Mandalay, Myanmar – December 18th – 20th, 2016

Mandalay was our last stop in Myanmar. Consequently, it was also our last minibus ride in Myanmar, therefore the universe thought it only appropriate to make the bus trip, yet again, unforgettable. Having left on time, in our seats in the front row (where I usually don’t get car sick), and with a driver who seemed to pay attention to the road and drive at appropriate speeds, the trip began looking like it might actually go smoothly. How wrong we were. About 30 minutes in, the poor girl seated directly behind me began to throw up. This continued approximately every 15 minutes for the remainder of the 6-hour ride. Between actual puking was quiet dry heaving and other sick related noises, which only the select lucky few seated next to her, got the pleasure of hearing. Each time her plastic puke bag was full, she would reach forward and ask me to open the window so she could put the puke bag right next to my face while dropping it out the window. I spent the entire bus ride hunched forward to be as far away from her as possible. Once we arrived at the bus station in Mandalay, the passengers were ushered onto a truck tuk tuk (songthauw) where the poor girl continued to be sick. To be fair, we were very close to joining her, since the ride to our hotel was far and beyond the most terrifying drive of our lives. The driver literally drove as if we were in a Hollywood chase scene – swerving through traffic at high speeds while forcing motorcyclists, other cars, and pedestrians off the road (all while we were unbuckled, seated sideways on long skinny benches in the bed of the truck). It was a miracle we arrived safely at our hotel.

We got a few research and blog items taken care of at the hotel before heading out to explore the city. We figured we would walk to Mandalay Hill, a temple complex on top of a nearby hill with good views of the city, and watch sunset. Sounds nice right? Well, it was, except Mandalay Hill was about an hour and a half away from the hotel (walking) and then an additional 45 minutes to the top. So, to make it in time for sunset, we hired, and somehow both squeezed, onto a motorcycle taxi, which hauled us to the bottom of the hill. We basically had to run up the many many stairs to beat the sun falling below the horizon. Our planning and time management weren’t perfect, but we made it and the sunset views over the city were definitely worth the rush. After sundown, we met back up with our moto taxi driver, Munjo. For $2.50, he spent the remainder of the evening with us, driving us to some of the temple sites, and dropping us off at a restaurant by our hotel for dinner. The guide book said that one of the Buddhist temples, Kuthodaw Pagoda, housed the “largest book in the world”. It took us a confused while to learn that it was not actually a book book, but an accumulation of 729 white stupas, each housing a page from the “book” written on a massive concrete slab. After the seemingly excessive number of pagodas and enormous Buddha statutes we have seen over the last month, this seemed to be a bit overkill. I would not be remotely surprised if Myanmar turned out to be the World’s #1 consumer of concrete. Before leaving Munjo for the night, we negotiated with him for two moto taxis for the following day’s transportation. We ended up saving about $20 compared to the rate given at our hotel! Fair to say our negotiating skills have improved significantly since the beginning of the trip.

Mandalay Hill, Kuthodaw Pagoda, and women making roti at the Indian street restaurant we went to for dinner.  

Our motobike tour around Mandalay started in the early morning at the world’s largest Jade market. The combination of China’s jade craze and Myanmar’s abundance of natural resources makes jade a very lucrative industry. The insanity of the market was compounded by the fact that we had no idea what was going on. There were massive jade rock sellers on the outside, while in the gated off section of the market, men scurried around with jade pieces on white trays to hundreds of inspectors lining the street. The inspectors would take a piece of jade, look at it with a fancy flashlight, then hand it back with zero emotion. Apart from the very confusing jade transactions (where no currency or communication was exchanged) there were numerous jade cutters, polishers, and jewelry sized jade vendors.

Next, we ventured to Mahamuni temple. The main attraction at the temple is an ancient giant Buddha statue which has been covered with thin pieces of gold foil (referred to as gold leaf). Over the past century, Buddhist men have been donating gold leaf by sticking them on Buddha’s legs – which have now, as a result, created a Buddha with elephantiasis. Thanks to the thick layer of gold leaf, his legs are now completely disproportionate to the rest of his body and have become bumpy with ski moguls of gold. Women cannot be blamed for the Buddha statues disfiguration since they are not allowed near him for fear that we may bleed on him (no kidding, Buddhists believe that the impurity of a woman’s monthly cycle makes us unfit to be near certain Buddha statues and inside specified temples). Besides the absurdity of this logic, the funniest part is that for the past several months, Andy and I joked that, “I wasn’t allowed in because they were afraid I would bleed all over Buddha.” We could not believe that we were actually right!!! Also, at Mahamuni temples were bronze statues that were originally from Ankor Wat in Cambodia. They were confiscated by a Myanmar king in the 1500's after he won a victory over Thailand. The people believe that your illness or pain will be cured by rubbing the corresponding area on the statue.  

Jade market and Mahamuni temple. 

After petting the back of a 1000 year old bronze statue, we wandered the nearby streets, where stone carvers were busy at work creating more concrete Buddha statues. Regardless of the fact that we think they have enough Buddha statues already, the carvers were incredibly talented (I guess they’ve had plenty of practice). These guys could seriously use some PPE though, as respirator or face shield where nowhere to be found while the grinding dust hung thick in the air. Next, we made a quick stop at a wood carving shop, where the carpenters were equally talented. All of the complex wood sculptures were hand carved with a hammer and chisel while holding the piece of wood down with their bare feet.

Next stop was Mahagandayon Monastery. Here, hundreds of monks line up for mealtime, while an approximately equal number of tourists take photos of them. It felt a bit like the monks were animals in the zoo, ignoring all the people who had come to watch and take pictures of them. After most of the zoo crowd left, we wandered through the massive monastery and played with some puppies.

Artists and the monk zoo.

Now close to noon, we ventured outside Mandalay city proper to the island of Inwa, the political center of Burma between the 14^th and 19^th centuries. We took a boat over and ate some lunch at an overpriced tourist restaurant before hiring a horse cart to take us around the island. The ride was not in the least bit comfortable, but we did enjoy it. We stopped along the way to see a beautiful teak monastery with massive wood pillars which were erected with the help of working elephants, the ruins of an old pagoda, a leaning watchtower which has sustained damage from multiple earthquakes, and a spectacular historic white monastery. Between stops, our horse brought us through fields and small local villages. Scattered throughout the journey were the remains of the old palace walls and ruins that reminded you that this was once a bustling capital city.

Around Inwa. 

The last stop on our journey was Amarapura and U Dein bridge. Amarapura is the youngest of the “ancient” capital cities surrounding Mandalay, while U Dein bridge is the longest teak bridge in the world. We wandered around for a couple hours, ate our last bowl of Shan noodle soup, watched some traditional fishermen catch tiny fish with a massive net, and waited for the sun to go down. The bridge made a stunning back drop for sunset.

U Dein Bridge at sunset and photos with our respective motobike taxi drivers. 

Exhausted, our motorbike taxis dropped us off at our hotel just after sunset. It was hard for us to believe that our time in Myanmar was over. No offense to the others, but hands down, Myanmar has been our favorite country so far. The heavily touristy areas were justifiably well traveled, while venturing off the beaten path was rewarded by people and places that were remarkably genuine and raw. It has been conflicting to witness the rapid changes taking place in a country that was previously so isolated from the rest of the world. Although they are developing and many changes are clearly for the best, we fear that the cultural authenticity that makes Myanmar unique will fade amongst the Western influence in the coming years.