After an absence of 3 months, I have decided to keep writing my posts (for myself but also for some friends who have asked to know what happened in the rest of my travels). I am already back in Israel for few months now. Strange to write the things after so long but if I do it now, I will try to tell most of the main things and to make things shorter in order to cover the last part of my travel….  Myanmar and India….

 

The last post finished in Yangon, my first stop in Myanmar, with a feeling of something different which is going to happen while traveling in this country…. Not exactly a cultural shock, but definitely more authentic which is what I was looking eagerly for so long.

 

I left Yangon with Yuval and Diego and we arrived after a long bus ride to Mandalay.
I cannot say that Mandalay itself is a nice city. To be honest, the "tourists area" over there which was 2-3 squared blocks, was a big shit hole….
It was just a stopping point on the way to the north of the country and anyway we were walking around most of the day. There are many things to see in Mandalay – the second biggest city in Myanmar.

 

The first day we explored around Mandalay hill. The main entrance is protected by 2 giant lion figures. The hill itself has a beautiful panoramic view and lots of pagodas – a proper pilgrimage site for the local people.

Next to the hill lies down the Sanda Muni pagoda with large number of small white stupas on the grounds and 1 big golden stupa at the center.
Continuing with the "Stupas day" we headed towards another part of Mandalay, arrived to the Mahamuni Pagoda (means Great Sage Pagoda) which is the holiest pilgrimage site in the city and the second holiest in Myanmar. The 4 meters seated, golden leafed Buddha statue weighs 6.5 tons and its crown is decorated with diamonds, rubies and sapphires.

Funny that I remember much more from what happened in the external side of the temple (after so long in South East Asia, you find very few Buddha statues that make you say: "wowwwwwww") when we found this small garden with loads of children playing and screaming. Of course in no time we became the main attraction (very few tourists in Myanmar if I didn't mention this before). Me, Yuval and Diego played with them, lifting them in the air by turns little shocked when seeing where most of them live (2 meters from the place we played in an unfinished room which supposed to be another shrine or something) and from their openness about playing with strangers :-)

We finished the tour for the day…at night went to the famous Moustache Brothers show. The Moustache Brothers are 3 brothers who got sick of the local military regime, all the corruption and the fact that no1 in the country can say loudly what really on his mind in order not to be a traitor or a threat to the regime and to be arrested or even worst: killed!!!!!! They already sat in prison for more than once just because of their satirical show full with criticism about the Burmese government/army.

As part of the conditions for their release from jail and the fact that they are under house arrest regulations, they are now allowed to perform only for foreigners, within the garage of their house. Unfortunately we were there on the week of a wedding of a family member so we didn't get the full show, but only some parts, showing how brave can some1 be when outside of your house, you know that there are under covered secret agents watching each step you make, but still they aren't afraid like the rest of the people in the streets to speak about the bad things happening in this marvelous country. 

The day after we went outside of Mandalay with a tourist guide called Thura.
We had met him the first day we arrived to Mandalay and apparently we were very lucky to meet him or should I say he had met us? Every backpacker/tourist in the world knows how it feels when some1 you randomly meet starts showing you pictures, telling you he is a tourist guide and can show and explain you a lot. Sometimes it is a big burden, but the 3 of us liked him – the Burmese people seem to be so naive, so cute, ones with good eyes. Very difficult to explain but the ones of you who had been to Myanmar before can easily attach to what I try to say. In this big mess of military led country, you feel that the ordinary people just can't harm you….

So we fixed with him to go to Sagaing and Armarapura – 2 pearls out of Mandalay, and we got a full excursion which was so much fun.

At first we went to Sagaing, going in the small unpaved streets towards the Sagaing hill, crossing in guitar & silver shops which are widely spread in town…..
Thura knows every small road and a lot of the people in town as he was once a monk in 1 of the monasteries in here and now he works as a teacher and trying his luck with tourists….. This time I am 100% we were the lucky ones!!!!

