myanmar

I booked a bus to Mandalay and a room reservation at the Peacock Lodge at an over priced hotel for one night hoping the next day I would find something cheaper. There is a bus at 800 am, one at 900, and a bus leaving in the afternoon. The 900 am arrives ½ after the first but the first one goes through some small towns and lets a few people off along the way. I chose the first bus and paid for a taxi to take me to the bus station. That went terribly wrong due to taxi drivers wanting money and not listening. The driver spoke English, I told him I already paid for the ride and had a receipt. When we got to the bus station he asked me for money and I showed him the receipt and he rolled his eyes. I explained again, ‘I already paid’. I gave him the receipt and the card of the travel agency where I made the arrangements and walked on to the bus. The AC bus company was Mandalar Minn and the bus was brand new and came with a stewardess who handed out plastic bags to all those who thought they might need a second or already felt sick before the bus moved. The bus left promptly at 800 am with the intension of arriving at 500 pm. By this time I have begun adding an hour or two to the scheduled arrival. We drove up the ‘new’ highway with no traffic until we turned off the highway then it got precarious turning around to get back to the highway. The bus arrived an hour late at the edge of dusk. I hoped in a taxi and drove to the Peacock Lodge. It was $30/night, which is outrageous for what I need but all the backpacker type guesthouses were booked up so you do what you have to. Food at the Peacock was wonderful and prepared to order. I ate a late dinner and went for a walk around the neighborhood. The Peacock Lodge isn’t close to anything so a taxi is also necessary to leave.

The next morning I thought I’d pack and maybe just catch a train north knowing I was coming back through Mandalay after some river boating. Getting a train ticket proved very difficult first in one line then another then another. I was leap frogging with another couple. I was trying to get to as far north as possible and buses are out of the equation so it’s fly or train. Another couple Poul (Danish spelling) and Steph (Kiwi living in Fiji), they were trying to get to Na Pa, 12 hours north by train. When I heard them make contact and order their tickets I jumped over and got one more ticket. As requested we paid in U.S. currency with crisp clean bills, no blemishes, no bent corners or they won’t take them. After acquiring the ticket we moved away from the station and I asked them where they were staying and they told me they were staying at the Golden Dream, $20/night a brand new hotel open only one month in a great location closer to the center of town in a neighborhood 20 minutes from the train station and 20 minutes from the Irrawaddy River jetty. No. (225) 30^th street, between 89^thand 90^th streets. The hotel is north of Pyi Kyan Market. Tel: 09-259065955. They speak good English. And breakfast is served on the roof from 7-9. They have WiFi but not internet.

After settling in I hoped on a motorcycle taxi with a Shan Christian man also named Paul for a cheap way to see the town. We first went up to Mandalay Hill to the Pagoda and the viewpoint. I walked up through the maze of shops and when I got up to the Pagoda I noticed the colors had changed since the last time I was here from light blue with mirror squares to gold with mirrored squares. I’m pretty sure everything has been remodeled for the tourists. In Buddhism beliefs, everything is left to disintegrate at its own pace through weather and time.

After a Shan lunch Paul took me to Mandalay Palace for a look inside. There is a military entrance on the north side and a public entrance where they charge you $10 USD. This appears to go straight into the military pockets even though there’s a sign that tells where the money goes. This ticket is good for 5 days and covers a few other archeological zone sights. I still have strong feelings about giving anything, especially money to the Myanmar military.

I did a drive by the prison just to see how it looked. It was quiet but full.

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Hpa An to Yangon

Hpa An to Yangon

Jeffrey and I took off on the same bus heading north only to meet up with a honeymooning couple from England and their father who had joined them for a short spell. The three were heading to Yangon and at this point had plans to go to a few hours out of Yangon and stay a night where a monk is supposed to have reincarnated into a snake. The snake is supposedly 4 or 5 meters and eats 20 pounds of chicken a week. I love snakes but something didn’t feel right I think it was the fact that I’d have to get an accommodation and then get back on a bus the following day. I opted for continuing on to Rangoon. (I use both Yangon and Rangoon and Burma and Myanmar interchangeably. The people may live in Myanmar but if you ask them they are Burmese and they speak Burmese.) Jeffrey wanted to go to the Golden Rock Pagoda and stay in the town below that is considerably cheaper but he would have to climb up and down the thousand plus stairs. I hope he made it. Cheers Alfred.

The three English and myself hoped in a taxi at the bus station and headed into Yangon. Shared taxi, tuk-tuk, tours, etc. is the way to go. It brings the costs down considerably. Once again I didn’t have a reservation for a guesthouse so I just cruised along for the ride into town and low and behold they were a few doors down from the Cherry Guest House where I had stayed on my arrival. It’s a challenge to find cheap accommodations and in Burma you just have to ‘Bite The Bullet’.

Two nights in Yangon would allow me enough time to set up arrangements for Mandalay and get on with it. At this point I had heard mixed reports about Mandalay; ‘dirty’, ‘nothing special’, ‘lots of garbage’, ‘just another jump off point’, that kind of comment. I don’t remember it that way at all so now I had to go see for myself. I had made arrangements to meet up with a Nepali guide that was going to give me the heads up about Nepal and some side treks other than Everest and other popular treks I want something a little more remote and the two men I met in Moulmein from Colorado had spent almost three months in Nepal and had a lot of information for me and said the same thing, ‘Get away from the over-crowded treks. There are plenty more.’ The Nepal guide got held up elsewhere and I missed him.

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