two days in Mandalay: how many pagoda's are enough?
Day one: "This is an awesome breakfast" we both agree. The spread is a merging of two worlds. At one end are the Burmese dishes of rice, noodles, and soup then the fried eggs make the transition to toaster for bread, jam and butter, omelet, pancakes and honey, juice, coffee with milk, black and green tea.
After breakfast we walk toward the palace grounds. We end up on the west side and foreigners are only allowed to enter the East side. This is a problem for walking,the grounds surrounded by a moat is 3 x 3 kilometers. "Taxi" we are asked, "very far away" he adds. We take a motorcycle ride for 2000 kyat each. We are given a helmet and off we go.
Done with the palace we walk to Mandalay Hill and climb up the steps. At one point almost to the top, we cross the road, there might be an easier way up. Plenty of shopping opportunities on the way up and nice views from the top.
We take a motorcycle ride to the City Cafe and have a nice lunch before a taxi ride back to the hotel.
Day two: "This is not a walkable city". We've been in lots of cities where the sidewalks are cluttered or used for parking or open drainage ditches, but Mandalay seems the worst. We see very few people walking.
After starting out walking from the hotel, we found it more difficult to find a taxi and realize probably should have asked the hotel to call for one. We got to the south end of the palace moat and finally got a taxi to take us back to the Mandalay Hill area. We got the taxi driver that gave his card that advertised "Funny Joking Service" and he told us jokes the whole ride.
We walked around the forest of white pagodas before catching a taxi to Zegyo market area, from here we walked to the BBB cafe that is run by the owners of City Cafe, same menu even.
The afternoon was taking it easy, getting ready for the taxi ride to Inle Lake tomorrow. An early dinner on the rooftop bar and restaurant and wondering if we will be awake to welcome the New Year of 2017. Last year, New Year's we flew from Capetown South Africa to Kochi India.
In a few weeks we fly from Bangkok to Amsterdam for family visits then onward to Lima Peru. After a year in Asia, we may be in for culture shock.
First stop is the Royal Palace inside a huge military base in the middle of the city. There is a 3 x 3 kilometer square moat with walls and only one entrance for foreigners. In the middle is this fairly new re-built palace.
The construction of the wall panels of Shwenadaw Kyaung is awesome. Housed mortise and tenon connections, pinned together with wooden dowels that are barely visible in this photo. The exposed teak has weathered to a grey patina. Too bad many of the newer carvings are attached with nails and sheetrock screws.
