The Road to Mandalay
Travelogue: August 25th
We're finally in Mandalay. (Although, when we left Yangon we thought we were going to end up in Bagan.) We spent a couple of days traveling up here from Yangon. It's not the easiest country to travel in, especially when avoiding the gov-run trains. We had to take a 12-hour bus the first day, arriving at 3:30am at a small crossroads town called Meiktila. Meiktila had about as much charm as you can imagine any transit-crossroads town having in any country, but we stayed just long enough to get 6 hours sleep before heading out for the second leg of the journey.
In the morning, after "No breakfast", we walked to the place where the local noon bus to Bagan was supposed to arrive. After waiting for two hours, we finally gave up and went to another bus station to catch a bus to Mandalay which were supposed to run more frequently. (The next bus to Bagan wasn't until 7pm and we didn't really feel like sitting around in beautiful Meiktila, with all the wonders it had to offer, for another six hours.) What we found at the bus station was basically like a "chicken bus" filled with 30 twenty-something Burmese guys hooting, howling and hanging out the windows. There didn't seem to be any seats but they made room for us and kindly let us sit up front. As we drove down the road, the fun-loving guys in the back made jokes with each other and sang along to every karaoke song on the dvd had to offer. Two hours into the journey the bus broke down. They driver and his crew tried to fix it but, in the end, the driver hung his head, mumbled something and everyone filed off. One of the guys said to us, "No go. No go." We all got off and stood by the side of the road until a few minutes later a covered pick-up arrived. We just watched as the ENTIRE bus-load of people loaded onto this pick-up - in the back, on the top, on top of the cab. But they weren't leaving us behind. They insisted on putting us (and our luggage) inside the cab along with the driver, although the guys on top of the cab ended up holding on to mine. Thumbs up meant it must be a-ok with them.
It was hilarious. But that wasn't the end of the excitement. An hour or so later, we arrived on the outskirts of Mandalay. Before parting ways, the guys let us know (via mime mostly) that a taxi from there would be about 3,000 Kyats (or $3). We thanked them and went about looking for a taxi. A taxi driver soon found us quoting us a similar price to what we\d expected, but when we headed for the vehicle we realized it was a motorbike taxi, not a car. This normally would've been no problem for us, having gotten used to riding these daily in Hanoi, but we each had a 8-10 kilo backpack with us. But, sure enough, it was no problem for these guys. Darren wore his, intrepid traveler that he is, and my driver held my backpack with his knees as we drove along the rocky, bumpy 45-minute long trip into town. It was a wonderful and quite memorable journey, not something you'd soon experience in the ol' U.S. of A. :)
At any rate, today we're resting after the two days of broken sleep and crazy traveling. We're going to go see a controversial, anti-gov entertainment act tonight and save our major sight-seeing for tomorrow before heading out to the next town. The food here is great and extraordinarily cheap:
we had an excellent Indian dinner last night at a corner foodshop for$1.15 each!
More soon!
We're finally in Mandalay. (Although, when we left Yangon we thought we were going to end up in Bagan.) We spent a couple of days traveling up here from Yangon. It's not the easiest country to travel in, especially when avoiding the gov-run trains. We had to take a 12-hour bus the first day, arriving at 3:30am at a small crossroads town called Meiktila. Meiktila had about as much charm as you can imagine any transit-crossroads town having in any country, but we stayed just long enough to get 6 hours sleep before heading out for the second leg of the journey.
In the morning, after "No breakfast", we walked to the place where the local noon bus to Bagan was supposed to arrive. After waiting for two hours, we finally gave up and went to another bus station to catch a bus to Mandalay which were supposed to run more frequently. (The next bus to Bagan wasn't until 7pm and we didn't really feel like sitting around in beautiful Meiktila, with all the wonders it had to offer, for another six hours.) What we found at the bus station was basically like a "chicken bus" filled with 30 twenty-something Burmese guys hooting, howling and hanging out the windows. There didn't seem to be any seats but they made room for us and kindly let us sit up front. As we drove down the road, the fun-loving guys in the back made jokes with each other and sang along to every karaoke song on the dvd had to offer. Two hours into the journey the bus broke down. They driver and his crew tried to fix it but, in the end, the driver hung his head, mumbled something and everyone filed off. One of the guys said to us, "No go. No go." We all got off and stood by the side of the road until a few minutes later a covered pick-up arrived. We just watched as the ENTIRE bus-load of people loaded onto this pick-up - in the back, on the top, on top of the cab. But they weren't leaving us behind. They insisted on putting us (and our luggage) inside the cab along with the driver, although the guys on top of the cab ended up holding on to mine. Thumbs up meant it must be a-ok with them.
It was hilarious. But that wasn't the end of the excitement. An hour or so later, we arrived on the outskirts of Mandalay. Before parting ways, the guys let us know (via mime mostly) that a taxi from there would be about 3,000 Kyats (or $3). We thanked them and went about looking for a taxi. A taxi driver soon found us quoting us a similar price to what we\d expected, but when we headed for the vehicle we realized it was a motorbike taxi, not a car. This normally would've been no problem for us, having gotten used to riding these daily in Hanoi, but we each had a 8-10 kilo backpack with us. But, sure enough, it was no problem for these guys. Darren wore his, intrepid traveler that he is, and my driver held my backpack with his knees as we drove along the rocky, bumpy 45-minute long trip into town. It was a wonderful and quite memorable journey, not something you'd soon experience in the ol' U.S. of A. :)
At any rate, today we're resting after the two days of broken sleep and crazy traveling. We're going to go see a controversial, anti-gov entertainment act tonight and save our major sight-seeing for tomorrow before heading out to the next town. The food here is great and extraordinarily cheap:
we had an excellent Indian dinner last night at a corner foodshop for$1.15 each!
More soon!