The flight to Mandalay was aboard a small two prop aeroplane, just flying low enough below the cloud layer to enjoy the view of the lands below. I really like small planes like this, they’re agile and move quickly, not having that slow lethargic feeling of the bigger long distance planes.

I had lucked on cheap accommodation for both Mandalay and Bagan. The main booking site I’d been using, Agoda, had special rates when I was booking back in at Inle Lake, so I quickly snapped up both deals – a 20% discount for a hotel in Mandalay and a brilliant 60% discount for the hotel in Bagan.

Upon arriving at the hotel I was told I had been upgraded to a deluxe room. Yay! After the first night I realised why; the floor I was one seemed to be undergoing some kind of refurbishment, and I think my room was the only one in use. Not that it really mattered, they weren’t being noisy or anything disturbing, and I had a queen sized bed, modern bathroom, and a satellite TV. I felt like I was cheating at first, then settled in an watched a movie, feeling like a normal person again.

Mandalay is like a slightly modernised version of Yangon, and a much nicer city in general – with one glaring exception. I had wondered about the lack of motorbikes in Yangon, and later learned that they were actually banned in the city. Mandalay, however, doesn’t have this ban and motorbikes plague the streets like most Asian cities, and enjoy reckless riding and a general disregard of anyone but themselves. But with the significantly less traffic than Yangon, it wasn’t too much of problem avoiding getting in their path.

My first mission was to find some food. Unfortunately Mandalay suffers from the over abundance of Chinese food that seems to permeate Myanmar. After a couple of hours of wandering the streets I finally happened on a small local place that had a a handful of Burmese choices, which I settling on a mix of chicken and fish curries.

 I should point out that a Burmese curry isn’t exactly what would come to mind when thinking of say an Indian curry. The different styles differ only in the sense of what meat/vegetable it was cooked with, and they’re very oily. This heavy oil based cooking method is called s’i pyan, or in English “oil returns”. It’s still delicious and my favourite Burmese food.

The two big attractions here at Mandalay Hill and Mandalay Palace. The Palace had a K10,000 entrance fee (that also covers some other sites out of town), and I was really getting over the never ending overpriced foreigner tax on every possible attraction. Also, the palace had burnt down in WWII in 1945 fighting the Japanese, and was rebuilt in the 90’s, so while it was a replica of the original, it still wasn’t the original. I skipped this and went for the hill.

I had decided to circumnavigate the palace, starting from the south western corner and making my way to the north eastern corner where the hills entrance was. This turned out to be 3kms in the sun, and when I arrived at the entrance I decided to just tackle the hill straight away. In retrospect, I really should have eaten first and rested for a while.

Mandalay hill is 230m up, climbing 1729 steps. It’s a fairly exhausting climb after walking 3kms to get here. There where a couple of moments where I questioned if this was worth it, but I just had to reach the summit and the views of the city.

The stairs level out at certain areas that have Buddhas, one such Buddha is pointing towards Mandalay Palace, where legend has Buddha himself climbed this hill and declared a great city would be build in 2400 years, which when scholars worked out the approximate date, King Mindon moved the capital from Amarapura to Mandalay.

Finally reaching the summit I was greeted with only disappointment. The top is a white temple with a white stupa, and all the views are blocked by the surrounding trees. There’s no amazing pictures to take of the city below. Just another stupa and a smiling Buddha, smiling back at me as if to say – haha, made you climb all this way!

Climbing back down I finished circling the palace in search of an English bookshop called Monument Books. Their website had an address back near where I started, and with a 10 hour cruise coming up and a a few days on the beach after Bagan, I wanted something to read to enjoy the downtime. Sadly the address lead me nowhere, and after a few blocks of aimless wandering in the vain hope it was somewhere nearby, I gave up and made my way back to the hotel, quite a bit tired and sore from the walk.

I booked the ticket for the river cruise down the Irrawaddy to Bagan, and was up bright and early at 5am for a 7am leaving time from the jetty.

This boat trip was leagues different from the uncomfortable pain I went through to Hpa-An. We had padded wicker chairs on the top deck to just chill and enjoy the ride. We did have to drop anchor twice as the fog was nearly impenetrable in the morning, the grey waters simply blurring into the fog so that you couldn’t define the one from the other.

After a hour or so the fog started to lift and off we went. They served a fairly basic breakfast and lunch, and the staff’s enthusiasm was infectious. Soon enough the sun came out with a vengeance and all the covered deck area has already been take up for the groups on pensioners, so I just lathered up the sunscreen and came away a shade of red by the end.

The cruise itself took 10 hours, even with the waiting for the fog, but it really didn’t feel like it. Time sped by, helped by a lot of games of Solitaire on my phone. A French couple sat at the rear of the boat drinking an awful lot of beer, and I’m not even sure how many times one of them would walk by with yet another bottle. How they were even able to disembark along the flimsy gang plank by the end was a mystery, or perhaps it’s a testiment on just how much booze that can drink.

Back on dry (well, muddy) land, I was approached by the usual touts offering taxi rides. It’s always the same, perfectly speaking English kid and offering you a good price, and when you get to the taxi their “brother” takes over, who of cause doesn’t speak English is just told where to go and what to charge. Not that this is an issue, just amusing.

I was staying in New Bagan, which was about 30mins from Nyaung U where the jetty is located. Arriving in the evening, I was introduced to the large bungalow I had managed to reserve cheaply, and prepared myself for adventure where Marco Polo described as “one of the finest sites in the world”.