Mandalay

 Mandalay is a place that is referenced a lot in popular culture; literature, music and there's even a casino in Las Vegas with the name. Before I came to Burma I had in my head this notion that Mandalay would be a beautiful old city with lots of interesting buildings and remnants from a bygone era. I thought Yangon would be huge and more of a busy, bustling overcrowded port city. I really liked Yangon and whilst traveling I had heard more and more negative things about Mandalay such as; it was dirty, crowded, smelly and there wasn't much to see as well as guest houses being way overpriced. So I wasn't expecting much when I finally made it here, and in fact most of the things I had been warned about were true. It is crowded, dirty etc,. but the thing I disliked the most was that it was not pedestrian friendly like Yangon. In Mandalay the roads are busy and very difficult to cross, not to mention that they are so dusty - it's just not fun walking about. Most people either rent bikes or get a motorbike taxi, in Yangon there are no motorbikes, they were banned a few years back.

Despite this I had a great time in Mandalay and saw a lot when I was there. It was great to see the moustache brothers (BBC News article), I visited quite a few temples and other places after hiring a bike for the day. I also enjoyed some of my best meals here, there was an amazing street curry near the E.T. hotel where they made delicious fresh roti's. Also stopped at one shack where we read they sold donuts,. great tip and a great way to break up an intense day. The locals I met in Mandalay were really nice, I chatted to one monk for ages - it was a really cool experience.

Really nice monk who had pretty good English, he was living in the monastery just behind our hotel.

me!

This is just one of the many temples you find there.

Another monastery,. a monk in training maybe.

Old building.

Doing the washing.

B

Prayer beads.

Incense sticks.

Cats are the same all over the world, they take the best spot and sit there all day.

Pyin Oo Lwim

 Pyin Oo Lwim was never on my itinerary but I wanted to make the train journey over Gokteik bridge after I heard about it. Pyin Oo Lwim is the obvious place to break the journey up between Hsipaw and Mandalay, I'd heard it's an old colonial town with some nice botanical gardens.

Pyin Oo Lwim is only 40 odd miles from Mandalay but it feels very different as it is a hill station situated at just over 3000ft. It became the summer capital of the country during the British rule, so people could escape the heat of Rangoon. There is a big Indian influence in the town which gives it a different feel from other places in the country. We found a great South Indian restaurant where they made fresh masala dosa's in the morning and curry for lunch and dinner. I had an egg dosa for breakfast which was so tasty. There were also a few Indian sweet shops - I forgot just how sweet they are,. I tried a few and they are so sickly. 

The gardens were really nice and well kept. It was nice chilling out for a few hours just walking round, eating ice cream and doing the occasional jump photo. The bird aviary was full of exotic birds, outside that there were monkeys swinging through the trees. The lake was pretty big and full of swans and there was a tall viewing tower,. all in all pretty pleasant. Not something new but just cool seeing it in Burma,. and watching the families out having fun and getting a break from Mandalay.

Pretty standard.

Sadly no edible fruit left.

The scenic jump shot.

This one wanted some leg exercise.

Anyone know what bird this is?

View coming down the stairs from the tower. I love the hat!

Hsipaw and onwards

From Inle Lake I caught an overnight bus to Hsipaw. It was around 15 hours, the bus ended up going through Mandalay, quite a roundabout route but maybe the better roads make for a quicker journey. As with all the other buses I've taken the aircon is on full blast so its icy cold and there's cheesy karaoke videos on the go the whole time. I didn't get any sleep and we arrived in Hsipaw at some horrible hour in the middle of the night. We walked down one of the streets that looked like it had some activity,. looked like a bakery preparing their morning cakes and breads. Further down the street we found a guest house. I'm sure it was called Yee Shin,. but I haven't found any references on the internet since. It was a bit comical sorting out rooms, the poor guy was so tired. First we asked if he had any spare rooms,. he had,.. then we asked if we could see one,. we could,. we ended up getting a tour of the guesthouse and he opened all of the 10 rooms - including a new part of the hostel where the roof hadn't been built yet,. the cheap rooms with a view of the stars. There was no one staying here! The whole place was empty. This ended up being my favourite guest house I stayed at,.The hostel was less than a month old when I stayed there and the owner's were really friendly. We were talking about collecting different currencies from different countries as souvenirs, and the following day they went to the bank and got some rare 1 and 5 kyat notes for us.

Hsipaw was cool, and I enjoyed my time here,. it was more about the people I was with than the sites though. I travelled with the Catalonian couple who I met on the trek,. and an Aussie couple. We visited the local hot springs and wandered around town. In the afternoon we went to the bakery we had walked past from the bus but they were just closing. We were told you could get tea and cakes there and we were really up for that for some reason. We found another place that sold cakes but it didn't have any tea or anywhere to sit. We chatted and joked with the owner's for a bit about how we really wanted to sit down and have tea and cakes,. and the guy next door brought out a wee table and some chairs for us to sit on. They made us some tea and we ordered loads of cakes. Sounds really lame but it was so much fun!! We brought a lot of customers to the shop cos we looked so strange - so everyone won in the end.

