We don’t love cities, so only planned to spend a couple of days here in the capital. There’s a lot to see here though, with three old capitals and the main one all displaying ancient pagodas, surrounded by monasteries and with the amazing Ubein bridge to explore.
Day 78 cont – arriving in Mandalay to catch a Marionette show
The drive from Pyin Oo Lwin was interesting, watching the traffic weave in and out of itself in rush hour, and we made good time, arriving into Mandalay shortly before 6.
Whilst we had wondered whether we should have stayed on the train all the way to Mandalay, we would have arrived in around Midnight so we were feeling like we’d made the right choice!
I did question what we were doing here though, you could taste the pollution and I wondered what I was doing bringing my children into a place with such unclean air, exposing them to so many toxins. This was tempered by the interest watching people on the streets. There were so many people out, cooking on the side of the street!
After checking into our rooms we discovered a salad they’d left us. It was not nice – very bitter! Seemingly we’d arrived into Mandalay on the full moon festival. On one full moon of the year, they eat this salad before midnight, and cook and dance on the streets as it is light enough to see (which explained all the street cooking!). The salad is made from garlic, peanuts and a bitter root and is meant to bring health.
We asked for dinner recommendations as we had time before our show and were advised to go to the Golden Shan, about 400m down the road. We walked in and shared a table with some other people as it was pretty busy. That’s always a good sign right?! It had one side open to the road, about 5 tables and seemed to be a buffet. With no idea of cost or what everything was, we went up to sample some food, and were then bought peeled carrot and cucumber sticks, and a thin soup to go with it.
The food was good, and reasonably priced, and being a buffet, was very quick. We used the hotel tuk tuk to get across town to the theatre with most of an hour until the show. When we got there we realised that we’d not restocked the cash and so did not have enough for the tickets. D’oh! So Chris had to get a taxi to take him to a cash point and back.
Whilst he was gone, the kids watched We Bare Bears (a dodgy kids cartoon) and I was brought some more of the full moon salad. This version was edible.
An elderly gentleman with a bad foot was sat to the side next to a display of the marionette puppets.
He offered me some of his tea and we tried to have a chat. He used to be a puppeteer here, but then his foot went bad, so now he makes them; painting and decorating them. This style of puppeteering, with the wooden marionettes, is a dying art which this theatre are trying to save.
Chris finally returned and joined us for tea and salad, before we paid and went into the small, air conditioned theatre. It only seats 50 and there were perhaps 25 people there. This was always going to be a bit different…
There was an initial introduction in English about how the puppets used to be used to tell stories of the Buddha and to tell the news, so serious stories, rather than for comedy entertainment. These marionette puppets are built specially to be able to match dance moves.
The show opened with some cultural performances, a lady playing a traditional harp and a young woman dancing. This involved a lot of movement of the hands and arms, with the hand positioning being very important. It was quite captivating initially, but was a couple of minutes too long.
Then there were a series of puppet dances/scenes, telling stories. Some of these were brilliant, with the first one involving one puppet and candles being quite mesmerising. Another had some animals and then two armoured men fighting, which of course Aiden loved. I don’t know how they didn’t get the puppets lines tangled when they were constantly bashing them into each other!
During these shows they would occasionally draw back the top curtain and show the puppeteers at work. Clearly a lot of skill involved in the movements.
At the end they bought a couple of puppets out and got the kids to have a go.
By now it was gone 9pm and we were all tired so we headed back to the hotel for bed.
Day 79 – Mingun and Mandalay pagodas
After breakfast on the roof of the hotel, with views out over the city, we walked the 1.5km to the boat jetty for the boat to Mingun. There are no pavements really, and anything that is there is full of massive holes or blocked by scooters, so we joined the locals walking in the road. Luckily the first road was not very busy and we enjoyed wandering the streets, with locals staring at us and some saying hello and waving. Not many Westerners walk these streets I imagine! As we approached the river, the larger houses gave way to smaller wooden huts amongst the trees. A digger was pulling masses of trash from the side of a lake, which was totally covered at one end. Where they are planning to put the rubbish who knows.
