Although Mandalay sounds traditional and iconic (at least to me!), my research informed me it is a busy city that does not have as many obvious attractions as our other destinations in Myanmar. It is mainly a hub to see various sights surrounding the city and I would say it is missable if time is limited. However, we had an enjoyable two days as we took two half day cycling tours with an Asian company called Grasshopper.
On our first afternoon, we visited Amarapura which was the royal capital for less than 70 years from 1783 and Inwa (often called Ava) which has taken four turns as royal capital since 1364. In Inwa, we saw a 90 foot leaning tower that remains from the old palace complex and some beautiful temples surrounded by rice fields. We were the only two people on this particular cycling tour and our guide (who looked like a tiny rockstar with long hair) took us to the quieter temples… we climbed up to the terrace of one where the only other people there were a couple trying to have a romantic moment!
We also got a sense of village life and saw small industries at work… without a single person trying to sell us anything. My favourite part was watching silk material being weaved. We first saw a traditional workshop with non-motorised machines that women pedalled to operate. There was a flipper (like in a pinball machine) that pushes the real of thread from one side to the other. It was hypnotic to watch!
We then saw the factory version with hundreds of reels of silk thread being spun and dyed. There were rows upon rows of motorised weaving machines that do the job much faster. There was no sense of health and safety, with little kids playing in between the gaps of the heavy machinery.
For the most part, people seemed happy and well cared for despite Myanmar being a poor country. However, there was one village that we visited in Amarapura that made me feel sad as it was covered in plastic litter to such an extent the ground could not be seen. It was situated close to the lake that recedes and leaves behind a sandbank of rubbish. That said, the locals were having fun playing volleyball and football on the litter expanse and the kids were very sweet and asking for high fives (not money!) as we passed on our bikes.
We then arrived at a crowded spot to leave our bikes and watch sunset over the U-Bein bridge, a 1300 yard footbridge made of teak. We took a small rowing boat on the shallow Taungthaman lake with beers. As it was the dry season, the bridge Was elevated on stilts which made it more striking in my opinion. In the rainy season, the water level reaches the floor planks.
Our next morning’s cycling trip took us along another rural route. We had longer stints of uninterrupted cycling which was fun. We stopped at a local market where we saw a lady seeking thanaka. This is a yellow paste made by grinding a special wood bark with water that women and children wear on their faces as sun protection and decoration. I found it striking that in Myanmar local fashion remains intact and has not Westernised like in most other countries. Most women and children that we saw had circles of thanaka on their cheeks and a lot of the men wear traditional lungi (like a sarong.) We also saw the meat and fish section… this scene along with seeing live chickens being transported by motorbike hanging upside down, made me avoid meat in Myanmar.
We also saw more of village life. There was an incredibly fast woman making fans out of bamboo. It was brilliant to watch as she made them in less than 20 seconds and you could not see her hands as they moved so quickly.
The biggest highlight of all was the food. This was our full-on introduction to authentic Burmese flavours. We stopped at two local tea shops. For a late breakfast we had green tea and plates of light naan bread with a yellow bean and fried onion curry. It was so delicious that our side of the table with a friendly lady from Germany and man from the Philippines ended up with a very tall tower of empty plates. For lunch we had tea leaf salad (the one with fried peanuts and spices!), shan soup noodles (Shan is a region of Myanmar), fried banana pancakes and fresh fruit juice. It was delicious!
We did spend one afternoon looking around Mandalay itself. It was fun to walk up Mandalay hill for sunset views across the flat surroundings. We walked up the South covered stairway barefoot. It was 1729 steps according to our guidebook but Hiten decided to make time go more slowly by counting and we concluded it is closer to 900. We were braced for much more when we realised we had reached the tiled expanse and glittery archways of the top!
The 230ft-wide moat and high walls forming a huge square around the royal palace are also worth seeing. The palace itself was surprisingly high security and missable in my opinion. We had a great spicy meal at Green Elephant which does a Myanmar take on Thai food – the red curry was more like a Jafrezi but everything was tasty and served in a huge outdoor area. Delicious but can’t beat the food at the small local tea shops with plastic chairs!
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