The next morning we took the train to Pyin Oo Lwim. The aussie chap was sick for most of the journey and by this point everyone in the group had now had the same bug that I'd had. It was a running joke that we kept passing it to each other, so I was due for another bout soon. We loaded up on snacks for the train journey, which wasn't very far but it was sooo long,. the train moved at a snail's pace and it was incredibly bumpy, you felt it might come off the rails at any moment. The highlight of the trip was going over the Gokteik viaduct, which is the tallest bridge in Burma,. built in 1901 by the British it was the world's tallest railway trestle at the time. It's pretty scary going over it,. I was right by the door hanging out with my camera round my neck and holding tightly onto a handrail.

Stocking up on fruit.

Fooling around before the train comes.

Deciding what to buy, tough choice.

Pineapple express.

Approaching the Gokteik bridge.

Gokteik bridge.

It's only a single track so this train had to wait for us to cross.

We went so slowly over the bridge,. I was a bit scared as everyone rushed to one side to look out the window.

This was one of the things I loved about Burma,. the people are always smiling.

Inle Lake again

So today I want to write about the highlight of my trip to Burma. We set off with our rented bikes and packed lunch which consisted of a watermelon and a papaya. We cycled for ages and the road never got that close to the Lake so we kept going, I don't know how far we went but it felt like a very long way on the poor quality bikes. At some point we got off the main road and followed a couple of tracks to try to get to the lake shore, and have a wee swim. Just when we were going to give up we were cycling through this tiny random village when we saw some locals so we gave them the universal swimming body language and they smiled and said yeh,. We followed them for a bit and they brought us to a couple of boats which they took us out on the lake with. It was a beautiful day and the reflection on the lake was like glass. They paddled round a bit but it wasn’t that deep for swimming and there was quite a lot of weeds and stuff so I didn't bother going in. We were content with relaxing while they checked the nets they had left for fish (in one of them they caught a couple of fish). Afterwards we went back to the village and we were invited to have tea with them. We brought our watermelon and papaya and before long the whole village of 20 or so people were crammed into this tiny hut. We stayed for awhile and took some photos of all of us, then headed back on our bikes. That night we got some of the photo’s developed and the next morning we took a taxi out to the village and got the driver to translate some stuff for us, we shared some food and we gave them the prints of the photos we had taken the day before – it was really special!

Our local boatman getting to ready to row with his leg

They thought it was funny that I wanted to take pictures of what for them is such an ordinary thing - rowing!

Joan and Ellia, a lovely Catalonian couple I travelled with.

Reflections.. 

A couple of trout?

I was waiting for him to fall in but it never happened.

Add caption

The villagers enjoying tea and watermelon.

They were loving the iPad.

Geography quiz time!

Photos!

What trip isn't complete without a spot of hitchhiking. Myself and Joan.

Inle Lake

Arriving at the lake we boarded one of the long thin canoe like boats, which carried us down a long river and onto the lake itself. It was a nice change from walking and although there were lots of tourists, there were also lots of locals doing their thing; washing, swimming or just sitting on the river bank.

Our boat was like this except it didn't have comfy seats, which was fine with me.

Gondolier?

 

The engine gave a really cool spray as we sped across the water.

On the lake itself we saw some fisherman doing the famous 1-legged rowing, it looked amazing and the driver of our boat slowed and pulled up quite close so we could get a good view. I noticed however that they didn't seem all that concerned about fishing, and they were in an odd place too - they were right next to Nyaungshwe the biggest town on the lake, it looked like a show for the tourists rather than fisherman going about their daily routine.

classic pose: looking off into the distance as if contemplating deep thoughts...

So we arrived in town and went to the hotel to get our bags - the trekking company sent them from Kalaw so we only had to carry our small bags during the hike. They weren't there yet so we hunted for somewhere to stay, the first few places we asked in were full. I spoke to a Polish couple who told me they were staying in the local monastery. We had a look and it was cheap, clean and spacious,. just to be sure we checked a few more guesthouses and they were full too so we stayed at the monastery. Apparently in high season when the town is full the monastery opens up to take care of the extra tourists. After a cold shower we headed out to get some dinner, I had an avocado salad with tomatoes and lemon juice for less than a dollar,. then we stole some wifi from a hotel and had a couple of beers.

The Monastery.

The next morning we got up early and had some strong coffee, samosas and some other fried food for breakfast, very healthy! We picked up some fruit for lunch; a papaya and a watermelon then rented bikes for the day. We cycled some distance! Stopping at a temple and various villages, the scenery was wonderful it felt like we were riding through Tuscany. We stopped at a vineyard too, and sampled some of their wine - I wasn't that impressed but I've been spoiled after working at Kina Beach in New Zealand. All in all a cracking day, my favourite day of the trip actually. 

The breakfast of semi-finalists.

This poor guy looks exhausted.

Red Mountain Vineyard, good views and average wine.