A couple of days in Mandalay

U Bein Bridge

The bus drops me off and it doesn't take long to find a decent hotel, which is located near a lake.

After getting up early as usual, I spend part of the day and bit more cash sitting pillion in a bicycle rickshaw seat, seeing Mandalay's sights while someone else does the pedaling - on an antiquated 10-ton set of rickety wheels.

Like the rest of the country, the city doesn't seem to have changed much over the decades; there are some modern structures and the central streets are now full of vehicles in various stages of becoming more decrepit, but traditions die hard and tea shops abound.

Low stools and picnic tables are dotted along the pavements, where a sweet brew can be bought for next to nothing and friendly chit chat is inevitable.

The tea gives a great boost, but a street vendor near my basic but friendly, eight-dollar-a-night hotel makes a real cracking drink made from a choice of crushed sugarcane, strawberries, avocado and banana, which he blends with ice cubes to create a cool elixir. I flaunt my guide book's warning and have a few. I survive, unharmed.

I rickshaw ride takes me down the busy road to the river, which is a busy place with good being offloaded by hand. I hang around and watch the sun go down before having another cheap dinner and an early night.

The next morning a bicycle rickshaw guy drops me off again at the wide river and then a ferry ride takes me up the slow flowing Ayeyarwady to Mingun, where a huge stupa that dates back to the 1790s stands beside the river.

Mingun Paya was never finished, as King Bodawpaya popped his clogs when the structure was only about a third built. It is still massive, though. If he'd lived long enough, it would have been the biggest in the world: 150m tall.

There are some serious looking cracks running down it, wide scars from an earthquake a century ago. I went inside, just a small room with candles lighting a Buddha, and paid a donation.

The doorway just leads to a small chamber the size of a garage, which contains a shrine

There are no motor vehicles zooming around Mingun, which is accessible only by boat

Funnily enough, a German cyclist I saw heading to Inle Lake is staying in the same hotel and we hang out for a while. There's a good curry house we go to and he joins me when I rent a three-wheel taxi to pop and see the old teak U Bein Bridge, which is just outside Mandalay.

I loved these things and so rented one with a driver for a day to go out to see the old teak bridge

As we're both going up into the mountains, we agree to catch an early train the following morning.

The young guy driving the three wheel vehicle takes us back to the hotel, bouncing down rutted tracks and then along the busy streets of Mandalay, with his girlfriend say beside him.

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