Imagine a poor, developing country with stray cats and dogs wandering the streets, kids running up to you and shaking bowls or trying to sell you handmade postcards, and locals tarring the streets by hand, but then add in breathtaking golden pagodas 325 feet tall, the friendliest natives you will ever meet, temples dotting the skyline, and delicious meals at gorgeous outdoor restaurants for under $5, and you've got Myanmar.
I'm so glad we included 10 days in this beautiful country. Due to politics and military takeover, it was isolated from the world until 1988, and even then only allowed limited access until 2011. Due to the isolation, many of the old Burmese traditions are still intact, making it a really wonderful and unique place to see.
Although tourism has been encouraged since 1992, it's still fairly new to the tourist track, and I never would have thought to visit if I hadn't seen unbelievable photos from a few different friends who had been. Because it's only just gaining momentum in tourism, seeing fellow travelers isn't nearly as common as it is in other SE Asian countries. A lot of locals still stared at us when we walked by or tried to stop us to talk, asking us where we're from or complimenting my skin or hair. I have a niche market!
Hilariously, people would just randomly grab me for photos. I would just feel someone grab my arm and all of a sudden their phone would be in my face for a selfie with them or I'd be facing a camera their friends were holding and would have to pose with a few people. It was like being a celebrity!
On another note, my phobia of mosquitoes reached new peaks in this country. Yangon and Mandalay are cities and so are low risk for malaria, but everywhere else in the country is listed as high risk, making it the most dangerous area for disease that we'd be going to (whereas everywhere else, dengue fever is the bigger concern). We vigilantly set up mosquito nets as soon as we arrived at each guesthouse, covered ourselves in Deet anytime we went outdoors (got to love that feel of burning chemical on your skin), bought mosquito coils to burn underneath our tables outdoors, and wore long pants more often than not. Neither of us decided to buy malaria pills for the trip (for me it was out of fear of side effects... I don't need any psychosis to go with my anxiety issues). I can't imagine how relieved I'll be when I'm back in a country where I can go outside without freaking out every time I feel something touch my arm.
Day 1 Yangon
We flew with Nok Air out of Bangkok to Myanmar's largest city, Yangon. Oddly, it's no longer the capital, as the military decided out of nowhere to move it to Naypyidaw in 2005. I've read strange things about Naypyidaw, mainly that they claim there are a million residents living there, but people who visit report the city streets being almost completely abandoned. This is despite the fact that the city has been built up to a standard surpassing the rest of the country: shopping malls, fast wifi, 20 lane highways, apartment complexes. There just don't seem to be people and supposedly it's really eerie. It's not high on the list of places for tourists to visit.
Unfortunately I was feeling really ill on the morning we flew to Yangon. My stomach was an absolute mess... probably all the street food we'd been eating in Bangkok. And maybe the buckets of cocktails the previous night. It was a little over an hour to Yangon, and once we got there it wasn't long to get through immigration. We'd both applied online for visas a few weeks beforehand ($50 USD) and brought our approval letters with us, so we had no problems. Note: Residents of most countries cannot come to Myanmar without a visa.
I had heard conflicting things about the availability of ATMs in the country, and while you can find a few nowadays (I saw one in Bagan and a few banks in the cities), it's only a recent installation. Just to be safe, we'd taken out money at the airport in Thailand, traded it in for US dollars, then traded the US dollars in Yangon for Burmese kyat.
We got a taxi from the airport for 8000 kyat, which is under $8. My system of easy mental conversion was basically to drop the last three zeros from any amount, and the price in dollars is slightly less than that number. The taxi driver was very friendly just like everybody in Myanmar and chatted to us on the way to our hostel, teaching us that "hello" in Burmese is "mingalarba."
I'd booked us in at the Space Boutique Hostel which was fairly central, just a block away from the Sule Pagoda. It's up a random, almost hidden staircase between market stalls and about three flights of stairs up. I think it's pretty new actually, because they were still hanging up paintings and installing flashing party lights when we arrived. I'd totally recommend it though. The reception staff was really helpful, everything was clean and comfortable, we had a little air-conditioned room, the showers had hot water, there was a free drinking water station in the lounge, and there was also a free Nescafe coffee machine that made awesome cappuccinos, mochas, lattes, and more.
