Royal Capitals and Record Breakers

Thursday, December 15, 2011
Mandalay, Myanmar
We had breakfast on the hotel lawn in the dark before driving to the airport for our flight to Mandalay. We were surprised to find the airport packed with tourists and a long list of flights departing to various destinations. Despite advertising a brand new Wifi facility, services were pretty low tech at the airport. There was no automated departure board, for example, just an employee shouting out the flight number and waving a notice in the air.

The flight, on an ATR 72 decorated for Christmas again, took just 30 minutes . Our new guide met us at Mandalay airport. He was called Zin and already seemed much more enthusiastic about his role that the guide we had had in Bagan. He told us a little about the way of life in Mandalay as we drove through fields of peanuts, mangoes, coconuts and bananas.

Our first visit of the day was to be to a monastery but this one would be a bit different as we were to watch the monks taking their lunch. This took place each day at 10.30am when 1000 monks queued up with their bowls. Sponsors often offered them gifts - sweets, bottles of pop, candles, pens and chocolate bars, but their main meal consisted of steamed rice which was served from enormous cooking pots. It was a colourful spectacle despite the crowds of tourists snapping away for fun. It took quite some time for all 1000 monks to file past. Zin later showed us the small museum located in the house of the founder of the monastery and we also stopped to watch in fascination as some workers tried to dig a new bore hole for water .

We then drove to the lake to walk across the famous U Bein bridge in Amarapura. This iconic bridge was built of teak wood and connected the mainland with the royal palace during the years that the capital was in Amarapura, 1783 -1857. Many of the posts are original and the bridge stretches for 1.2kms. It was a pleasant walk although it felt a little scary at times as the boards were broken and loose in places and there were no railings or walls on either side. We explored the village at the end of the bridge and visited the 5 tiered Kyauktawgyi pagoda before recrossing the bridge. There were pleasant views of fishermen on the lake and water buffalo and oxen working in the nearby fields.

We were to have lunch in Ava, another former capital, 1364 -1841. To reach the area we took a boat across the river. Lunch was in quite an upmarket restaurant. We were the only customers but one or two other tourists turned up later . We were starting to recognise people who were on similar itineraries to ours. We toured the various historical sites of Ava by horse and cart. This was novel but rather bone shaking. There is little left of the Ava royal palace, just a swimming pool but nearby is an impressive teak monastery, a watchtower and a huge brick monastery built by the then queen in 1822.

We visited a few workshops on our drive back to Mandalay, weaving, wood carving, embroidery, granite carving and gold leaf making, all labour intensive and totally manual.

We finished the day at Mandalay's famous Buddha site Mahamuni Paya. The ancient Buddha figure at the centre of the pagoda is much venerated. It was cast in bronze but over the years it has been covered in gold leaf to a thickness of 15cm. We were beginning to flag by now and found it difficult to show a lot of enthusiasm. It had been a long day and we were pleased finally to reach our hotel in the city centre .

Zin had told us that there were lots of restaurants near the hotel and also beer stations where they sold draught beer and provided barbecued food and Chinese food. So when we emerged later we had high expectations of the evening. We found though that the city was not really pedestrian friendly. There was a lot of traffic, no street lighting and broken pavements. Just around the corner we found the Mann Restaurant which gets a mention in the Lonely Planet guide. This was a traditional restaurant but packed with tourists. They found us a table at the back and we had quite a tasty meal. As the tourists ate up and left some locals started to appear. We decided against staying for a drink as we were on a mission to find the beer stations. Half an hour later we were back at the hotel having walked some distance and found only teashops. We would be having words with Zin in the morning!

We finished the evening sitting at the rather boring hotel bar with an expensive drink, tearing our hair out as we tried to coax some life into their much vaunted internet system.

The breakfast buffet was reasonable but not enhanced by the background music which was Jim Reeves singing Christmas carols. Zin collected us at 8.30 and we drove the short distance to the riverside. This was a colourful area where all manner of boats were moored. We were going to be travelling upstream to the village of Mingun . Our boat was moored about three boats away from the shore and was reached by a minor assault course of precarious planks and steps. Three deckchairs awaited us on the top deck and we settled down for the hour’s trip. It was very pleasant although a little chilly. We passed ferries packed with villagers heading for Mandalay, fishing boats and cargo boats transporting teak logs.

Mingun was a comparatively tranquil spot with a number of attractions, the main one being the huge unfinished pagoda. The king who commissioned it died before it was completed and it was allowed to collapse. Today it features in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s largest pile of bricks. Nearby was another entry in the Guinness Book of Records, the world’s largest cast bell still in working order. A gleaming white pagoda gave good views all around but for the best views we had to climb up the huge unfinished pagoda. It was rather rough under foot (we had had to remove our shoes of course) but with the help of some friendly local lads who gave us a hand to get up the tricky bits we reached a platform overlooking the river. Later we lingered in the village chatting with Zin over tea before heading back to our boat. It came as a pleasant surprise to find that they had laid out a table for us with bananas, beer and peanuts. It was a lovely return trip and now a lot warmer too.

