Travel Day 1153 – Shwebo to Mandalay, MYANMAR
In fact, as I had to notice again today, Shwebo was a really interesting place to visit, even it wasn’t quite worth a trip for its touristic sights…
Lunch invitation by a local Family
It was almost hard to believe that Shwebo had been once the royal capital of Myanmar and nowadays only the partial city moat, a few Buddhist stupas and a newly reconstructed palace were the reminders of that time. Actually the fact that the wooden palace was a reconstruction made me think of Mandalay and the fate of its palace there, but here only two new buildings represented what once used to be the big Schwebon Yadana Palace. I personally wasn’t really too concerned about it because I already had an early morning appointment…
My new-found local friend from yesterday, who already took me out for dinner had insisted to pick me up in the morning and show me a decent place for some local breakfast. Even if it felt a little bit over the top at first and even I didn’t want to inconvenience him in any way, in the end I felt quite happy that he had been so persistent and it was more than great to have a local person show me around and help me order different foods…
Tasty Noodles with Liquid Yellow Tofu
For me it mean that I got introduced to my new favorite vegetarian breakfast dish, noodles with liquid yellow tofu. This was definitely something that I had never eaten before and I probably would have never even known that it existed, but here I had the chance to experience the noodles in the best local shop in town. After such a tasty start of the day, the least I wanted to see in Shwebo was the Schwebon Yadana Palace, the big central market with the local produce and the many stupas of the golden Shwe Daya Paya…
Obviously my new local friend let me only go off for a wander after I promised to come and visit his family for lunch later on. For me this was not only a great honor but also a perfect chance to meet a local family and to see how they lived. So I made sure to quickly visit the palace and the 500-year-old Shwe Daya Paya which was really quite impressive and then spent the rest of the time on the produce market to buy the nicest flowers that I could find for the family…
Friendly Locals on the Produce Market
By lunch time then I was picked up by my local friend again on his scooter and we drove over to his family house. To my great surprise, the whole family did not only introduce themselves to me, but the mother and aunt had spent the whole morning on the market and in the kitchen, preparing a wonderfully delicious vegetarian meal. Besides different vegetable dishes, they had also created a tasty egg dish, a mushroom dish and a tofu dish plus various fresh fruits for desert…
It was really a perfect little feast and the eating customs reminded me of my Family dinner in Southern Kolkata, India. Only here my friend was eating with me while the mother and aunt were watching us enjoying the food with big smiles on their faces. The fact that we couldn’t really communicate didn’t even matter and it simply seemed that they felt really happy to have a foreign guest in their house while I felt very honored to receive such lovely hospitality. Even if the sights of Shwebo were not really worth writing home about, this kind family invitation had certainly been my best experience in Myanmar and for that I was very thankful…
Find all Shwebo Photos here.
I’m going to go to Shwebo.
Where is the location you get that noodle with tofu? I wanna try! 😀
Hi Pancake, great to hear that you are going to Shwebo! Let’s see if I can describe how to get there: If you leave the central market on your left, walk along Aung Zeya Street until you reach the main intersection with Yan Gyi Aung Street. Turn right into Yan Gyi Aung Street and it should be coming up on your left side of the road. It’s an open shop with a couple of tables. Enjoy…