Since I wasn't feeling well, we took a nap after arriving, so we didn't leave the hostel until the evening. We walked just down the street to the Sule Pagoda for a quick visit and were massively scammed out of money for the first and only time in Myanmar. First, they asked us for a 3000 kyat entry fee each, which was standard. However, then this guy came to walk around with us like a tour guide. I didn't know if he worked at the pagoda and this was normal or if he was expecting a tip, but I figured it wouldn't be much. Well, after our 5-10 minute walk around the pagoda, he told us a 5000 kyat donation each would be fine. What?! We should have just said no, but we'd just arrived and I hate conflict and we both had a moment of just being spineless humans and ended up just paying. Then, we'd left our flip flops with the ladies at the front assuming it was just somewhere to put our shoes, and they charged us another 1000 kyat for that. After that, we just kept our flip flops in Lewis's backpack or sitting outside whenever we went into temples. Overall, a short visit to this little pagoda cost us 8500 kyats each which is more than we later paid at the famous Shwedagon Pagoda.
Despite that pissing me off, the Sule Pagoda was nice. It was, of course, very pretty, and the only reason I'm not giving it more praise is because we went to the Shwedagon Pagoda the following day which is the pagoda to trump all other pagodas. One benefit of having our stupid conning tour guide was that he explained the stations positioned around the pagoda which were labeled by day of the week. You're meant to go up to the shrine of the day you were born and pour water over the Buddha there. I was born on a Saturday, so I went up to the "Saturday corner" to fill the cup there with water and pour it over the statue. Another weird thing I learned is that they go by 8 days- Wednesday is split into two. There's a Wednesday morning and Wednesday afternoon corner.
We went to wander through the night market area afterwards in the Indian and Chinese sections of the city. At this point, my impression of Yangon was not too favorable. It's extremely run-down and dilapidated. There are stray dogs all over the streets (many of which supposedly have rabies) as well as gigantic rats scurrying around in the shadows and cracks in the pavement. The markets were crowded with people, it was pouring rain, and there is a general awful smell like sewage in a lot of areas of the city. Also, I was hungry, and we were struggling to find a restaurant.
Finally, we came across a Chinese hotel where we stopped for a meal. I had hot tofu dish along with eggs and chives, and once we had food we were happy to go back to the hostel and just sleep.
Day 2 Shwedagon Pagoda & Kandawgyi Park
Our second day in Yangon was a million times better. We got up early to have the free hostel breakfast- eggs, toast, and bananas- then went back to sleep for a bit longer. I was still feeling really run down and needed the rest.
When we finally got up for good, we stopped at reception to book our bus for the following day and then headed straight to the Shwedagon Pagoda. It was only a 20-30 minute walk mostly down one road, so we didn't have any trouble finding it.
This is the pagoda that is 325 feet tall and is the largest in Myanmar. It's so spectacular that I would say it's worth visiting Yangon just to see it. We paid 8000 kyat each to get in. Make sure your shoulders and legs are covered as this is the strictest of the dress codes (although not as bad as Bangkok's Grand Palace).
Along with the gigantic golden dome in the center, there's white marble surrounding it creating a plaza full of shrines and spires. It was totally unbelievable. I don't have many more words to do it justice, so pictures will have to speak for me. We circled the pagoda quite a few times and looked into a few of the shrines around before heading out.
We took a look at the map and headed out the east gate towards a nearby park, Kandawgyi. We mainly wanted to find somewhere to eat and there were plenty of places marked there, but I didn't expect it to be nearly as pretty as it was!
There's this huge green lake with lily pads everywhere, fountains spraying water throughout, and a long wooden bridge winding across and alongside it. You can even see the Shwedagon Pagoda peeking through the trees behind it.
We did find a place to eat, the Garden Bistro, a fine dining Signature restaurant. At first we thought it was a little pricy, but we were starving and honestly, my meal was still under $8. My perception of what is expensive has been majorly skewed. We sat on a couch overlooking the park, ordered a couple of cocktails, and had a ridiculously phenomenal meal. I ordered spicy arabbiata fusilli pasta and couldn't even get over how good it was. Like, one of the best pastas I've ever had in my life. I could have eaten at this place for every meal. Wow.