We had taken Zin to task over the "beer stations" and so for lunch he found us one overlooking the river where we could survey all the action on the waterfront and watch the boats coming and going .

One of the places we were supposed to visit in Mandalay this afternoon was the venue for the “Buddha Tooth Relic” and so off limits at the moment. Instead Zin took us to a rather nice teak monastery with some fine wood carvings. Later we drove to the Royal Palace which occupies 4 sq kms in the city centre. A wide moat surrounds it and security is high as these days it houses the central administration for Upper Myanmar. Unfortunately little of the original palace survives but about half of the original buildings have been reconstructed. These give some feeling of the opulent life of the royals. The last king and queen were ousted by the British in 1885. When we asked Zin if any of the royal family remained in Myanmar he surprised us by saying that we had met one that morning - one of the other tour guides we had chatted with in Mingun!

We then visited our third Guinness Book of Records site of the day, the world’s largest book. This is in fact a series of stone tablets carved with Buddha’s teaching . Each is stored in a little white pagoda. There are 279 of them.

By now the sun was starting to sink and so we made our way up Mandalay Hill for yet another sunset. We could drive most of the way but had to climb through a monastery, and past a lot of souvenir stalls, to reach the viewpoint. It was packed with tourists, a lot of whom we now recognised. As soon as the sun had set it was a race back to the vehicles to join the procession down the hill.

Zin had given us different directions to the beer stations tonight and we had more success in locating them. We had some draught beer and some fairly good food at one but were soon the only customers left and so returned to the hotel.

Keith went down with a bad stomach on Saturday morning and decided to give the day’s trip a miss. So I set off alone with Zin and the driver for an excursion to Pyin U Lwin, a hill resort two hours away from Mandalay .

As we began to climb up into the hills we passed flower sellers and roadside vegetable markets. The area was particularly fertile and the produce looked good and fresh. We were following the main road to China (from Mandalay it is about 250 miles to the Chinese border and the same distance in the other direction to the Indian border) and many of the trucks on the road were carrying melons and orchids for the Chinese market. As the gradient increased we saw increasing numbers of vehicles in difficulties. Rickety old Myanmar buses had broken down at the roadside (international sanctions have made obtaining spares almost impossible) and many of the old cars were having to stop and open the bonnet to let their engines cool down.

The town of Pyin U Lwin is situated at 3000ft and became important as a hill station for the British. There are many old colonial buildings, most looking the worse for wear now and a clock tower that is rumoured to have been a gift from Queen Victoria . It was a little cooler than Mandalay and our guide Zin had come prepared with scarf and gloves.

We first visited the lovely botanical gardens. These too were very English, with flower beds planted with familiar annuals, a small aviary, Latin names for all the trees and bushes and a large central lake. It was very pleasant to wander around but Zin warned that there was to be a music festival later when the hip hop band Iron Cross would appear and that soon the garden would fill with crowds of young people. Because of this event the orchid house, the butterfly house and the tower were all closed and so our visit finished more quickly than anticipated.

We then had a drive around the town to see some of the old British built houses. There are also many newly built very expensive houses which Zin and the driver looked at in awe. The town is a major military centre with a couple of academies and central administrative offices . Clearly some important and/or rich people lived here.

For lunch we went to a Chinese vegetarian restaurant. It was airy and comparatively clean and offered a good buffet lunch utilising many of the fresh vegetables grown in these parts. Next we stopped to see the obligatory daily golden pagoda before continuing to Pwe Kauk Falls. This was a popular spot for the army cadets and their families to swim and have picnics. Today their numbers were swelled by visitors attending the concert in the gardens.

Back in the town we had a walk around the market area. The British had brought Indian Army personnel and Gurkhas with them and the town is still home for many of these. Their market stalls sold mainly sweaters, the speciality in this “cool” town. Another feature was the colourful horse drawn carts which were driven around town and looked like something from the wild west.

As we descended again to the hot plain we could see the huge area of land designated as the country’s “Silicon Valley” . The access roads had been built and some large modern factory units constructed but it was not yet fully operational.

Keith seemed to have rallied during the day and we again headed for one of the beer stations for our dinner. We still can’t get used to there being no street lighting in a large city such as this, and tonight it seemed even darker as there had been a power cut and so the only light was from the handful of premises with a generator. We hit lucky tonight with our choice of restaurant. The food was good, particularly as they brought a lot of little side dishes, Newcastle v Swansea was on the TV and we were befriended by the owner who tried to teach us words and phrases in the Myanmar language. I have been trying to learn their numbering system and he patiently sat next to me and wrote all the numbers on a serviette and we then practised reading the motorbike number plates! The bill for two main courses with umpteen side dishes including soup and salad, rice, nibbles, 2 glasses of beer and 2 double whiskies came to a very reasonable £6.

Despite its romantic sounding name Mandalay is not a very appealing city. Its attractions lay outside the city and we have thoroughly enjoyed exploring these over the last three days. What’s more the people have been exceptionally friendly. Tomorrow we head up into the hills.
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