MANDALAY - 9th Jan. 2015 to 12th Jan. 2015

To travel somewhere by bus, they usually advertise that the journey starts from downtown, or that there is a free shuttle service from the hotel to the place from where the coach leaves. But the end of the trip, is usually a place in the middle of nowhere, a few kilometers before reaching the actual destination.

To avoid the usual show with taxi drivers, this time we opted for a slightly more expensive variant: a minibus, which picks you up at your hotel and takes you straight to your next hotel at your destination, in this case Mandalay.

In this city we have learned a new thing about burmese "tourist‑scamers": they always made us believe that "the government" did not allow foreigners to rent a vehicle without a driver. Supposedly to control the movements of tourists and avoid them to go to "problematic" areas. But apparently it is not true. Here in Mandalay, on almost every corner they offered us, to rent a motorbike. They use to make believe tourists, that the regime does not allow something, but in reality, the country is now in a slow process of democratic transition. The point is also, if you rent a motorbike with driver, you can ask for more money, that if you just rent a motorbike.

• MANDALAY  -  A walk round the Royal Palace

We are not kidding, we've literally spent an entire day, just to walk around the Royal Palace. We even didn't enter inside, as it is mostly restricted military area, and there is only a small visitable area for "only" 10 US$.

The Royal Palace of Mandalay extends over an area of ​​about 4 km², forming a square of 2 km each side, surrounded by water. Walking around the palace, involves a walk of more than 8 km.

Just beside the Royal Palace, is the Mandalay‑hill, a hill that rises 150 meters above the city, with the Su Taung Pyi Pagoda at the top, from where there are great views.

• INVA

The next day we took a trip around Mandalay, visiting the surrounding towns of Inva, Sagain and Amarapura.

To reduce costs, we were looking for more people to share the taxi. In fact, it turned out not to be a taxi, but a pick‑up, with a carpet on the floor of the cargo area, where we could sit or lie down. In fact, it was probably more comfortable like this, than if we had taken a taxi.

Inva is located 20 km southwest of Mandalay. It is very quiet and rural place, with some temples. Our pick-up left us beside the Myitnge river, from where we toke a boat to cross it. On the other side, some horse carriage drivers offers to take us to see the few things to be seen here. Although the temples are a bit far away from each other, this place is very nice to walk, and in two or three hours, you can do it all on food by your own.

• SAGAIN

Close to Inva, just across the great Ayeyarwady river, is Sagain. One of the most important Buddhist centers in Myanmar. Around the hills of Sagain, there are around 600 stupas and monasteries, and a hundred meditation centers. More than 6,000 monks and nuns live here.

• AMARAPURA  -  U Bein  Bridge

The U Bein Bridge in Amarapura, is the longest wooden bridge in the world. It is made of teak wood, and has a length of 1.2 km. Its construction was commissioned in 1850 by the mayor U Bein, therefore its name. Today it attracts many tourists and locals, especially to see the sunset.

• Our last day in Myanmar

As a farewell from Myanmar, we found a pleasant surprise. The airline you flew to Bangkok, had a free shuttle bus from the center of Mandalay to the Airport. This way, our last memory of Myanmar would not be a taxi. But as the bus was full, we had to sit on folding chairs in the corridor.

Read again old posts

If you want to read again some of the post we published on our blog, a very easy way to do this, is to click on the top bar Summary Countries. Here you can choose which country, and within each country, what particular post you want to read.

  * FOR MOBILE PHONES VERSION: 

Click on "Blog" at the top, and then check the option "Summary Countries".

BAGAN - 7th Jan. 2015 to 9th Jan. 2015

As usual, our coach leave us again at the "central" bus station, about 6 km from the nearest town. But this time the show taxi was even greater:

It's 4:00 am. Around twenty taxi drivers stand in front of the door of the bus, almost entering, they look like hungry wolves, waiting for their prey. They only want to eat "Western" dollars! Nobody moves from his seat, because they told us, that this bus will drop us into downtown. The locals are also still on the bus, this means that the bus has not reached his final destination. But the bus is not moving. After a while the driver comes in and says: "This is the last stop, everybody out. This is Bagan." Although no one dares to go. The driver enter up to three times, to tell us that we should get off. Gradually, we begin to understand that the bus simply will not continue until all tourists leave. Only once all the tourists have left the bus, it continues its journey with the rest of the passengers...

To exit the bus, you have to push yourself through the taxi drivers, every tourist immediately receives one or two taxi drivers, who are assigned to a distance of 5 cm from the ear, you can't hardly walk, it is difficult to talk to other passengers, it's even hard to talk to each other. You are under constant pressure. US$20 is what they want, for a taxi ride of nearly 6 km to Nyaung U, for 2 people, where we have our accommodation. Most of the passengers accept this conditions. When we asked for a pickup parked there, the answer we got was: "Only for locals". Despite all adversity, we got to convince 5 other passenger, to stay with us, and have patience until we negotiate the price down to a minimally decent price. After a while of hard bargaining, we got US$14 in total, to take 7 people to each of our hotels. As a comparison: our only taxi ride in Thailand, from downtown Chiang Mai to the Airport, was about 30cents per kilometre, and that in Thailand, witch is a much more developed country, and therefore, prices should be more expensive there.