The road alongside the river is one of the two lane ones, with a split carriageway. People live in the middle of this road, in homes built from bamboo poles, with woven sides, and canvas or corrugated iron rooves. Their dogs and chickens roam the sides of the road, and there is rubbish everywhere. They cook by the side of the road, the car fumes and dust flavouring their dinner. Some have stalls selling snacks and drinks. Unfortunately, it’s not somewhere I’d be willing to feed my kids (or myself) from.
We arrived at the jetty, where there were a number of coaches, and taxis and a whole load of boats. There’s not real jetty here, just a lot of boats all lashed side to side so you board by walking across a plank and then a number of boats. A small hut to the left sells tickets, with a return trip for the four of us at £7 (the kids are half price). Then you join the group waiting to board on the shore. We were pretty much the last on but managed to get seats under the cover for the journey. The sun was out and it was hot!
The hour long journey up was smooth, with the massive Mingun Pathodawgyi becoming visible from almost halfway. It looked like a cliff on the hillside initially, before looming as its own block as we got closer. With over 7 million bricks it’s the largest pile of bricks in the world. It was never finished however. It was meant to be dedicated to King Bodawpaya, started in 1790, but it was costing so much that allegedly his advisors made up a prophecy that when he finished it he would die. Unsurprisingly, he never then finished it, so only the 50m base exists, rather than the full 250m which would have made it the largest pagoda.
After mooring with the many other tour boats, we were accosted by people offering taxis around the site. Once claimed that it’s a two hour walk around, which I found hard to believe, unless an hour and a half of that is spent at the pagodas, in which case the taxi is kind of wasted! So we turned them all down. There were also attempts to sell us jewellery and fans from some of the young ladies. Evie was desperate for a fan, so we haggled a bit and got two. Anything to keep the kids cool! And we’re here to spend some of our money on locals, just not on jewellery and things that we do not really need.
A young man talked to us as soon as we were off the boat, initially he seemed to just be saying hello, but then, of course, he followed us towards the map. This points you on the route around along the river first and then back past the Pathodawgyi. He called out to us and suggested another route to avoid the crowds. Our magic words so we followed him. Our self nominated guide’s name was Min Min. He took us straight to the ‘largest pile of bricks in the world’, and then around to the left hand side and the back where there were very few people. He is a history student supposedly, on a study holiday at the moment so he’s picking up some guiding work to help pay for his studies. He also likes photography and turned out to be very good at it! Most the following pictures were organised and taken by him – he loved it and we were pretty happy to get some super pics.
The first one took us so long to get even vaguely right as we had no idea what he was trying to do! To get this shot he starts a panorama with us on teh left, then, once he’s moved off us, we run around behind him and line up on the other side, before he pans over us. Pretty clever but we were running all over the place!
It’s probably a good job the pagoda was never finished, as it has taken some serious damage from earthquakes since and would most likely not be standing anymore.
Min Min then lead us through the back streets to the next pagoda. This is his village so he knows his way around! One other couple followed us, but apart from that we had this route to ourselves.
The Hsinbyume Pagoda was built for King Bagyidaw’s first consort (and cousin), Princess Hsinbyume, who died in childbirth. It is therefore much more delicate and painted white. This place is Instagram famous, with its steps, and the waves around the edge. It is repainted every year to keep it looking fresh and was pretty busy. Everyone is trying to get those special shots. Min Min knew how and where to get them all! He ushered us around, telling us where and how to stand, as we crisscrossed back and forth and finally headed up the steps right to the top for the views. A beautiful pagoda, with a very welcome breeze at the top!
Less than a hundred metres away is the housing of the largest ringing bell in the world (Russia has the largest bell but it’s damaged and so no longer rings). At 90,000kg it’s pretty big! The bell was cast to be part of the huge stupa Mingun Pathodawgyi.
You can ring it yourself, and even go inside it whilst others ring. It’s not as deafening as you might think, but still pretty loud!
We exited onto the main street, which was expectedly lined with shops selling clothes, jewellery and other trinkets. People wandered everywhere and tuk tuks passed up and down the street.
