Myanmar - A Visit to a Country in Transition
Mar 11th, 2014 | 09:34 AM
#21
Joined: Apr 2011
Posts: 162
Likes: 0
Three days in Mandalay
The Mandalay airport is new and some distance from town. We’d arranged for an airport transfer with Santa Maria. Our Santa Maria driver was Thet Now, a nice soft-spoken man who spoke minimal English, but usually chose to remain silent. It was a long (and silent) drive on a near-empty expressway through a desiccated landscape to arrive at the seemingly endless city. At first impression, Mandalay is a hard city to like, hot, noisy, hazy and dusty with air redolent of diesel fumes and wood smoke. We were arriving mid-afternoon and hadn’t planned any sightseeing that day, so Thet Now took us directly to our hotel, the Rupar Mandalay Resort.
The Rupar Mandalay was spectacular – luxurious, relatively new teak buildings, beautiful grounds, a nice pool, spacious rooms and superb, helpful staff. We were exhausted – we’d gotten up at 4:00 a.m. for our initial flight from Bangkok to Yangon – and I promptly threw myself into our wonderful king-size bed for a long nap. YT hit the spa to take advantage of the free foot massage and to explore other spa possibilities. Later, we availed ourselves of the free happy hour cocktail, eavesdropped on fellow travelers’ conversations and had dinner in. Our meal, from a mixed western/Asian menu, was delicious, as was the sumptuous breakfast buffet the following morning. (I had slowly developed affection for papaya, particular papaya with a little lime juice squeezed on it.) Indeed, we were destined to eat at the Rupar Mandalay every night we stayed there, due to both inertia and the fact that the Rupar Mandalar is in a suburb of Mandalay, with no other restaurants within walking distance.
A little before nine the next morning, Thet Now arrived to take us on our scheduled tour of Mandalay sights. We began with the teak monastery (Shwe In Bin Kyaung). [Note: When we arrived at the Teak Monastery, we bought two 10 U$D Mandalay Archeological Zone tickets, which are good for a week. If one is so inclined, Lonely Planet’s Myanmar book has a section advising how to visit Mandalay sights without paying the ticket price; given Myanmar’s poverty, I personally consider that kind of cost-cutting churlish.] The Teak Monastery is about 120 years old. The exterior, both the roof and parts of the walls, is covered with sometimes elaborate teak carvings. The interior is beautiful and high-ceilinged, with much of the wood covered with a faded gold paint that gives it a subdued feeling. I particularly enjoyed some of the simpler carvings on the exterior walls and doors, which depicted scenes from everyday life. Out of everything we saw in Mandalay city, this monastery was our favorite.
Next up was “The World’s Largest Book,” the grounds of the 19th Century Kuthodaw Paya and the adjacent Sandamuni Paya. The Kuthodaw Paya is a large white and gold temple surrounded by small stupas covering engraved marble tablets of Buddhist scripture. The Sandamuni Paya contains more stupas containing more slabs offering commentary on the Kuthodaw Paya scripture. I must be spiritually deficit as I found the “Book” part dull and repetitive. However, the central golden stupa was gorgeous and I was fascinated by the shifting neon halo behind a Buddha statue. The grounds of both temples (aside from the repetitive book stupas) were beautiful, golden and tiled. Next we went to Mahamuni Paya, home of a bulbous Buddha where the faithful apply layers gold leaf to statue, resulting in a somewhat lumpy, misshapen appearance. Fortunately for the Buddha’s princely good looks, the gold leaf was applied only to the statue’s torso. Women aren’t allowed to apply gold leaf, but instead view its application remotely via what we dubbed a Buddha-cam.