We were very happy with our restaurant choice, and after sitting and enjoying our drinks and the fans for awhile longer, we headed back into the park to walk further down. There were more great views, a garden full of topiaries, and finally, we got to Karaweik Palace. I didn't know anything about this place, so I was totally blown away when all of a sudden this huge golden ship of a house on the water appeared out of nowhere. From what I can gather, it's both a performance hall and restaurant, but since we had just eaten and were looking to save our money, I was happy just to see it from the outside.
We started walking back to the hostel afterwards, stopping at Lewis's request in a fancy 4 star hotel for a beer and a wander around their awesome pool with views of the Karaweik Palace lit up at night. I was surprised we were even let into a place like that looking like scrubby backpackers.
We only headed out once more that night to have dinner at a place called Gringos Chilangos, a Mexican fusion restaurant. I had a burrito filled with beans and noodles to try something different. It was good, but portion sizes were small for the relatively high prices, so I probably wouldn't recommend it.
Day 3 Yangon Zoo, night bus to Nyaung Shwe
We checked out of our hostel in the morning and left our luggage for the day. We had booked an overnight bus to our next destination, Nyaung Shwe, through the reception desk the day before. On that note, don't worry about transportation until a day before you leave. The hotel staff wherever you stay can easily sort out your bus tickets for you, and you just pay right there. Sometimes you'll even get picked up at your accommodation. Easy.
We had a few hours to kill before our taxi to the bus station at 3, so we walked over to the Yangon Zoo which we'd passed the day before. It was only 3000 kyat to get in. I was prepared to find the exhibits depressing, but it actually left me way more annoyed than I expected.
The zoo has tons of animals species- giraffes, Asian elephants, monkeys, bears, tigers, zebras, lions, reptiles, birds, deer, hippos, otters, and more. This is not a good thing, because they don't have the facilities or money to adequately provide for most of these animals. The chimp lives on his own in two dark adjoining cages. The little sun bears were caged up in an empty pen where they were scratching at the bars. The tigers (so many tigers) and lions were in concrete cells with absolutely no stimulation. Just bare floors and walls, and if they were lucky, a platform to jump up and sit on. Some of them were pacing and looking miserable and restless. It was so upsetting.
There were little to no safety regulations, not that it's something Southeast Asia generally has in place anyway. I reached out and held a gibbon's hand it was extending through the bars. You could just as easily walk up to the tiger cage and stick your hand in if you wanted.
You could buy sugar cane to feed the elephants, which we did.
However, the elephants are all crowded onto a bare, tiled platform with nothing to do except gather at the edges and stick their trunk across the barrier to beg for food. A lot of them were shaking their heads and stomping at the ground. One actually had his leg chained to the ground.
The zoo itself was in a nice green location, but very few of the exhibits had grass or any kind of nature. I love animals and felt awful for these ones, so I hated this zoo, and it made me sad to think there are probably many more like it around the world.
We also got caught in an absolute downpour while walking around. The paths were basically flooded rivers. Despite our umbrellas, we were both drenched by the time we left.
Slytherin on tour.
We got a taxi back to the hostel, quickly changed out of our soaking wet clothes, and caught our new taxi to the bus station for 10,000 kyat (it's further away than the airport).
I grabbed us some quick street food from across the road there and also picked up some snacks that we could give to the local kids. After some young boy in Yangon chased me down the road begging and then hugged my leg, I decided I needed something to give children who were trying to break my heart. It was actually a really good thing to have, because when kids would ask for money or try to sell things, you could at least give them some food and they always accepted it.
We loaded up our bags and got on the bus. It was an air-conditioned, standard looking bus like you might find at home (such as Megabus or Greyhound), and they even had blankets on each of the seats. The only downfall was they played some sort of tourist DVD with oriental sounding music on a loop for about the first hour.
We made a couple of bathroom stops and one stop for food. It was late at night, we were in some big open air food court, and there were mosquitoes and flies EVERYWHERE. I was so on edge and despite the heat and humidity, I put on my hoodie to cover my arms as well as had on my yoga pants. I was jumping every time I saw movement. It was also the strangest eating experience ever. The kids who served us (probably around 12-14 years old) all stood around our table and just watched us eat the entire time. There were at least ten of them. One saw me swatting at bugs and started fanning me with his menu. It was so bizarre! I prefer being a paranoid, overheated spaz without an audience.