With an hour left till the return boat, we decided on some lunch, so Min Min showed us to the Garden Café which is a quiet place sat on the edge of the river under the shade of trees. Perfect and only a couple of other people here! Plus there were puppies, pretty tiny puppies which the kids could watch from the top of the wall. Meat skewers and rice and some cold drinks later we moved on to look at the giant lions which were built to guard the massive pagoda. These were finished, but were severely damaged by the earthquakes. Ones head is in the river, and the others is on the ground in front of it. Mysteriously 3 eyeballs have remained on the land at the foot of the statues though!
On the way back to the boat I stopped to buy some cooler floaty trousers from Min Min’s sister’s stall so we were pretty much last back on the boat.
The way back started smoothly, then I noticed that it was pretty quiet. No engine and we were moving very slowly. Hmmm. The engine went on and off for a couple of minutes, then there was a VERY angry phone call from the serving lady to some poor person and we were left drifting. At least downstream is the direction we’re trying to go!
People on board started to speculate as to what might happen, but we needn’t have worried. Maybe this happens a lot out here, but in non-Western fashion this wasn’t a drama. A nearby private tour boat made a beeline for us on it’s way back down the river, pulled in front, tossed us a couple of lines and within a few minutes we were being towed. Much to the amusement of the people on board both boats.
Progress was slower than it might have been, but we were moving. As we neared the jetty, we were cast off by our friends and a second boat came alongside this time, lashed itself to us and pulled us back in that way. A boat savvy American next to us explained that it’s too hard to dock a boat being towed, but by lashing us to another, they can turn our boat and therefore moor us.
Mooring was expertly done, with the other boat turning us and pushing towards the shore. All very simple and expertly done.
We had a tuk tuk waiting thanks to Grab (a taxi app) which took us across Mandalay for the second half of our sightseeing day. First stop, the Shwenandaw Pagoda. This beautiful pagoda is made of wood which is intricately carved.
It has been moved twice, the second time out of the Central Palace grounds as the King believed it was haunted by his father’s ghost (it had been his father’s royal apartments). He had it dismantled and resurrected outside the palace as a pagoda, which is the only reason it survived. All other wooden buildings in the Palace grounds were burned down in the bombings of WW2. Did we know that Myanmar was affected by WW2? I didn’t. It seems there were many parts of WW2 we were not taught at school! The Allies were fighting Japanese forces for control and in 1942 the Japanese dropped incendiary bombs, creating a huge firestorm which destroyed around three fifths of the wooden houses and killed an estimated 2,000 people. Later it was apparently said that a city which had taken 1,000 years to build was destroyed in an hour.
There were quite a few people here, but it wasn’t too crowded, especially on the other side, where there were wood carvers working on replacement parts for the pagoda. Some bits have been damaged over time by the rain and the dust in the air. These skilled craftsmen are replicating the beautiful carvings. Their work was exquisite! They gestured for the kids to come into the workshop and let them hold some mostly finished pieces. They spoke some English so we were able to gather that these take a week each to make.
Evie was a little less outraged by the ‘No women’ sign this time.
Close by is the Atumashi Monastery, which is a very large pagoda, with a massive inner hall, and relatively small buddha. No one was in this one.
Further up the road we arrived at another main draw, the Kuthodaw Pagoda or the Biggest Book in the World. As well as the main pagoda, this site has 729 mini pagodas, each one housing a tablet with the stories of buddha carved on it.
There’s also a large golden pagoda in the centre, smaller covered areas with Buddha statues and this model.
Some street sellers sat around these Buddhas wouldn’t take no for an answer and insisted they would paint me with some Thanaka for free so Evie and I let them. This paste is worn by the ladies of Myanmar, and some men, usually in a stripe of leaf shape. It’s a form of sunblock, smells delicious (sandalwood) and is meant to be good for the skin.
I think she hoped that we would then buy something from her, but I didn’t want any jewellery. Luckily another group of tourists arrived and she turned her attention to them.
On the way out we got caught up with people after photo’s again – seriously we should start charging!
Whilst we were watching all this, a man came to talk to us, asking us where we were from (the general conversation opener here) and then whether we needed a taxi now, moving on to what our plans were for tomorrow. We needed a driver so discussed fees and trip etc briefly before taking his contact details. We’d had a similar conversation with our tuktuk driver in the morning so we knew we had options.
We started the walk to Mandalay Hill, but saw another site on the way and went in. The Sanda Muni Pagoda. In this one the many small, white pagodas are so close together that you can’t walk between them, but they also seemed to house tablets. How do you read them??
