Travel Day 1146 – Bagan to Mandalay, MYANMAR
After spending so many wonderful days in Bagan, it was unfortunately time to move on and see a little bit more of Myanmar…
City Wall and Moat of Mandalay
Instead of going towards Inle Lake first, as most travelers seemed to do, I rather opted for going north to Mandalay. For some reason Mandalay sounded like this exotic Asian city which in fact was the last royal capital of Myanmar before the British took control of the area. But I had no idea why Mandalay was so famous and in fact I had never heard anyone recommending or talking highly about Mandalay as a destination. It was almost a bit strange and Mandalay appeared to be a little bit mysterious…
What was also somehow mysterious was the bus journey from Bagan to Mandalay since it was supposed to take 7 to 8 hours for the 170 km distance. This seemed absolutely crazy and I really couldn’t imagine why on earth it would take such a long time for the short distance. But then I realized that, even if I seemed to be in a nice tourist bus, we were picking up passengers, we were stopping to load goods into the bus and we apparently needed to cool the brakes and the motor with water every once in a while…
Cooling the Brakes of the Mandalay Bus
But then about 4 hours into our bus journey I was getting a little bit nervous because I started to need a toilet and we hadn’t stopped yet for an actual break. The only stops we had made were in fact to keep filling up the bus and at this stage the entire aisle from front to back was full with people and stuff. Since nobody around me spoke any English or knew what was going on, I actually managed to climb from the second to last seat all the way to the front to have a friendly word with the conductor…
To my surprise another 20 minutes later we really stopped for an extended lunch break with another cooling of the breaks and the motor. Why this was necessary was really beyond my understanding since the bus looked quite new and in good shape, but then again a few things in Myanmar seemed to be simply a little bit mysterious. But then by the mid-afternoon we finally arrived in Mandalay. Well, actually as it turned out the bus station was not even in the city and one had to somehow commute again…
Me on a Myanmar style Taxi, Mandalay
Since pick-us really didn’t seem to exist at the bus station and the motorcycle taxis asked way too much money, I walked off, had a tea and finally found a nicer driver who made me a fair price. While a taxi is normally not my cup of tea, here it turned out to be really convenient as the taxi driver took me to different hotels of my choice until I had found something that suited my fancy and my wallet. Wow, it really only took me the whole day to fully reach Mandalay…
All I managed to do before darkness then was walking the two blocks to the old city wall with moat. While seeing this seemingly endless wall with its fancy watchtowers, one really wanted to see the ancient city behind, but apparently that was long gone and there was nothing else to see. So what was there to see then in Mandalay? It was still a bit mysterious to me, but I was about to find out more tomorrow…
Find all Mandalay Photos here.
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