I was happy to get back on the bus and managed to sleep for awhile through the night before arriving in Nyaung Shwe around 6-7 in the morning.
Day 4 Nyaung Shwe
A large tuk tuk was waiting at the bus stop to overcharge us for a ride to our guesthouse, but it was early and hot and we were exhausted so we just hopped in. We stayed in Aquarius Inn, my favorite accommodation of the trip. It's buried in leafy trees with outdoor wooden tables and chairs, pebble detailing, and an overall jungle feel. Then at check-in, this little orange cat came out and sat right on my lap when I sat down to play with it! Immediate friends. There were also tiny kittens on the property. It was a great place to stay. Cats at your guesthouse? Instant bonus star on your Trip Advisor review!
They told us we could check into our room already which was amazing. The room was so nice- I booked a superior because I found a good deal on a booking site and had read negative reviews of the basic rooms.
We showered and then went right back to sleep until 1:30. We went to a place across the road, Beyond Taste, for lunch and sat on the upper terrace. I had a Shan tomato salad (we were in a region called Shan State) which was fresh tomatoes with sesame seeds, peanut oil, lemon juice, and cilantro, and it was so freaking good.
We took it really easy the rest of the day as I was feeling under the weather and we were still tired. We went out in the evening and had an hour long oil massage for 15000 kyat (treating ourselves) at the Lavender Spa. It was a small place, more like a hut, and we were in a wooden thatched room with fans. It was really relaxing and way better than our Thai massage in Bangkok.
Dinner that night was at Innlay Hut, an Indian restaurant. It was a little outdoor seating area, but the guy serving was so friendly and nice, and the food that his mom made us was spectacular. I had a palak paneer, and since we had to wait a little since he was serving on his own, he gave us a free starter and rice as well. Totally deserving of its high online rating!
Day 5 Inle Lake
We had our free Aquarius breakfast which included fresh fruit and homemade food, then we headed towards the jetty area around 9:30 to look for a boat to take us out. I don't think we even made it to the agencies, because a guy stopped us on the street offering us a day tour for 15,000 total and showed us a map of all the places we'd be taken. It sounded perfect and was the same price Aquarius had quoted us, so we agreed.
We went down to the dock and a guy came on a long, motorized boat to pick us up. There were two chairs placed in the middle for us to sit throughout the ride.
It took probably 20 minutes or so for us to emerge from the river onto the gigantic, clear lake.
We had the best day! Easily the highlight of the trip. Immediately we could see traditional fishermen out in their long boats, floating plants and flowers, and mountains to either side. Our boat driver took us to each location and waited for us to spend as much time as we wanted there.
First, we stopped at a silversmith. A young girl took us upstairs where her brother works and showed us the men melting and molding the silver. Of course, the whole point of these workshop stops was to get us to spend money in the store, but some of them had some cool things. The jewelry was way too expensive for me, so Lewis and I just bought a cheap magnet here and headed on.
Next up was the Hpaung Daw U Pagoda. The actual shrine is upstairs, and beneath it is a big market with tons of vendors. I ended up with a pair of jade earrings. There's also a golden ship across the dock that you can walk over and see.
Third was the silk, lotus, and cotton hand weaving. A really friendly girl took us to see an old woman actually pulling strands of thread out of lotus stems and wrapping them to form a sturdy weaving material, another area for dying and creating patterns, and other women at the wooden foot pedal machines weaving the various materials into scarves and tops. The shop was full of silk, lotus, and cotton bags, towels, clothes, and more.
On our way through the lake to the next stop we passed through a village full of stilt houses. It's so amazing to think that people actually walk out their front door every morning and are right on top of the lake. I love seeing different ways of life.
My favorite stop was the next one, the cheroot factory! They roll tobacco into cheroot leaves of different flavors. There were anise, banana, menthol, pineapple, and tamarind cheroots. We even got to choose one to sample- I tried the menthol and it was awesome. If I was still a smoker I'd have bought a box for myself... ok, actually I'm totally regretting not buying a box for myself. I'll keep a lookout on the rest of my trip!