After that, perhaps sensing that we had overdosed on Buddha-related stuff (“stupa-fied”), Thet Now took us to a craft shop – mostly selling puppets and wood-carvings - that we were in and out of in ten minutes. Then we went to a silk weaving outlet where we arrived immediately after a French tour bus. The store was impassable; we couldn’t even approach the scarf displays. We had earlier passed on a gold-pounding atelier altogether. After a brief shopping excursion, we were on to the Mandalay Palace. The Mandalay Palace is inside the moated and walled Mandalay Fort. The notorious army of Myanmar occupies most of the fort. Entry to the old fort is through a bridge and gate on the east-facing side. After a checkpoint (“no camera, no camera” advised Thet Now in one his longer orations), Thet Now drove us to the Palace, which is the only area within the fort open to foreigners. The Palace is a series of teak buildings and pagodas that had been completely – and poorly – restored in the 1990s. Other than one oddly shaped building and the external ladders on the upper stories of some pagodas, we found the Palace uninteresting.
By now it was early afternoon. As is our habit, we’d filled up at breakfast and had skipped lunch. Thet Now took us down to the river once known as the Irrawaddy and now renamed the “Ayeyarwady.” We caught a riverboat upstream to Mingun while Thet Now went off, presumably to a late lunch. It was cool and pleasant on the river; we lounged in two chairs as the boat struggled against the current. It deposited us on the steep bank near Mingun and we pulled ourselves up to the riverside town. Most of the tourists had come in the morning on the public ferry and we now had the town pretty much to ourselves. We acquired a self-appointed guide, Ton Ton (pronounced “tawn tawn”) who spoke excellent English. He took us around the various sites: A large Buddha footprint, the world’s largest stupa base (Mingun Paya) and the world’s largest working bell (the Mingun Bell). (Mingun does big.) The stupa base was made of brick and had suffered extensive earthquake damage, but its sheer immensity was stunning. It would have been the world’s largest stupa if completed, but work had been discontinued after thirty years. I cannot find any definitive estimate of its size, but I’d guess it is about 40 meters in height and perhaps 120 meters in length. A larger area, surrounded by a low wall, adds to its apparent size. We circled the entire building, stunned by its size.
The bell was fascinating. One can stand inside the bell while someone rings it from outside with a large wooden stave. Contrary to expectation, it’s not particularly loud inside when the big bell is rung. From the Mingun Bell we walked to the Hsinbyume Paya, which, in my opinion, was the single most beautiful temple we saw in Burma. It’s all white and surrounded by seven terraces that are supposed to represent mountain ranges; however, the waviness on the terraces reminded me more of ocean than of mountains. YT thought it looked like a giant wedding cake. Overall, we preferred Mingun to anything else we saw in the Mandalay area. Perhaps this was due to the fact that it was empty and we enjoyed a very relaxing boat ride and stroll around the village. We also saw our first Aung San Suu Kyi portrait in the Mingun market – her face was to reappear on photographs and on t-shirts for the remainder of our trip to Myanmar.
We had a minor contremps while returning to the boat. I was planning to tip Ton Ton 5000 kyat – about $5 US, the equivalent of day’s wages in Myanmar – for his hour of help, when he demanded $10 US, which we viewed as excessive. He insisted he needed that much money to “buy a textbook.” Moreover, I was only carrying kyat, not dollars. Ton Ton refused kyat in any amount and demanded dollars. This started some back and forth, with the end result that that YT ended up giving him 300 baht – Ton Ton accepted Thai currency in a pinch – and he stalked off proclaiming that he had to find some other travelers. Usually, we try to negotiate stuff like this in advance, but he had been so solicitous and friendly that we hadn’t this time. Our mistake.
We managed to find our boat – I’d taken a photograph when we left it – and proceeded back down river. The trip back with the current was speedy; it only took about half an hour. We found Thet Now without difficulty and returned to our hotel. We were beat. We again ate at our hotel – it made sense given our exhaustion, the Rupar Mandalay’s relative remoteness, the hassle of getting into town and, perhaps above all, the coupons for a tasty free cocktail. The food was again excellent although it was probably more Thai than Burmese.
