The road to Mandalay

I was grateful for a daytime bus to Mandalay, even if it was local. There isn’t too much difference between the two. In fact, the local buses are, I think, preferable because you don’t have the air conditioning set at 4°C, and you don’t have Burmese movies played so loud that the sound is distorted. The seats did seem a little smaller than the already small ones on the big buses, and mine was stuck at a 90° angle which wasn’t ideal.

I think after a pretty loaded four days I was happy to get on a bus. And the dust was starting to get to me, with a scratchy throat and a blocked head that I was trying my best to ignore.

The bus ride entailed the usual things, several meal stops, several other stops for no apparent reason, and a slightly early arrival to Mandalay. One of the big differences between the streets of Rangoon and Mandalay is that in Rangoon it is mainly cars, whereas in Mandalay, mainly motorbikes (and I’m told it was mainly bicycles up until a few years ago). So my taxi turned out to be a motorbike! I told my driver (who turned out to be my saviour) that I wasn’t sure how he would carry my backpack. Don’t worry he said, I am a professional transporter. And he was. He somehow squeezed it between his legs (and my backpack is not small, I still haven’t learned the art of packing light, even for a short trip) and we were off on his 110cc motorbike, zipping through the streets of Mandalay with a million other bikes.

My saviour, I think his name is Tun Aung, drove me to several hotels, which were all full, before I found a room at a Chinese hotel.

See, since Burma opened its border with China about 20 years ago, there has been an increasing number of Chinese tourists, particularly to Mandalay. This is evident with Chinese hotels, shopping malls and a lot of other businesses in town.

The downside of the Bonanza hotel is that there were no other western tourists so this would be the only place I didn’t find anyone to chat to. The staff had very limited English as well so Tun Aung served as my translator.

Anyway, by the time I got to the hotel I was feeling pretty crappy after another day inhaling dust through the open windows of the bus. Tun Aung offered to take me on a tour around the main Mandalay sights, which are outside of Mandalay, so I suggested we do that Thursday.

(Still no clouds today…)

Well it didn’t really feel like Australia Day where I was today. I was expecting Mandalay to be beautiful, but it isn’t. I spent most of the day wandering around the town, stopping for tea at the teashops, squeezing through the local markets, dodging motorcycles, and trying not to breathe in dust.

I know I’ve mentioned it a few times but I’ve never been anywhere so dusty. Anything that has been still for more than ten minutes is caked in the stuff. The leaves on the trees all have a thick layer of dust and general visibility is quite poor because of it. In the evenings it is like something out of a sci-fi film when you see it through the headlights of the buses and motorbikes.

I managed to find some Strepsils for my throat which by now was raging, but had no luck finding a local remedy for throat infection although I did have some antihistamines for the hayfever.

With no real bars to speak of in Mandalay, I headed to the Nylon Ice Cream Bar for a beer after dinner. I got chatting there to a local artist, Min Tun, who was really friendly. When I told him I wasn’t in the market to buy his work, although it was very nice, he gave me the picture he had been working on while we chatted. I felt bad but I’m getting the hang of the Burmese way, despite getting hassled by beggars and drivers and the usual, most of the people are genuine and generous and are just happy to spend time talking to you.

(My cloudless streak has officially ended with some light wispy clouds in the morning becoming more substantial in the afternoon.)