Mandalay - Myanmar

Arrived in Mandalay around 5pm after leaving Bagan at midday. We just had time to have dinner and then wevwent to see the moustache brothers perform at their house.  The 'moustache brothers' were a comedy trio consisting of two brothers and one cousin.  Par par lay and Lu zaw served 6 years in prison at a hard labour camp for telling a joke about the military regime government at a performance at the house of the leader of the opposition.  They were eventually released in 2007 but unfortunately Par Par Lay died in 2013 due to lead poisoning from the water in the prison. The show still continues today, but only to westerners and only in English, this was part of the conditions of their release.  The performance consists of jokes about the government and also traditional Burmese dancing performed by members of Lu Maws family.  The money they raise from these daily performances goes to helping the 160 political prisoners in Burma. 

The next morning we had spent some time writing our diaries as it was drizzling. In the afternoon we took a stroll around the palace which is surrounded by a moat and a wall.  The palace had been bombed badly during the second world war as the Japanese were using it as a base.  The palace was rebuilt in the 90's and so is very much not the original palace used by the royals, this, and the fact that the entrance fee was expensive were the reasons we decided to forgo entering the palace and just walk around the outside instead. Each wall around the palace is 2km long but we only walked from the East Gate to the South Gate and back again as it was getting late.  We found a small street restaurant place which did very cheap and very tasty Indian thali and some chai.  The chai was obviously nothing on what we drank in India but still tasty all the same.  We went to a small night market after dinner which we had seen on a map in the lonely planet guide.  The market wasn't very good, it was more catering to locals but I did almost buy a pair of prescription glasses for $2 but although they were very cheap I wasn't sold on the shape of them.  Would have been good to have a spare pair though.  We went down a street which looked to be a continuation of the market but they were not selling the usual knock off clothing or jewellery but instead they were selling sex toys and blow up dolls! We made a sharp u-turn and headed back to the main street.  While at the market we bought some street food for dessert which smelt amazing.  It, unfortunately, didn't taste as good as it smelt.  It had the consistency of jelly cubes and tasted like bananas but was so unbelievably stodgy that we only managed to eat half of it between the two of us.  Our accommodation in Mandalay was of the usual standard that we could afford there.  The walls were thin and so you could hear everyone's comings and goings in the rooms next and adjacent to ours.  When I was just about drifting of to sleep the 'gentleman' in the room opposite ours did the longest and loudest fart I have ever heard! I had time to wake up, remove my ear plugs, ask Kay if that was her making that noise and it was still going! If we heard that, then I'm sure he heard us giggling uncontrollably for the next twenty minutes.   

We had spent about two hours that night trying to book a flight back to Bangkok as we had  our fill of terrible night buses.  The wifi in Burma is horrendous and so when we finally managed to make it to the payment page of the Air Asia website it we were given an error page.  Thankfully Kay's boyfriend, Andy, was able to book them for us from the UK and so the next day we went in search of a Internet cafe to print our boarding passes.  In the afternoon we took a couple of mototaxis to the bottom on Mandalay hill so that we could walk up the 1000 steps to see the sunset over mandalay.  There were some nice jewellery stalls on the way up and Kay bought a pretty jade bracelet for $1.  While up at the top waiting for the sun to set we were approached by some young student monks who asked if they could practice their English with us.  They were very sweet and asked us lots of questions about life in Scotland and our families.  One asked where our parents were and when we told them they were in Scotland they then asked if we had any brothers and if they were with us.  When we told them that our brothers we also still in Scotland they looked shocked.  They then asked how old we were, and their faces were a picture when we told them that we were 24 and 28! They burst out laughing and told us they thought we were only 16 or 17 and had been very worried that we were travelling alone.  They also asked us if we liked to listen to Westlife and told us they supported Manchester United FC but that they weren't allowed to play football while studying in the monastery.   After the sunset, we climbed back down the 1000 steps and our mototaxis were waiting to take us back to our accommodation. We went back to the Indian for the delicious thali for dinner and spent the rest of the evening sorting our luggage for the flight the next day.  Our time in Myanmar was short but sweet.  I have my reservations about travelling in a country with a government who are so corrupt but I'm glad we got to experience a country which is still so untouched by westernism, a country where the people are caring and kind and the landscape some of the most beautiful I have ever seen.