Day 36: Mandalay to Monywa

-The next day we drove to Sagaing Hill, which is known for its nunnery’s. We first stopped at Kaunghmudaw Pagoda. It had tons of Buddha statues and a great view over the village/city. We also stopped at two other pagodas- the Oo Min Thonese and Shan Oo Pon Nya Shin Pagodas. From the view we could see even more pagodas! The monks and nuns really take a toll on the economy here as the local people provide for most of their meals.  We then went to visit a nunnery that is based off of the monastery we visited yesterday. Here meals are also provided for by donations, although there are only 160 nuns, compared to 1,200 monks.  There we also saw the nuns take their last meal of the day.

Marco at Kaunghmudaw Pagoda:

Nuns receiving their last meal:

All the flip flops outside of the lunch room:

-We then started our two-hour drive to Monywa, a typical Burmese town located on the bank of the Chindwin River. The Chindwin is one of the two main river systems in Myanmar, the other being the Irrawaddy. We stopped at the Hindu Style Than Buddha Temple, which had a huge dome. Marco and I were shocked to see tons of owlets stuck into small cages to be set free at the temple. Our guide explained it was fine since they were owlets, and that the owls were blind so we shouldn’t let them out during the day. Why were they selling them then? We then stopped for lunch at a local place, where our guide and driver joined us. I wasn’t a huge fan of the local dishes so I stuck to rice and beans, although apparently eating beans in Myanmar is a sign you are from central Myanmar.

Owlets for sale:

Thanaka, a cosmetic and sun-repellent, for sale:

Our local lunch:

-Next on the itinerary was Alantayar Pagoda, where you can find the largest reclining Buddha image in all of Southeast Asia, measuring in at 300 feet long (very different from the 288 feet long reclining Buddha we saw in Yangon). Before the reclining Buddha though we saw the 31-storey standing Buddha. We managed to climb up to the 17^th floor, but you couldn’t go any higher than that due to construction. The lift along the Buddha’s back wasn’t working either. Apparently when it first opened three monks went up but they hadn’t tested out the lift yet so it broke somewhere eon the way down and two of the monks broke their legs and backs. The other one got off just fine.

-We then went to a temple full of tiny miniature Buddha’s all over the place. It was beautiful but there’s a time when you get pagoda and Buddha’d out, and that time had arrived about 3 pagodas ago.

-We drove along to our hotel in Monywa and relaxed by watching some Teranova, our new guilty addiction. We then walked across the street to the local beer garden for some dinner. We were treated like celebrities being the only foreigners there. Our guide had taught us how to say thank you in Burmese and our waiter, a small 13-year-old boy, was shocked. 

Day 35: Mandalay Day 3

-Marco woke up not feeling the best so we requested a short day so he could come back and rest up. First up was a 30-minute drive to Amarapura, also known as the “City of Immortals.” It also used to be the capital of Myanmar at one time or another. Once there we visited the Mahagandayon Monastery. The monastery is 150 years old and has 1,200 monks. The monks here do not have to walk around asking for their daily meals, rather donations are made to the monastery and the monks are fed both meals (breakfast and lunch). Our guide explained that there is a yearlong waiting list to make a donation and that each donation costs around $2,500. It does cover the 600kg of rice that are eaten by the monks each day. Around 10am the monks made a huge line to receive their last meal of the day. The novices, who dress in white for their first two years, were just the cutest. One monk dropped his eating utensils in the line with all the tourists watching, I felt so bad for him!

Mahagandayon Monstery:

-We then walked along U Bein Bridge. The 1.2km bridge is made entirely of teak wood and is almost 150 years old. From what I could understand from our guide, the wood was salvaged from old temples when the capital was yet again moved, this time to Amarapura. During the rainy season (now) the bridge covers a huge lake, but during the dry season a rive runs through part of it. However, recently the new highway to Yangon was built so that may alter the water levels during the dry season.

Marco on U Bein Bridge:

-We then drove back to Mandalay to check out Mahamuni Pagoda, the most famous pagoda in Mandalay. It was built by a king in 1784 and has a sacred Mahamuni image in it. I, as a woman, wasn’t allowed to go up to the Buddha cast, but men come and cover the statue with gold leaf, so much so that the Buddha has grown throughout the years.

Marco wearing a longyi (the traditional dress in Myanmar that is still worn by many):

I'm always surprised at just how many people go to the pagodas in Myanmar:

Mahamuni image:

-After that we went to take a look at how gold leaf is made. It really is a crazy process. They start with a tiny ribbon of gold and cut it into tiny pieces, hammering it until it expands. They hammer it with a 7lb hammer for up to three hours. They then repeat the whole process a couple of times so the original gold expands significantly. I think the guide said that the final gold leaf was only 3 micrometers thick. Five square inch leaves then sell for around 2,000 chat, or around $2.30.

Making gold leaf:

-We went to eat lunch at a restaurant named Mann, named so because people often refer to Mandalay as so. The restaurant is considered pretty famous here because it is mentioned in Lonely Planet and everyone here carries around the Lonely Planet guide. Interestingly the first Lonely Planet on Myanmar apparently didn’t come out until 1995. It was a nice little run down place with some killer spring rolls. We headed back to the hotel afterwards to spend the afternoon resting. 

Day 34: Mandalay Day 2

-We had an early start today compared to yesterday and met our tour guide, Jewel (pronounced that way at least, not so sure about the spelling). Our itinerary had planned for us to go across the river to Mingun in the afternoon one day, but Jewel wanted us to go in the morning before the river got too wavy. We took an hour ride over on a little boat. There were some amazing views of the local villages here basically built in the middle of the river on little patches of land. The houses are either floating or built on stilts. It was incredible and so beautiful.