There was a restaurant attached to that workshop, so we went and had lunch overlooking the water. I had another awesome salad and we both got iced coffees.
Our last workshop stop was an umbrella factory where they made gorgeous painted umbrellas.
The main point of interest there though were the women with golden rings around their necks. I had read that they're not actually from the Shan State, it's a different ethnic tribe, but the women spend their life slowly elongating their necks by adding golden rings. The old women working to the side must have had a dozen rings on! They were practically human giraffes.
We glided past another beautiful pagoda (seen at top of this blog post) on the way to our final stop, the Jumping Cat Monastery. The name comes because the monks used to train the cats to jump through rings. It was mostly for tourists, and they discontinued the practice when the cats began to get arthritic. However, there are still tons of cats inside, so I very much enjoyed our visit.
Our driver stopped before we reached the end of the lake on the way back and asked if we still wanted to wait for the sunset. I checked the time though and it was still only 4:00, so we decided we had better things to do than sit in a still boat for two hours staring at the sky. Food, for instance, seemed like a higher priority.
But what a day!
We paid our driver when we returned, then we went out to dinner later at a nearby restaurant called Chillax Bistro with Western food. I had a pizza, and I really enjoyed it solely for the fact that it was a pizza for the first time in weeks.
Day 6 Bus to Bagan
After breakfast which this day included some kind of potato curry with wraps, we sat and waited for our 9 AM bus to Bagan while I said goodbye to my cat. We had booked through Aquarius, and the only time options they'd given us were about 7 AM or 9 PM. I had asked if there wasn't anything in between, and we could go at 9 AM, but warned us it would be a minibus.
That didn't seem like a problem to me, so we booked. Well, it was so easily the most miserable day of the trip. It was a little van with about 12 seats, and although there was air conditioning, either it barely worked or you couldn't feel it because everyone opened their windows. The ride was so hot, winding, bumpy, and long. We made a million stops to pick up locals and drop them off, two stops for food and bathrooms, and by the time we arrived in Bagan around 4 or 5 in the afternoon, I felt like a disgusting mess of a human.
Appropriate time to show you what a typical public toilet looks like. Yes, you need to squat directly over the ground.
The minibus dropped us at our guesthouse, Northern Breeze in New Bagan, after the driver had a lot of trouble finding it (although he was very apologetic). I was so glad when we got into our room and turned on the nice cold air conditioning as well as took amazing, warm showers. The guesthouse was great except that the wifi barely worked. Seeing as we were in Myanmar though, we actually got quite lucky we got any decent wifi on the trip.
We went and had dinner just down the road at what was kind of a fancy restaurant with outdoor seating called Green Elephant. We got a gigantic boat of spring rolls and I had an eggplant curry, then we went back and called it a night.
Mmm spring rolls.
Day 7 Bagan Temples
Breakfast at Northern Breeze was on the roof and was buffet style. Afterwards, we rented an e-bike from the reception desk for the full day at just 5000 kyat.
The e-bike was kind of like a motorbike except that it runs on a battery. We considered getting one each because I had visions of being a badass, independent biker chick, but after I hopped on one to try it out and promptly crashed it straight into the sign of the guesthouse, we decided it was best if Lewis just drove.
Pretending I'm competent.
We had a map of the city, and while there are a few areas of Bagan including New Bagan, Old Bagan, and Nyaung U, we mainly stuck to Old Bagan for our exploration. Basically, there are temples everywhere. It's hard to even distinctly remember which was which because every time you turn a corner, there's another temple.
The three highlights of the day were buying some very pretty landscape art (two for 20,000 kyat) from a local painter outside one of the temples...
...stopping in the Ananda Temple which had huge golden shrines on each of the four sides...
...and making a detour following signs for the jetty and river view which took us to a quiet, secluded area with wooden recliners overlooking the Irrawaddy River. We ordered iced teas and just relaxed for a little while until we heard a storm rolling in.
We went back to the guesthouse for an hour or so until the evening, then we biked back to Old Bagan and had dinner at The Moon Vegetarian Restaurant which was AWESOME. It ties with the Garden Bistro in Yangon as my favorite place we ate during the trip. I had a coffee, coconut, and chocolate milkshake as well as a tamarind leaf curry with tomato, onion, and chili in it on coconut rice that was unbelievable.
