Mandalay

To round off our time in Myanmar we spent a couple of days in Mandalay, the country’s second biggest city. Despite Yangon being larger, Mandalay had much more of a big city vibe, although it wasn’t so bustling when we arrived at 3:30am (ahead of schedule) from our night bus. Sleep deprived and in need of a real bed, we trudged towards our hotel in the hopes that our room would be ready for early check in at this ridiculous hour. In fact, the night porter went one better and didn’t even charge us for the privilege, despite the fact that we woke him up!

Mandalay Hill

Mandalay Hill, from which the city got its name, became our first attraction once we’d awoken and mustered up the energy to leave the hotel. We achieved an important milestone in getting there too, by taking our first tuk tuk ride! After arriving and climbing the 1,729 steps to the summit, we were wide awake and felt as though we had completed our own mini pilgrimage. Sadly the view from the summit was obscured by smog, but it was worth visiting nonetheless to see Sutaungpyei Pagoda which overlooks the city.

Sandamuni Pagoda

We descended before sunset as the summit was getting busier and busier. Curiously, there appeared to be a fair few locals living permanently halfway up the hillside, most of whom had their own market stalls set up to make a living. Once we reached the foot of the hill we visited another pagoda, notable for being surrounded by the ‘world’s largest book’.

Though not a book in the traditional sense, the pagoda is surrounded by hundreds of stuppas, each of which houses a large marble tablet engraved with the Buddha’s teachings. Needless to say this was a breathtaking sight in the sunset.

U-Bein Bridge

The following day we took another tuk tuk to get to U-Bein Bridge, the oldest teak bridge in the world.

The bridge is made from the remnants of the former Inn Wa Royal Palace and spans the Taungthaman Lake. While this is one of the largest tourist attractions in the area, tourism clearly remains a small industry as 4 locals stopped us for photos while walking the kilometre length of the bridge. I think partly it was the height difference that they found funny, but who’d have thought the tourist would become the attraction!?

From U-Bein bridge, we hired another tuk tuk driver to show us the nearby Inn Wa Archaelogical Zone during the afternoon.

Inn Wa Area

On the way we passed a large gathering of locals cheering for someone. Our driver stopped to let us take a closer look and the person being applauded was a young lady doing kick ups while balanced atop a mountain of chairs, which was progressively getting larger. Very skilful.

Me Nu Brick Monastery

First stop at Inn Wa was the Me Nu Brick Monastery. This temple was more or less the poster child for the area, and understandably so.

Unlike Bagan, climbing to the higher levels of temples at Inn Wa is still allowed which makes them very interesting to explore.

Yadana Hsemee

Next we went to Yadana Hsemee. It was much smaller than Me Nu, but full of character.

With its jungle-esque setting and the way it was slowly being overcome by vegetation, this temple felt like something straight out of the Indiana Jones films.

Myint Mor Taung

After a few less remarkable stops, our final destination at Inn Wa was Myint Mor Taung pagoda. We hadn’t heard of this one before, but we were very happy to have stopped by as it was sandwiched between a couple of other temples, all of which you could climb on top of, and the area was more or less deserted (barring a few locals manning their stalls and a couple of tourists at the next temple along).

Overall we found Mandalay less interesting than the other places we visited in Myanmar, but this temple was definitely an exception; an unexpected treat from our driver to take us there.

Visiting Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) has been a wonderful experience. It might be less accessible and perceived as more dangerous than other South East Asian countries, but the smaller tourism industry and exploring without a guide have given us what feels like a genuine, authentic tourism experience in the country. We hope to return one day.