The next morning, per our agreement with Santa Maria, Thet Now showed up with a guide – a lovely young woman whose name sounded something like “Eat Mo.” We were scheduled to visit Saigang and Amarapura. Unfortunately, EM’s English was only a little better than Thet Now’s. She was, however, more given to explanation since she was a guide – Thet Now’s approach had been to pull up to a sight, tersely announce its name and indicate where he’d be waiting. (He’s a driver though, not a guide.) We began with a visit to the Maha Ganayon Kyaung monastery in Amarapura, pausing along the way to watch a line of tricked-out trucks with immense sound systems. EM explained this an offering to Buddha that took place on a monthly basis. The items affixed to the trucks (brooms, bowls, pillows, baskets, no clothing but pretty much any other household items) were festively arranged.
Maha Ganayon Kyaung was crowded with young monks and foreign tourists. The young monks were playfully assembling into a long line that would receive alms (food) from the devout and then terminate in a large food station outside a dining hall where they would have their second and final meal of the day. The tourists photographed the assembly of the monastic line; some also positioned themselves to give alms. I took some nice photographs of monastic laundry drying, the monastery buildings, the tourists and the assembling novice monks before the procession started.
After the procession, we stopped briefly by a beautiful white lakeside temple (I didn’t note down the name) and then proceeded to the U Bein Bridge, a long teak bridge that spans Taungthaman Lake. Since we were visiting in the January dry season and the lake was low, much of the bridge was currently spanning vegetable plots. It had an oddly elevated appearance since the wood (I assume teak) flooring attached to the teak supporting pillars was five or more meters above the fields. Perhaps the most intriguing element about the bridge was its sheer immensity; it’s about a kilometer and a half long. We walked out a ways. Despite a large number of tourists, it’s a working bridge. People were going both ways, many carrying baskets of produce. There was a colorful boat rental section near the foot of the bridge on a muddy section of the western shore of the lake. Some tourists had hired boats and boatmen and were floating serenely on the lake. In other boats, the owners were napping. It was a memorable scene.
Next we crossed the Ayeyarwady River on a motor bridge and proceeded to Sagaing and the temples on Sagaing Hill, Soon U Ponya Shin Paya and Umin Thounzeh. Soon U Ponya Shin Paya is a large temple complex with a huge gilded stupa, superb colorful tilework and fantastic views of the Ayeyarwady. Umin Thounzeh (the “thirty caves” pagoda) was equally impressive, a curved green and gold colonnade containing 45 images of a seated Buddha. (We didn’t see any caves.) Both Soon U Ponya Shin Paya and Umin Thounzeh are highly recommended; they are nothing short of fabulous. For lunch we stopped at what looked like a traditional stop for all tourists. We didn’t note the name of the place. After lunch, we returned to our hotel mid-afternoon, napped and then packed. We were going on the road with Thet Now the next day.
[A note regarding Buddhist temples: Custom requires the removal of one’s shoes and socks before entering temple grounds. If you’re planning on doing a lot of temple visiting, bring and wear a pair of flip-flops! I’d brought a pair of sandals with Velcro fasteners and found myself increasingly frustrated by the unfasten/fasten routine at each temple. YT, on the other hand, had flip-flops and easily slipped them on and off.]
The Mandalay airport is new and some distance from town. We’d arranged for an airport transfer with Santa Maria. Our Santa Maria driver was Thet Now, a nice soft-spoken man who spoke minimal English, but usually chose to remain silent. It was a long (and silent) drive on a near-empty expressway through a desiccated landscape to arrive at the seemingly endless city. At first impression, Mandalay is a hard city to like, hot, noisy, hazy and dusty with air redolent of diesel fumes and wood smoke. We were arriving mid-afternoon and hadn’t planned any sightseeing that day, so Thet Now took us directly to our hotel, the Rupar Mandalay Resort.