Soooo good.
Our final stop of the night was at the Shwesandaw Pagoda, also known as the Sunset Pagoda. It has very steep stairs you can climb up to the various tiers, and it was already packed with people when we arrived just before sunset. We climbed up to the second highest tier where we managed to fit ourselves in and watch as the sun sank behind a landscape dotted with temples as far as you could see.
I even climbed to the top at one point, but I was dripping sweat and felt like I was going to pass out, so I quickly came back down to a safer altitude away from the stairs.
One thing I would say is that I wish we had gone around the back during the sunset. I went around just after the sun had disappeared but there was still purple light flooding everything, and the view was much better. There was no parking lot in the way, and the temples were lit up since the light was shining off of them.
By the time we reached the main road again, it was dark, and our bike was in serious danger of breaking down. It was already moving at a glacial pace, and we were on one bar of battery. There was no way we would make it back to New Bagan. This is a great example of how wonderful the people of Myanmar are though. A Burmese family (a couple and their two kids) noticed us struggling along the road and pulled over to wait for us. They found the number of our guesthouse on the key for our bike and called to tell them we'd broken down, then they waited with us on the side of the road for ten minutes until someone arrived to change our battery. We were so grateful!
Day 8 Bagan House, bus to Mandalay
I made the mistake of booking us onto the 5:00 bus through reception instead of the 12:00. I tried to change it in the morning, but the bus at noon was now full, so we were stuck waiting around for 5 hours after checkout. We wandered across the road to a hotel where we sat by the pool, but we had now realized we were dangerously short on cash to last us the rest of the trip (didn't want to withdraw any more kyat), so we couldn't even just sit and drink or afford to spend the day swimming.
After a bit, we wandered over to the nearby Bagan House, a lacquerware workshop, and it was probably worth staying in Bagan for the afternoon just to see it. A girl walked us through the process of making lacquerware and then took us past all of the workers working on detailed carving and painting. It was really amazing!
Afterwards, we saw a display room with some gorgeous work on exhibit such as tables, cabinets, and even a bedpost all with really intricate patterns carved in. Apparently a table takes a full year to make (and has a price tag to match). This is the only place in Bagan I saw an ATM! We went into the huge shop afterwards where we were given green tea and sesame cookies and wandered around looking at all the things we couldn't afford. I actually could have stayed there in the air-conditioning all afternoon. If you had the money to spend, it would definitely be worth a visit.
We stopped by another hotel where we could sit in the shade and read for awhile, then we came back to Northern Breeze around 4 at the suggestion of the staff and it was a good thing, because our bus was an hour early. This was probably the nicest bus we took in Myanmar. It was mid-sized with comfortable red recliner seats and working air-con.
We had a fairly comfortable and quick trip to Mandalay, and we were dropped at our guesthouse around 9 PM.
Our accommodation in Mandalay was 79 Living Hotel, and it was nice. There is a rooftop bar and restaurant, so we got some quick, cheap dinner up there before getting to bed.
Day 9 Pagodas & Mandalay Hill
After a good buffet breakfast upstairs in the morning, we took a lot of chill out time to relax, watch TV, and enjoy the fast wifi finally (so I could bombard my friends with a million Facebook photos). We grabbed a map from reception in the afternoon and walked towards the gigantic Royal Palace which took up about an eighth of the city area. It's walled and totally surrounded by water with entrances across bridges on the sides, and it took ages to walk around. It's about a mile on the shorter sides and almost 2 on the longer sides. We stopped for lunch at Cafe City, an American style diner, before we even reached the Eastern Gate.
Once we crossed the bridge though, we found out it was 10,000 kyat to enter, so we decided against it. We could see Mandalay Hill at the end of the road, and we decided to head that way since there were some pagodas there.
First we went into a white domed pagoda called Kyauk Taw Gyi, which was pretty awesome inside with neon green lights and a gigantic white and gold Buddha. You'd think after so many pagodas that they wouldn't find new ways to impress you, but you'd be wrong.
Afterwards, we wandered just across the street into the Sandamuni Pagoda. This one was totally different, because surrounding the golden dome were hundreds of mid-sized white domes, each holding marble slabs inscribed with teachings of Buddha inside.