Shoes and socks are not allowed in any of the Buddhist sites, so we reclaimed our shoes for what felt like the hundredth time today. Trainers were a mistake – flip flops would be much better!
Back on route to the bottom of Mandalay Hill. There are about 1700 steps to the top, these are covered but it was hot so we decided to get the shared shuttle buses which run from the bottom up. Not what we’d normally do, but after a whole day in the sun, we were all a bit fried. We didn’t get that far however. A tuk tuk driver offered us a lift, when we said we were walking to the hill he was saying it was impossible and Chris took a dislike to him so we moved on. He wasn’t taking no for an answer. Initially asking 5000 kyat for a ride to the top we got him to agree to 3000 after quite a bit of tooing and froing. Basically, we didn’t really like him so would only go with him if we were saving money.
He eventually agreed when we went to walk off so we hopped in. He was a strange chap, in the end I think most was just lost in translation and culture. On the way up he was trying to teach us Burmese, and laughing at our attempts, and then saying that today is a Happy Day as we are getting such a low price. But it’s Happy Day so he’s ok with it! Not sure whether he really was or whether he was hoping we’d give him more at the top… We had the usual fun on the road, but got properly clipped by a van that overtook us, a full on side shunt so it’s lucky that I wasn’t hanging my leg out the side, like Chris was! Our driver barely batted an eyelid! No road rage here.
At the top we were pointed to the lift or another building with stairs. Our driver insisted he’d wait for us when we came down and give us a ride to the hotel, but we were determined to walk at least one way on the steps so planned to walk down. He said again that it was impossible, too many steps for the kids, but we know our children. 1,700 is easy coming down! He insisted he’d wait, we told him not to bother and left, heading for the stairs. We had to remove our shoes again and were then faced with an escalator. Where are the stairs? Having removed our shoes already we went up anyway. Barefoot on an escalator was a new experience. A the top was only a pagoda. I was expecting more of a hillside, with a small pagoda at the top. Instead there was a big pagoda, with views in all directions, including across the river towards the hills and the setting sun. There’s a charge for foreigners up here, I guess they might as well take advantage of the many tourists who come for the sunset rather than to pay their respects to Buddha. There certainly were a lot of tourists!
We had arrived early so sat down in the shade and got our pack of cards out. In hindsight we should have known that that may not be acceptable, as some temples had asked for no running and playing. We were soon told to put them away. Our tuk tuk driver had come up and started chatting to us again, trying to explain why the cards were not ok. His English was not great, and his pronunciation worse, so even when he knew the word we could not always understand him (Still, his English was a lot better than my Burmese). We think he was saying that cards are for evening family time, not for the contemplative time in the monastery. Then one of the children went into a yoga meditative pose so he was trying to teach us how to do the Buddhist meditation pose, with the right hand on top of the left hand, palm up, in your lap.
Then he tried to teach us more Burmese and a small crowd gathered to laugh at my attempts. They were pretty bad!
By now it was time to move over into a spot to watch the sun, although Evie kept getting mobbed by strangers for photos so didn’t see much. Not that either of the kids were bothered by the sunset.
The sun was nearly down when we decided to start making our way down the hill whilst there was some light left. At this point the only way down we’d seen was the lift, and the queue was super slow! Luckily we found the actual stairs, although our shoes were at the bottom of the escalator. We hoped we could get round…
After winding down a bit, trying to find our way through the temples we found along the way and guessing the direction when there were more than one flight of stairs, we arrived at the car park and skirted around to where we’d left our shoes. Mission one accomplished. Next one was to find the right staircase down. One comes out North, one South and one East…
The first issue we encountered was finding the down stairs, we eventually established that you have to go back up a bit, but there’s a sign saying you have to leave your shoes there and that you can’t carry them… so how do we get down with our shoes? A local who seemed to understand what we were after told us to carry them so we did. I think the signs are mainly to make tourists drop their shoes off here and then charge them a ‘shoe guarding fee’ when they come back down to get them. Not advertised!!