The Rupar Mandalay was spectacular – luxurious, relatively new teak buildings, beautiful grounds, a nice pool, spacious rooms and superb, helpful staff. We were exhausted – we’d gotten up at 4:00 a.m. for our initial flight from Bangkok to Yangon – and I promptly threw myself into our wonderful king-size bed for a long nap. YT hit the spa to take advantage of the free foot massage and to explore other spa possibilities. Later, we availed ourselves of the free happy hour cocktail, eavesdropped on fellow travelers’ conversations and had dinner in. Our meal, from a mixed western/Asian menu, was delicious, as was the sumptuous breakfast buffet the following morning. (I had slowly developed affection for papaya, particular papaya with a little lime juice squeezed on it.) Indeed, we were destined to eat at the Rupar Mandalay every night we stayed there, due to both inertia and the fact that the Rupar Mandalar is in a suburb of Mandalay, with no other restaurants within walking distance.
A little before nine the next morning, Thet Now arrived to take us on our scheduled tour of Mandalay sights. We began with the teak monastery (Shwe In Bin Kyaung). [Note: When we arrived at the Teak Monastery, we bought two 10 U$D Mandalay Archeological Zone tickets, which are good for a week. If one is so inclined, Lonely Planet’s Myanmar book has a section advising how to visit Mandalay sights without paying the ticket price; given Myanmar’s poverty, I personally consider that kind of cost-cutting churlish.] The Teak Monastery is about 120 years old. The exterior, both the roof and parts of the walls, is covered with sometimes elaborate teak carvings. The interior is beautiful and high-ceilinged, with much of the wood covered with a faded gold paint that gives it a subdued feeling. I particularly enjoyed some of the simpler carvings on the exterior walls and doors, which depicted scenes from everyday life. Out of everything we saw in Mandalay city, this monastery was our favorite.
Next up was “The World’s Largest Book,” the grounds of the 19th Century Kuthodaw Paya and the adjacent Sandamuni Paya. The Kuthodaw Paya is a large white and gold temple surrounded by small stupas covering engraved marble tablets of Buddhist scripture. The Sandamuni Paya contains more stupas containing more slabs offering commentary on the Kuthodaw Paya scripture. I must be spiritually deficit as I found the “Book” part dull and repetitive. However, the central golden stupa was gorgeous and I was fascinated by the shifting neon halo behind a Buddha statue. The grounds of both temples (aside from the repetitive book stupas) were beautiful, golden and tiled. Next we went to Mahamuni Paya, home of a bulbous Buddha where the faithful apply layers gold leaf to statue, resulting in a somewhat lumpy, misshapen appearance. Fortunately for the Buddha’s princely good looks, the gold leaf was applied only to the statue’s torso. Women aren’t allowed to apply gold leaf, but instead view its application remotely via what we dubbed a Buddha-cam.
After that, perhaps sensing that we had overdosed on Buddha-related stuff (“stupa-fied”), Thet Now took us to a craft shop – mostly selling puppets and wood-carvings - that we were in and out of in ten minutes. Then we went to a silk weaving outlet where we arrived immediately after a French tour bus. The store was impassable; we couldn’t even approach the scarf displays. We had earlier passed on a gold-pounding atelier altogether. After a brief shopping excursion, we were on to the Mandalay Palace. The Mandalay Palace is inside the moated and walled Mandalay Fort. The notorious army of Myanmar occupies most of the fort. Entry to the old fort is through a bridge and gate on the east-facing side. After a checkpoint (“no camera, no camera” advised Thet Now in one his longer orations), Thet Now drove us to the Palace, which is the only area within the fort open to foreigners. The Palace is a series of teak buildings and pagodas that had been completely – and poorly – restored in the 1990s. Other than one oddly shaped building and the external ladders on the upper stories of some pagodas, we found the Palace uninteresting.
By now it was early afternoon. As is our habit, we’d filled up at breakfast and had skipped lunch. Thet Now took us down to the river once known as the Irrawaddy and now renamed the “Ayeyarwady.” We caught a riverboat upstream to Mingun while Thet Now went off, presumably to a late lunch. It was cool and pleasant on the river; we lounged in two chairs as the boat struggled against the current. It deposited us on the steep bank near Mingun and we pulled ourselves up to the riverside town. Most of the tourists had come in the morning on the public ferry and we now had the town pretty much to ourselves. We acquired a self-appointed guide, Ton Ton (pronounced “tawn tawn”) who spoke excellent English. He took us around the various sites: A large Buddha footprint, the world’s largest stupa base (Mingun Paya) and the world’s largest working bell (the Mingun Bell). (Mingun does big.) The stupa base was made of brick and had suffered extensive earthquake damage, but its sheer immensity was stunning. It would have been the world’s largest stupa if completed, but work had been discontinued after thirty years. I cannot find any definitive estimate of its size, but I’d guess it is about 40 meters in height and perhaps 120 meters in length. A larger area, surrounded by a low wall, adds to its apparent size. We circled the entire building, stunned by its size.
The bell was fascinating. One can stand inside the bell while someone rings it from outside with a large wooden stave. Contrary to expectation, it’s not particularly loud inside when the big bell is rung. From the Mingun Bell we walked to the Hsinbyume Paya, which, in my opinion, was the single most beautiful temple we saw in Burma. It’s all white and surrounded by seven terraces that are supposed to represent mountain ranges; however, the waviness on the terraces reminded me more of ocean than of mountains. YT thought it looked like a giant wedding cake. Overall, we preferred Mingun to anything else we saw in the Mandalay area. Perhaps this was due to the fact that it was empty and we enjoyed a very relaxing boat ride and stroll around the village. We also saw our first Aung San Suu Kyi portrait in the Mingun market – her face was to reappear on photographs and on t-shirts for the remainder of our trip to Myanmar.
We had a minor contremps while returning to the boat. I was planning to tip Ton Ton 5000 kyat – about $5 US, the equivalent of day’s wages in Myanmar – for his hour of help, when he demanded $10 US, which we viewed as excessive. He insisted he needed that much money to “buy a textbook.” Moreover, I was only carrying kyat, not dollars. Ton Ton refused kyat in any amount and demanded dollars. This started some back and forth, with the end result that that YT ended up giving him 300 baht – Ton Ton accepted Thai currency in a pinch – and he stalked off proclaiming that he had to find some other travelers. Usually, we try to negotiate stuff like this in advance, but he had been so solicitous and friendly that we hadn’t this time. Our mistake.
We managed to find our boat – I’d taken a photograph when we left it – and proceeded back down river. The trip back with the current was speedy; it only took about half an hour. We found Thet Now without difficulty and returned to our hotel. We were beat. We again ate at our hotel – it made sense given our exhaustion, the Rupar Mandalay’s relative remoteness, the hassle of getting into town and, perhaps above all, the coupons for a tasty free cocktail. The food was again excellent although it was probably more Thai than Burmese.
The next morning, per our agreement with Santa Maria, Thet Now showed up with a guide – a lovely young woman whose name sounded something like “Eat Mo.” We were scheduled to visit Saigang and Amarapura. Unfortunately, EM’s English was only a little better than Thet Now’s. She was, however, more given to explanation since she was a guide – Thet Now’s approach had been to pull up to a sight, tersely announce its name and indicate where he’d be waiting. (He’s a driver though, not a guide.) We began with a visit to the Maha Ganayon Kyaung monastery in Amarapura, pausing along the way to watch a line of tricked-out trucks with immense sound systems. EM explained this an offering to Buddha that took place on a monthly basis. The items affixed to the trucks (brooms, bowls, pillows, baskets, no clothing but pretty much any other household items) were festively arranged.
Maha Ganayon Kyaung was crowded with young monks and foreign tourists. The young monks were playfully assembling into a long line that would receive alms (food) from the devout and then terminate in a large food station outside a dining hall where they would have their second and final meal of the day. The tourists photographed the assembly of the monastic line; some also positioned themselves to give alms. I took some nice photographs of monastic laundry drying, the monastery buildings, the tourists and the assembling novice monks before the procession started.
After the procession, we stopped briefly by a beautiful white lakeside temple (I didn’t note down the name) and then proceeded to the U Bein Bridge, a long teak bridge that spans Taungthaman Lake. Since we were visiting in the January dry season and the lake was low, much of the bridge was currently spanning vegetable plots. It had an oddly elevated appearance since the wood (I assume teak) flooring attached to the teak supporting pillars was five or more meters above the fields. Perhaps the most intriguing element about the bridge was its sheer immensity; it’s about a kilometer and a half long. We walked out a ways. Despite a large number of tourists, it’s a working bridge. People were going both ways, many carrying baskets of produce. There was a colorful boat rental section near the foot of the bridge on a muddy section of the western shore of the lake. Some tourists had hired boats and boatmen and were floating serenely on the lake. In other boats, the owners were napping. It was a memorable scene.
Next we crossed the Ayeyarwady River on a motor bridge and proceeded to Sagaing and the temples on Sagaing Hill, Soon U Ponya Shin Paya and Umin Thounzeh. Soon U Ponya Shin Paya is a large temple complex with a huge gilded stupa, superb colorful tilework and fantastic views of the Ayeyarwady. Umin Thounzeh (the “thirty caves” pagoda) was equally impressive, a curved green and gold colonnade containing 45 images of a seated Buddha. (We didn’t see any caves.) Both Soon U Ponya Shin Paya and Umin Thounzeh are highly recommended; they are nothing short of fabulous. For lunch we stopped at what looked like a traditional stop for all tourists. We didn’t note the name of the place. After lunch, we returned to our hotel mid-afternoon, napped and then packed. We were going on the road with Thet Now the next day.
[A note regarding Buddhist temples: Custom requires the removal of one’s shoes and socks before entering temple grounds. If you’re planning on doing a lot of temple visiting, bring and wear a pair of flip-flops! I’d brought a pair of sandals with Velcro fasteners and found myself increasingly frustrated by the unfasten/fasten routine at each temple. YT, on the other hand, had flip-flops and easily slipped them on and off.]
Mar 11th, 2014 | 11:15 AM
#23
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 33,288
Likes: 0
Oops - the above note is for Lancaster lad.
Interesting report of Mandalay. We didn't bother with the in-Mandalay sights other than the Mahamuni Buddha and a gold-leaf workshop. You've affirmed for me that was a good decision. The gold-leaf workshop was fascinating, as it is all done as it has been done for hundreds of years. The "timer" for the pounding is a half a coconut shell with a hole in it!
Sorry to hear of your encounter with the man demanding $10. For me, it's a sign of how much things have changed in Burma.
BTW, it isn't that the palace is badly restored - what sit on the ground now is entirely a recent fabrication. The old palace was burned to the ground.
Interesting report of Mandalay. We didn't bother with the in-Mandalay sights other than the Mahamuni Buddha and a gold-leaf workshop. You've affirmed for me that was a good decision. The gold-leaf workshop was fascinating, as it is all done as it has been done for hundreds of years. The "timer" for the pounding is a half a coconut shell with a hole in it!
Sorry to hear of your encounter with the man demanding $10. For me, it's a sign of how much things have changed in Burma.
BTW, it isn't that the palace is badly restored - what sit on the ground now is entirely a recent fabrication. The old palace was burned to the ground.
Mar 11th, 2014 | 02:25 PM
#25
Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 878
Likes: 0
Me too..."Stupa-fied" is priceless!
sartoric- Thanks, look forward to what you have to say about Pawdaw....DH is charmed by the looks and history of the 1947 boat. I like the idea of just watching the world go by.
gotravel- Love your report on Madalay. Thanks so much! Those are the places I have zeroed in on. We will go to Sagaing and the Bridge the afternoon we arrive. Then do the city sights the next morning before we board the river cruise at noon. Mingun is the first stop for the river cruise.
Glad to know you did some things with out a guide...we plan to also. We have been told our driver will have very little English..so that is why I am obsessing over which sites to see. We will see how it works.
sartoric- Thanks, look forward to what you have to say about Pawdaw....DH is charmed by the looks and history of the 1947 boat. I like the idea of just watching the world go by.
gotravel- Love your report on Madalay. Thanks so much! Those are the places I have zeroed in on. We will go to Sagaing and the Bridge the afternoon we arrive. Then do the city sights the next morning before we board the river cruise at noon. Mingun is the first stop for the river cruise.
Glad to know you did some things with out a guide...we plan to also. We have been told our driver will have very little English..so that is why I am obsessing over which sites to see. We will see how it works.
Mar 11th, 2014 | 06:38 PM
#26
Original Poster
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 11,730
Likes: 7
Thanks all! Appreciate the clarification, Kathie.
cwn -- you can do fine without guides I think. A good guide can enhance what you are seeing, but without a guide, its easy to get a general, but maybe not in-depth, understanding. And then there is following up or researching in advance on the internet. Plus all the great stuff posted here helps too. Hope your cruise stops at Mingun at a less busy time. I think part of the charm for us was it was totally empty of tourists and very quiet. And actually our adopted guide was pretty good except for his capitalist way with the demanded payment at the end.
cwn -- you can do fine without guides I think. A good guide can enhance what you are seeing, but without a guide, its easy to get a general, but maybe not in-depth, understanding. And then there is following up or researching in advance on the internet. Plus all the great stuff posted here helps too. Hope your cruise stops at Mingun at a less busy time. I think part of the charm for us was it was totally empty of tourists and very quiet. And actually our adopted guide was pretty good except for his capitalist way with the demanded payment at the end.
Mar 11th, 2014 | 11:25 PM
#27
Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 878
Likes: 0
Well, I do research everything to death according to DH and can tell him all he wants to know. I/we do sometimes hire a local guide for a special site...just really don't like one with us all day...would rather move at our own speed.
We will be at Mingun late in the afternoon...hopefully the tour groups will be gone and it will be peaceful. Thanks for the information.
We will be at Mingun late in the afternoon...hopefully the tour groups will be gone and it will be peaceful. Thanks for the information.
Mar 11th, 2014 | 11:36 PM
#28
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 2,003
Likes: 0
@kathie<<<Ground transport makes sense only if you have a lot of time, otherwise it can eat up all of your time in SE Asia.>>>
I agree. But the secret is don't try and cover too much ground on any particular trip. And tbh getting to and hanging round airports eats up a lot of time too. And if you can travel overnight by sleeper train, no time wasted, save on a night's hotel, and wake up in a new destination. Bangkok to Chiang Mai, or Bangkok to Nong Khai/Vientiane are good examples.
Too many people tick off boxes, but don't really experience the country they've paid a lot on money to visit because they're stuck in a tin can 30,000 feet above it all.
For every must-see place that're often crowded with tour groups, stalls selling tat, and hasslers, and the like, there are half-a-dozen much more interesting places often only slightly off the beaten track, which you can have more-or-less to yourself.
I agree. But the secret is don't try and cover too much ground on any particular trip. And tbh getting to and hanging round airports eats up a lot of time too. And if you can travel overnight by sleeper train, no time wasted, save on a night's hotel, and wake up in a new destination. Bangkok to Chiang Mai, or Bangkok to Nong Khai/Vientiane are good examples.
Too many people tick off boxes, but don't really experience the country they've paid a lot on money to visit because they're stuck in a tin can 30,000 feet above it all.
For every must-see place that're often crowded with tour groups, stalls selling tat, and hasslers, and the like, there are half-a-dozen much more interesting places often only slightly off the beaten track, which you can have more-or-less to yourself.
Mar 12th, 2014 | 12:11 AM
#29
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 2,003
Likes: 0
@yestravel<<<How long were your drives from place to place? The dust most of the places we went was unreal.>>>
Yep, we spent a lot of time sat in the back of the not too comfortable taxi. We did the Yangon to Bagan leg over two days, with an overnight in Tauntoo, having also visited Bago. We also stopped overnight at Tauntoo on our way back to Yangon.
The drive from Pwin oo Lwin to Kalaw, and Kalaw to Inle were as rough as drives can be. But photo opportunities were round every bend (lots of bends!), and if we wanted to stop, then the driver stopped for us to take in whatever it was we'd seen. I think if you ask a aircraft pilot to stop to take a photo, then the plane falls out of the sky!
Yep, we spent a lot of time sat in the back of the not too comfortable taxi. We did the Yangon to Bagan leg over two days, with an overnight in Tauntoo, having also visited Bago. We also stopped overnight at Tauntoo on our way back to Yangon.
The drive from Pwin oo Lwin to Kalaw, and Kalaw to Inle were as rough as drives can be. But photo opportunities were round every bend (lots of bends!), and if we wanted to stop, then the driver stopped for us to take in whatever it was we'd seen. I think if you ask a aircraft pilot to stop to take a photo, then the plane falls out of the sky!
Mar 12th, 2014 | 07:04 AM
#31
Joined: Jul 2013
Posts: 1,488
Likes: 0
Thanks YT and GT, you really do make the journey come alive.
LL. Okay, I can't get the pilot to stop for a photo, but cruising at 11,500 ft, I could see amazing rugged mountains, and I still can't figure out why a 20 minute flight takes 8 hours by road.
LL. Okay, I can't get the pilot to stop for a photo, but cruising at 11,500 ft, I could see amazing rugged mountains, and I still can't figure out why a 20 minute flight takes 8 hours by road.
Mar 13th, 2014 | 06:28 AM
#32
Joined: Apr 2011
Posts: 162
Likes: 0
All - Thank you for the kind comments. The next segment will be up in a day or two.
BTW…there were at least two comments that were "removed by Fodor's moderators" that I never saw. Does anyone know what they were about? Just curious…
GT
BTW…there were at least two comments that were "removed by Fodor's moderators" that I never saw. Does anyone know what they were about? Just curious…
GT
Mar 13th, 2014 | 02:09 PM
#34
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 510
Likes: 0
YT and GT, supposedly we're booked at the Trader's Yangon, the Hotel @ Tharabar Gate and Inle View Resort. Until we get our official confirmation from Santa Maria, I'm still holding on to the (more expensive) reservations I made myself. As for being an internetwiz, not so much, maybe very early on, but not now.
I'm looking forward to your reports on Bagan and Inle Lake. I know it's a lot of work, so thank you for taking the time to share your experiences with everyone.
I'm looking forward to your reports on Bagan and Inle Lake. I know it's a lot of work, so thank you for taking the time to share your experiences with everyone.
Mar 13th, 2014 | 02:12 PM
#35
Original Poster
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 11,730
Likes: 7
Santa Maria came thru with our reservations and some even dropped in price closer to the time. They dropped in price because we could get a lower priced room, not because the hotel rates dropped.
Yea, the technology changes so fast hard to keep up with it.
Yea, the technology changes so fast hard to keep up with it.
Mar 13th, 2014 | 04:34 PM
#38
Original Poster
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 11,730
Likes: 7
Thanks, wkw & dgunbug. Dgunbug, Your VN report was very helpful when we planned that trip. Actually I was very disappointed the driver didn't speak English. I enjoy chatting with drivers and have learned quite a lot from them. As you said, you spend quite a lot of time with them. Just hearing their thoughts about the country and their life is always interesting. I didn't expect a guide, but had hoped for a bit more English.