The view from the hill was astonishing… much more impressing than the one we saw from Mandalay hill… he explained us so much , showed us the small details that we would have never noticed by ourselves….
we continued in horse cart touring around town. Crossed in a local jars factory – he knows the family so we even tried to put the jars on our heads and to walk with them like the local women do, but this mission is tough…..don't know how they go carrying so many without dropping anything…. We saw the phases of drying, painting, etc. which was very interesting. We moved on to flip flops factory and a cigar factory – the working conditions of all these family factories are very bad, but still I found all of the workers smiling and laughing…such great people….I was amazed each day more and more from the good and the simplicity of the Burmese people. Everywhere we entered we were welcomed as if we were very important people. A great feeling for a tourist :-)

One of the highlights of the day was going to a local school… as usual, all the kids ran towards us, but after we gave all the candies we had, things got back almost to normal… 1 monk was teaching English on a board which leaned against a huge tree…what a pastoral environment for school, isn't it? Felt jealous a little in these kids. After a while when we took most of the attention, we had to leave, but had such good time…. Went to lunch on a beautiful place with vista of the river next to us….

And continued to our next stop: Amarapura.

 

Amarapura is famous for the U Bein's teak bridge - a 1.2 km. wooden footbridge (longest teak bridge in the world). The city itself has some monasteries and stopas that we crossed next to…. It was already a little late and we wanted to see the sunset from the bridge where small girls tried of course to sell us handicrafts putting on us the Thanaka - yellowish-white cosmetic paste that is spreadly used amongst women and little children…. Was funny to see my face with a Thanaka leaf on it :-)

Even in this pastoral environment, we could still see the "face" of the totalitarian regime. Thura told us to go on the bridge by ourselves and to mingle with the locals which was nice idea because usually when he was around us, no1 was approaching us.
so when we came back to him, he said few policemen had come to talk with him because some1 informed on him as a tour guide….which officially of course he wasn't…. but all ended good as he invented something to get rid of them….

Unbelievable how someone's regular life is so different in country such as Myanmar.

 

Another cool day we had out of Mandalay was in Mingun.

We missed the daily boat to get there and because of lack of time we decided to take a private one…. Only 5 dollars each for a roundtrip. We had a boat that usually take 20-30 people just for the 3 of us……crazy…

But the sight is beautiful. 2 of the main things in Mingun is Mingun Paya – the largest pile of bricks in the world (reminded me a little Petra in Jordan) that is actually the remains of a massive Buddhist stupa that was not completed, due to an astrologer that claimed that the king would die once the temple is finished… but if you remember from the last post how did they change their capital in 1 day, you can understand that in Myanmar everything is possible….The second main thing is Mingun Bell which is the world's largest uncracked ringing bell… it is absolutely enormous and weighs 90 tons!!!! After this boat ride we went all together back to the guesthouse and I moved for the night to another room as Diego and Yuval had to leave…both of them had half the time I had for Myanmar and I decided to go more north. When they left I took a small hike around the city palace and the morning after took the pick up truck to a place called Pyin U Lwin – a small town which was a hill station and the summer capital of British Burma. From there it was easy to get by train to northern parts.But as arriving to the place I looked forward something to see or do around…. Just when I arrived a group of 6 Israelis attacked me….!!!!!No…just kidding….. As I went down the pick up truck I met 1 tourist….As a brotherhood of travelers, I asked the girl where do they stay… and found myself in the same place with 6 other Israelis: Liron, Oren, Yeela, Stav, Oded and Sarit…Some of them were traveling together, some have met in here or in other countries, but I was the 7th Israeli for the Israeli invasion in Pyin U Lwin….  :-) We went all together to the Anisakan waterfalls out of the city.Waterfalls is something you get to see a lot when you travel. It is kind of the attraction which is always nice to see….. Nature in its beauty….The Anisakan falls were much more than normal ones…they absolutely amazed me!!!!! I remember I was standing in the bottom, next to a small Buddhist temple, hardly holding my breath at the first moment I saw it….

The waterfalls were actually 3 different ones that merged down to a small cold pool with clear water. Tiny other falls continued down which made several different pools… when the sun came back and there was no shade we could see the rainbow when looking to the bottom part of the waterfall… that was quite a site!!!!!!

 

In the morning the 7 of us headed to the train station to take the train to a place called Hsipaw (pronounced by the locals as Tibo). We met Els, Belgian girl, the only other tourist in town which made us a group of 8 now :-)
The main thing about this train is the beautiful landscape you can see out of the window… the landscape changes from time to time but it is mainly green jungle area, some rock cliffs are connected by the Gokteik Viaduct - a famous bridge which is well known for amazing British creativity and American engineering (the British thought about doing it and an American company built it).
Then, tired but happy we finally arrived to Hsipaw….
also, full with adventures from there and on…..

 

But that's it for now…

I will be back…this time sooner :-)