Like at the Inle Lake, here you have to pay also a "toll". But this time it was US$20 per person. Just five days before our arrival, the price was still US$15, as other travellers reported to us.

Bagan is one of the most important (if not The most important), from the site you have to visit in Myanmar, especially due to the large number of pagodas you can see everywhere.

Between the 11th and the 13th century, when it was the capital of the kingdom of Bagan, there were built more than 10000 Buddhist temples and pagodas, from all of them, nowadays, they are still remaining around 2200 of them.

There are several ways to explore the 40km² of the site: by foot, witch you can practically exclude because of the enormous distances; renting a bike; renting a motorcycle is not “allowed” for foreigners; but you can hire a motorcycle with driver; a tuc-tuc with driver; car with driver; a carriage with driver; a what-ever, but always, with driver; a hot air balloon; etc...

There is an option, in between renting a bicycle and all the other options (much more expensive). It is to rent an "electric bicycle". In fact, we would rather call it an "electric toy motorcycle", which can carry up to two people, at a speed of 20km/h on the flat. So we opted for this last option.

INLE LAKE (Nyaungshwe) - 1st Jan. 2015 to 6th Jan. 2015

To get to Inle Lake, we took a night bus to Nyaungshwe (located 5 km from Inle Lake). The bus left us 6 km outside the town, as we have been seen the days we spent in this country, this is a habit in Myanmar.  You never arrive to your destination. Therefore, as a tourist, you often have no choice but to take a taxi, as they make very difficult to catch public transport. For this reason, you pay almost the same price for the bus as for the taxi ride.

Another annoying thing of night buses in Myanmar, is that you get the final destination in the middle of the night. Usually around 4 in the morning.

You have not left the bus yet and you are half asleep when taxi drivers jump on you. Certainly, it is not a very pleasant awakening. If at least they had given a distance of half a meter to take your belonings and 5 minutes to think about what you want to do quietly, it would have been much better.

Asleep as we were, this time we were decived. We knew, we had pick-up vans from where we left the bus to the village for about 50 cents. But they told us that the first one comes at 8 am, and we believed it. So in the end, we decided to take the "private" pick-up for $ 5 to bring us to our hotel. Once inside, it was filled with other people who was waiting at the van stop for 50 cents. Thanks to us, this trip was more than paid.

We also had to pay the "tourist tax" of $10 per person for the right to access the town. Extrapolating this to Europe, it is like you where required to pay 50 Euro, just to enter to Barcelona.

One of the few things that can be done here for a cheaper price, is to rent a bike and explore its surroundings.

We also take this opportunity to show you one of the many motorbike "troughs" scattered along all the roads and paths of the country.

In any case, the obligatory tour is the tour boat on the lake. The circuit is almost the same everywhere, but prices vary considerably (between 15 and 30 dollars for the same route, including the visit to Indein). In the end, we ended up paying $20, but to reduce costs, we decided to look for more people and share the boat. So, it was for $4 per person.

We were very pleasantly surprised on our tour boat. The price / quality ratio was quite good, and considering the widespread custom of this country of inflating prices for tourists, we were happy with that.

We took the boat at 8:00 am and we came back after sunset. Visits to craft workshops, which explains the processes of their products, was included. As they sell you their products, we were a little bit afraid, because we still had in mind the tailoring history in Bangkok. But it was not like in Bangkok and visits were extremely pleasant and interesting.

In the following video, you can see how thread is produced from fibers of the lotus stems flowers. For their hard work, this thread is still more expensive than silk.

In another workshop, "giraffe women" from the Padaung tribe were "exposed" as they did their fabrics manually.

Just where the river flows into Lake Inle, you can see the first fishermen, who are very characteristic of this area. They have the ability to paddle with the help of a leg and sustained by the other one. This fishermen are only here because of the pictures and not to distourb the ones who are really fishing. You see them a bit further.

In some parts of the lake, small boats come up to you to sell their products.

We made some stops in some temples, such as Hpaung Daw U Pagoda, located on an island surrounded by canals.

Inside Hpaung Daw U Pagoda, there are five Buddha images covered with gold (or that's what we were told... but we only see some golden stones). Anyone who wants to buy a gold foil and stick it to the figures can do it. Well not everyone, only men are allowed to go up with the Buddha figures, women are supposedly too impure to do this.

Also we recomend you the visit to the Indein Shwe Pagoda, which is accessed by boat up the river, and then walk uphill for about 20 minutes. Once there, you will find a lot of stupas surrounding the temple. You feel almost like beeing in the middle of a stupa forest. For some reason, everyone who offers the boat tour  have both routes, one with Indein and the other one without. The price difference is just between 2 and 5 dollars less and we think you souldn't skip it.

In our third day on Inle Lake, it was the turn to our first food poisoning. So, we had to wait a couple of days there. Luckily, we had in Nyaungshwe the best accommodation we ever had in Myanmar.