The stairs themselves were a bit of an anti-climax. They were not particularly nice, just concrete slabs, which towards the bottom were lined with sellers. On the way you constantly come across the temples/rooms and have to explore to see where the stairs go, and make sure there’s only one staircase! On the plus side, at this time they were virtually empty, and they were lit, which was good as it was now dark.
At the bottom we used Grab again for a tuk tuk, which was there very fast and got him to drop us off at Lashio Lay restaurant, which had been recommended online and was within walking distance of the hotel (1km).
For 10,000 (£5) we got rice, 2 veg dishes and a meat dish, and some salad bits with the typical watery soup which gets served with all meals here. Not bad! And very yummy. Possibly our best and cheapest meal so far!
The walk back to the hotel was interesting, we ended up down a very quite, unpaved street which looked very poor. Small double storey houses like terraces, which seemed to house quite a few people, or families with many kids. In England I would feel scared walking round somewhere like this, and perhaps I would be wrong to. But here we felt very safe, with people waving to us, especially when we managed to say hello in Burmese.
By now it was time for bed for the kids. After setting up Aung as our driver for the next day; a taxi seemed better than a tuk tuk for the longer drive we joined them. What a busy day!!
Day 80 – Sagaing, Amarapura and the Ubein bridge
We started our day with an early pick up by Aung, our driver for the day. We headed out down the dual carriageway along the river, where there are people living alongside the road and on the central reservation. Horses and cows are tied up to graze the centre, and there are large trees in the middle of the road. Rather than chop then down, they paint the bottoms white, put up a sign, and assume that drivers will manoeuvre around them like they do around each other. Seems to work.
The sun in Mandalay gave way to a thick fog or smog as we reached the bridges across to Saigang. No good views from here! The bridge we used was completed in 2016 to replace the one built 100 years ago by the British. Both impressive metal structures.
After the bridge, the road starts to climb up into Sagaing, which has hundreds of stupas and a very high concentration of monasteries and nunneries on the slopes of a few small hills. The roads twist and turn up and down, lined with stone walls carved with the names of people who have made significant donations to the monasteries. All very lovely. You could spend a whole day wandering here and see only a fraction of it I think.
Aung had discussed some places we wanted to go, and obviously knows the main tourist spots. It seems that the main route is to look at the monks being fed at 10.15 at a monastery in Amarapura, before Saigang, InnWa and then Amarapura again and the Ubein bridge for sunset.
Seeing monks be fed seemed a little odd to us, there are crowds of people watching the monks queue for their food, snapping pictures. Not really our thing. And then the Ubein bridge at sunset is very busy, as is InnWa, and you generally go across on a boat and then take an expensive horse drawn cart around as a tour. Tripadvisor reviews said that these animals are thin and not treated well so we didn’t want to do that. We decided to spend most the morning at Sagaing, then visit some monasteries before checking out Ubein bridge during the day. Back home for an afternoon chilling.
Our first stop was the Mandalay Buddhist University, which was almost empty at this time in the morning and blissfully peaceful.
Then on to the U Min Thonze Caves, where there is a beautiful curved blue building (rather than a cave (?). If you head inside you can see 45 buddhas along the wall inside.
Aung was not accompanying us as he isn’t a guide, so we were left to wander up the steps behind and around the other small stupas winding up the hillside. All without shoes as these are left at the bottom. It’s rather nice to walk with your bare feet on the porcelain tiles and stone steps. Again, there were hardly any other people around, so wandering about whilst listening to the sounds of the chanting and singing from the various monasteries below was very serene. We took our time.
On a little further up the hill to the Soon U Ponya Pagoda. This one was much busier outside, and charges a fee to use cameras inside, but was not too busy inside. Chris particularly liked this much bigger complex, enjoying the different coloured tiles on the floor. As the top of the hill it’s also got some views.
A final pagoda in Saigang, for which I cannot find a name, another wooden one like the Shwenandaw Pagoda we saw yesterday, with the same designer, but much smaller, and set amongst trees. This one was my favourite 😊. We had it totally to ourselves initially, although another group arrived shortly after us.
I had found a cave monastery online which sounded worth checking out, so we headed to the Tilawkaguru Cave Monastery.