We had planned to head to the U Bein Bridge that evening, but since we were right next to Mandalay Hill, I thought maybe we should just head up there for the sunset instead. We inquired about taxis to the top, but they were trying to charge 5000 kyat! We were right next to it! Instead, we opted to walk up the hundreds upon hundreds of stairs (1,729 the Internet tells me!) through increasingly high pagodas until finally, about an hour later and drenched in sweat, we reached the top.
Halfway point. Even Buddha was telling us to go back.
The view over Mandalay was very nice, and we were in yet another pagoda where they tried to charge 1000 kyat entry, but I just wandered by along the railing and pretended I didn't hear them calling after me. One guy went and got me a sarong to cover my legs.
There were monks wandering around (as everywhere), and people crowded by the edges watching the sun go down.
It was pretty, but we hurried back down just before the light fully disappeared. Walking down took about a quarter of the time as it had to go up and was much less taxing. We paid a taxi 4000 kyat to take us back to the hotel and had a small dinner on the roof again.
Day 10 U Bein Bridge
One thing I noticed about Mandalay (which otherwise I much preferred to Yangon) was the extortionate prices that they tried to charge you for transport. For instance, the U Bein Bridge was less than a 15 minute drive from our hotel. Reception quoted us 15,000 for a one way trip, and a brochure advertised a round trip at 18,000. However, the airport is around 40 minutes away from our hotel, but we got a taxi from reception for 12,000. How does that make any sense?! Speaking to the drivers directly is worse. One quoted us 20,000 to the airport. For U Bein, they'll try to sell you a full day tour of the three ancient cities for 35,000 at the cheapest.
What we opted to do despite my total terror at the idea was rent a motorcycle for the day at 15,000. Lewis, despite being an unlicensed driver (as if they check these sort of things in Asia, ha!), felt confident driving one, and my lack of money outweighed my fear of crossing busy intersections with no traffic lights.
It ended up not being as bad as I expected... at least not once we were out of the city. Mandalay itself was chaos. Bikes zooming between cars, horns everywhere (there's lots of beeping in Myanmar... more to let other people know you're there rather than out of rudeness), and I even saw a cow strolling between traffic into the middle of the street.
Once we were out of the city center, the roads quieted down and it was much more comfortable. We reached a lake and immediately saw the U Bein Bridge in the distance. It's the world's longest teak bridge at 1.2 km and was finished in 1851.
We grabbed some lunch first at a place where we sat with perfect views of the bridge and had green tomato salads and great iced coffees. There were tons of cats and dogs around, and this one pretty orange cat came up to me pawing at my leg. I couldn't help myself and reached down to pet him, and he immediately jumped up onto my lap and started rubbing against my face. Aww! Lewis stared at me disapprovingly and asked me to wash my hands.
Afterwards, we walked across the bridge in the scorching sun, but once we reached the opposite bank, we weren't entirely sure what to do until sunset. It was only about 3 PM. We were in the old city of Amarapura, but our bike was on the other side of the bridge, and it was so unbearably hot outside. We ended up going into a pagoda and sitting in the shade for about an hour.
We started back across the bridge around 4:30, and the sun was already casting pretty beams down onto the water. Boats were starting to depart from the shore to take people out to watch the sunset. A Burmese man with four teenagers stopped us to ask if they could chat with us and practice their English a bit which we were really happy to do. We stayed on the bridge until the sun had sunk fairly low in the sky.
The boats were like silhouettes against the skyline, and once we stepped off the bridge we could see the wooden beams against the sky as well. We wanted to keep the light for the journey home though, so we left before the sun had fully set.
We made it into the city before it got dark, and the streets in Mandalay are handily organized by number, so we didn't have too many problems finding 79th. We stopped back in the room for a little bit, then we drove back to Cafe City for dinner- not because the food quality was great, but just because we knew how to get there and back on the bike.
It was our last night in Myanmar before checking out in the morning and taking our taxi to the airport. We had such a fantastic time though over the 10 days we were there, and I'm so glad Myanmar is becoming better known to tourists, because their culture and country are so beautiful. If you're headed to Southeast Asia, you should absolutely add it to your list.