Travel Day 1147 – Mandalay, MYANMAR
Yesterday I had wondered what the sights were in Mandalay, but today I had at least a little bit of an idea…
Mandalay Palace inside the Fort
To be fair, when I was reading my guide on the much too long bus ride yesterday, I already got the clue that Mandalay was not really a recommended destination and actual sights were sparse. There were apparently a lot of other ruined ancient cities in the surrounding area of Mandalay, but the city itself did not have too much on offer. But there was still the city fortress wall with the moat and I really wanted to see what lay inside the perfectly square moated area…
Since I realized yesterday evening already how unbelievably huge the old walled city was, today I made sure to get a bicycle to get around and reach the east gate of the fort. This gate was the only one that allowed foreigners access to the palace and sold the 10 Dollar tourist ticket for all Mandalay sights. But contrary to my previous experience, here they insisted on payment in Kyat before they gave me access to the reconstructed palace area…
Shwenandaw Kyaung in Mandalay
In general the entire ancient city that was surrounded by the fortress and moat had originally been constructed entirely out of wood. This left Mandalay not only vulnerable to destruction by the invading British, but also by the occupying Japanese during WW2. After the war the once beautifully carved wooden city had been burned to the ground, including the entire royal place. What was left today was an extensive army camp that was obviously off-limits to foreigners and a reconstructed wooden palace that was apparently only a cheap imitation of its former self…
I personally was curious to understand the extent of the palace which consisted of some 40 buildings and a climb up the view tower gave a great overview of the reconstructed area. But seeing the buildings themselves from close by was rather an underwhelming experience of peeling paint and poor craftsmanship. While this face palace could not really impress a visitor, what was extremely impressive on the other hand was the Shwenandaw Kyaung Monastery outside the city fortress walls…
Viewing Platform on Mandalay Hill
This amazing wooden teak building was the only surviving structure of the once royal city of Mandalay because it had been taken apart and moved in front of the city gates. The fear that this building was haunted not only saved its life but also created the only true testimony of old Mandalay. Seeing the level of detail with which this building was carved was simply breathtaking and imagining that an entire city of this quality had been burned down seemed like an irreplaceable loss that must have devastated the citizens for generations to come…
Besides this beautiful monastery, Shwenandaw Kyaung, it was also very interesting to visit the Buddhist stupas of Kyauktawgyi Paya, Sandamuni Paya and Kuthodaw Paya. Especially the latter two were quite unique because they were set in a dense forest of smaller Buddhist shrines. After visiting some other minor sights around the area, I finally ended my day with an exhausting climb up to Mandalay hill to see the sun set over the city. While the views were actually quite nice, apparently every single tourist in Mandalay had made sure to be present as well and so the whole sunset experience was by far not as nice and quiet as it had been in Bagan…
Find all Mandalay Photos here.
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