The caves are locked so you have to find the key. It was lucky that we had Aung, as he found someone to ask and we headed back out to the Buddha and Cultural Museum where the key is kept. A lovely young man followed us back to the caves, opened them and then gave us a tour by torchlight of this monastery which was carved out of rock and painted 400 years ago. There are some main areas where the buddha statues are, four meditation rooms and an upstairs walkway for walking meditation. Supposedly some of the most impressive preserved cave paintings in the country. Although in places they have been lost entirely, and behind the buddha someone once painted over them in white (!!), there are some very well preserved areas.
These paintings tell the many stories of the buddha. Some are of his life before becoming a buddha, showing his wife and daughter; the people who tried to kill him as they were envious, how he became the Buddha.
There are others well preserved which show animals, and the lotus flower.
All this came in a beautiful old stone monastery set in a courtyard dominated by a massive tree. And so quiet.
Our next Tripadvisor find did not go so well. People had had interesting experiences at a nunnery talking to the nuns, so we tried to find the Tha Kya Di Tha Nunnery/Convent. Aung tried really hard as it wasn’t on Google Maps, and many people did not know where it was. In the end tracking it down was more fun that finding it! There was a massive tour bus there, and a tour were just leaving having watched the nuns being fed and possibly having a drink or something there. They said they hadn’t really interacted with the nuns as they do not speak English. We wandered in, but they were mostly studying, and although they did look at us, none seemed to want to approach us. We gave up and headed on to Amarapura and the Mahagandayon Monastery.
We could see the road where the monks queue, and the railings put up to keep the crowds of tourists out of the way, but the place was deserted. A huge area, with many small houses and larger buildings. You can supposedly enter the library and places, but in the absence of a map, and with it being so quiet, we did not really feel right poking about. We left again. You win some you lose some!
Our tour should have been over by now, but we’d been taking our time and had added the caves and monasteries on to the original schedule so it was now lunchtime and we hadn’t walked the bridge. Aung took us to the Ubein bridge riverside where there are a number of restaurants along the shore. If you can call them that! We chose the one on the edge of the water, rather than the other side of the car park, and were lucky enough to get seats at the edge of the water.
However, the ‘restaurant’ was out of most of the juices, so the kids were stuck with water, and they had run out of chicken, so it was egg with everything. Aiden was adamant he wanted the fried fish and prawns, which I assured him would not be like fish and chips in England. He ordered it anyway, and we added fried noodles with egg and fried vegetables with egg.
The plate of fish that arrived was not what the kids were expecting, but they loved it! Whole tiny fish deep fried, with large king prawns also fried in batter, legs and all! Add in a lot of garlic and voila!
With no qualms they both tucked into the tiny fish, and thought they were delicious. I did eat one after they assured me you couldn’t tell that it had bones, and they were right. Not my favourite though. The rest was ok, but not great for Myanmar standards. Ah well. For 13,000 kyat including drinks (£6.50) it wasn’t too bad! And the views were great, with Black Kites soaring overhead and diving for fish in the lake.
The sun was super hot by now, but the bridge awaited and it was time for some sightseeing. We decided to walk out halfway, but wussed out just shy. It’s 1.2km long and only has shade at a couple of huts along the way. Our progress kept being slowed by people wanting to take a picture with Evie!
The start of the bridge is particularly busy, and there are loads of shops selling trinkets at the start, giving way to sellers of fresh fruit once you are on the bridge itself. It did peter out the further along the bridge you went though. I can only image how busy this area is in the evening around sunset!
Aung took us back down the two lane road, where all sides were lined with people’s washing, hung out to dry in the afternoon sun. Very colourful!
Then we lounged in the air con for a hour or two before heading up to the rooftop bar to watch the sunset and enjoy some drinks and dinner. Unfortunately the hotel was having a shortage of fruit too so there was only banana juice. At least one child was happy!
I was feeling fed up with rice and noodles, after having it for breakfast, lunch and dinner most days in Myanmar, so we went with some of the pasta and pizza options. The pizza was ok, although the Margarita came with spinach and some spicy bits! The pastas were mediocre at best. Ah well, it might stop the kids from demanding Western food now they realise that it won’t taste the same!
Our days in Mandalay are over as we’re due to get on a boat to Bagan early tomorrow morning. Time to go and explore this massive site strewn with over 2,000 pagodas! Follow the story here (coming soon).