Sone of the houses:

 Marco on the boat:

-Once we made it to Mingun we saw the unfinished Mingun Pagoda. It was intended to be the world’s biggest pagoda but building kind of stopped and then a lot of the pagoda was destroyed in an earthquake. We then walked on over to the tomb of a monk who recited 16,000 pages of scripture. He was a Guinness world record winner in 1992 for memorizing that much. Since then several other monks have been inducted into this semi-hall of fame for doing the same. The statue kind of made him look like a hipster monk.

The unfinished pagoda:

Hipster monk:

-We walked a little further to see the Mingun Bell, which is supposedly the largest ringing bell in the world, supposedly. Then we walked on to visit the Hsinbyume Pagoda, or the white pagoda, as I like to call it. A king built the pagoda for his wife when she passed away. It’s different than the other pagodas because it was created to look like the mythological Mt. Meru, or the universe. Apparently the Buddhists see the universe as a sea with a mountain in the middle. It was said the king’s love for his wife was as big as the universe, so he built the universe for her.

Mingun Bell:

A local taxi:

Hsinbyume Pagoda:

Some adorable local boys:

-We then walked back to the boat but had to wait around for an hour because the waves were too rough. We ended up taking a bigger boat back along with six Spanish women. We ate some delicious pineapple with lime on it. I was skeptical and don’t even like pineapple usually, but this was delicious.

Napping on the boat:

-Once back on the other side we went to a local place for lunch, the Shan Buffet Restaurant. It was actually pretty good. I only have one complaint, which is the company we organized the tour with didn’t mention that they don’t provide meals for the guide. So usually we end up paying for the guide’s lunch. It’s not a big deal but just a little annoying that they didn’t mention that, especially because we tip the guide each day on top of that.

-After lunch we went back to the hotel for an afternoon siesta. Only there did Marco and I realize just how burnt we were. I didn’t even notice getting burnt on the boat because it was so cloudy, but now I look like a lobster with a sunglasses tan.

-We resumed our tour at 4pm when we headed to Shwenandaw Monastery, or the Golden Palace Monastery. It was a beautiful wood carved temple that used to be covered in gold leaf until the rain washed it away. The old king used to love the temple and died in it so his son, the last king, donated the temple to the monks. It used to be located in Mandalay Palace.

Shwenandaw Monastery:

-We then went to Kuthodaw Pagoda, known for having the world’s biggest book. This book turned out to be stone slaps inscribed with Buddhist scriptures. If piled up they would make a 24-storey building and if they were laid down flat next to each other they would cover 14 acres.

A dog taking shelter next to a scripture:

Marco and another pagoda:

-Our final destination for the day was Mandalay Hill to watch the sunset. There was a gorgeous (almost) 360-degree view of the city and the surrounding grasslands. Mandalay is the second largest city in Myanmar but it’s tiny compared to cities in the US. The sun took a while to set and it was pretty cloudy so we left early to go and buy some movies (we’ve run out of ones to watch in the evenings).

Sunset:

Day 33: Mandalay Day 1

-Today was our free day in Mandalay and we really had no idea what we were going to do. We slept in late before heading out. The whole city is centered around a huge square palace compound in the center. We asked the front desk how to get there and for a good place to eat. We walked on over to Ko’s Kitchen, a Thai restaurant, where we grabbed some food. It was pretty good. We then realized just how big this palace was. We had already walked about 40-minutes to get to the restaurant and were just over half way along one of the palace walls. The only entrance was the eastern gate, and we were at the western, so had to walk all the way around to the other side. The whole thing took about 1 hour. We accidentally walked about 6km. Once we finally got to the palace we were too tired to walk another kilometer inside so decided not to go in.

Marco trying out some local workout equipment:

The palace wall:

-After that decision we caught a rickshaw back to the hotel. The only issue was our hotel was another 3-4km away and this poor guy was biking with both Marco and I just sitting there. We paid him good money for the trip because he was working his butt off. It took about 45 minutes to get back to the hotel.

Some nuns walking as seen from the rickshaw:

-After that failed excursion we just lazily relaxed and drank some Myanmar beer, one of the four main beers in the country. They also have Tiger, Dagon, and Mandalay beers. 

Day 32: Yangon to Mandalay

-After breakfast we were picked up and headed to the bus station. We were taking a ‘JJ Express’ bus from Yangon up to Mandalay, approximately a 9-hour journey. It was a super nice bus, complete with blankets, water, and hand wipes. We stopped for 30 minutes at a rest stop where we grabbed some lunch, not realizing that we would be served a huge snack on the bus. Additionally we had brought food with us because we didn’t know if we were going to be fed. Needless to say we ate a lot of food. I finished the 4^th Game of Thrones book and Jodi Picoult’s new book Between the Lines, which she wrote with her daughter.

-The scenery on the drive was just gorgeous. There were just fields and fields of green flat land with no buildings to be seen. There were just huts, farmers, and oxen. We even saw four elephants walking down the side of the road helping out with the farming. We were on one of the major highways in Myanmar but it was hard to believe with the lack of development around us.

A view of the landscape:

-Once we arrived in Mandalay there was a person waiting for us to take us to our new guesthouse. We checked in and just 'vegged'. We had no reason to be tired after doing nothing all day, but sometimes that just makes you more tired. We ate where we were staying then crashed.

The bus station in Mandalay: