Sunday 16 March 2014

Day 222 - A Day in Mandalay


Today kind of shows why it's good to be open and just change plans if the opportunity comes along. At first I wanted to take it easy, sleep in a bit, go for a walk and then get a coffee and work on my blog.




While I was walking around the bottom of Mandalay Hill and was trying to decide if I should or should not walk up, one of the motorbike drivers approached me and asked if I want to hire his services for the day.




At first I declined since I didn't want to spend much money and afterall I could just hire a bike and drive myself to places.
But since he insisted we ended up reaching an agreement and a good price, he would take me around to see all the main sights in Mandalay and bring me to the train station or bus station later to catch my train or bus to Inle lake.






This gave me the opportunity to go and visit all the main temples at the bottom of Mandalay Hill, get lunch in a locals only place, see some of the further away temples and go to the famous U Bein Bridge.





The temples were all quite nice, despite me being a bit unsure about spending more time looking at temples after two days in Bagan.





The real highlight however was the U Bein Bridge as it's not only cool to see but there is a lot around it happening with people fishing, swimming and taking boats around the lake.





Since I quite enjoyed it at the bridge and it got late, I decided to just get the bus instead of the train. It also seemed not only to be the cheaper and faster option than the train, it also means not having to spend one night in the train and one in Thazi before getting to Inle Lake.
The bus makes this journey in just a few hours so I will arrive in Inle Lake at 4:00 in the morning.


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