Myanmar: A Rough Ride on The Road to Mandalay

Imagine a magnificent chapel surrounded by garden after garden of white-domed vaults, each about 10 feet tall and containing a marble slab engraved on each side with a page from the Bible. Imagine enough of these vaults to house 1,200 pages.

Such a temple exists, though it’s Buddhist instead of Christian. "The World’s Largest Book" contains, written in Sanskrit, the entire text of the Buddhist scriptures. It’s one of the highlights of Mandalay, one-time capitol of the Burmese nation now known as "The Union of Myanmar."

My road to Mandalay was actually a railroad. We began in Yangon, formerly Rangoon, famous for the temple complex known as Shwedagon: "The Golden Pagoda." The stupa at its center is gilded with more than 60 tons of the precious metal.

In Mandalay, we began with a 45-minute cruise on the Ayeyearwady River to view a temple that could have been the world’s greatest ... but never was. We drove into the mountains to a town picturesquely named "Pyin Oo Lwin", and to the equally picturesque village of Amarapura: "The City of Immortality."

The train ride? A cold, uncomfortable, near-sleepless night. But worth it for three fascinating days in Mandalay.

Quick Tips:

Finding English speakers in Myanmar was much harder than in Bangkok. That was unfortunate; in remote Pyin Oo Lwin, several schoolkids attempted to make friendly conversation with my guide on his lunch break, but couldn’t.

Independent travelers to Myanmar are required to convert at least US to the local currency, which cannot be converted back to dollars. However, this requirement is waived if you purchase a package tour from a recognized operator. U.S. dollars were accepted just about anywhere. My guide said that worth of Myanmar Kyats should be enough. At the winked-at "black market" rate, that bought me 35,000 of them.

About Sir Rudyard Kipling ...

Kipling was noted mainly for his stories and poems about the life of British soldiers in 19th-century India --- have you read Gunga Din? --- but one of his most memorable poems came from his experience in the land we now call "Myanmar".

"On the road to Mandalay
Where the flyin’-fishes play
An’ the dawn comes up like thunder
Outer China ‘crost the bay."

Kipling, Rudyard, "Mandalay" from The Works of Rudyard Kipling, Blacks Readers Service Company, New York.

Who could resist visiting Mandalay after verses like that?

Best Way To Get Around:

What passed for buses in and around Mandalay were canopied truck bodies with benches. I doubt I had the agility to climb aboard one and, once aboard, would have had no idea where I was going. Since the tour agency had provided me with a car and driver, I had no reason to check taxi service or fares.

Having long preferred independent travel, I’m now conviced that there are certain places where the value added by a private guide far exceeds the cost. That was definitely the case in Mandalay, where the most desirable sites were spread over a large area with inadequately marked -- and often inadequately paved -- roads.

In Yangon, I could probably have reached the Golden Pagoda on my own, but would have missed a lot of detail without an English-speaking guide. As an experiment, I left my guide in a waiting room and tried to master the rail station on my own. After 15 minutes of wandering, I still hadn’t found a ticket window!

On first approaching this hotel’s massive facade, stretching the length of a football field along the boulevard fronting the Royal Palace, my first thought was . . .

"My God! What’s this COSTING me?"

Waiting at the apex of the canopied driveway were several footmen . . . er, bellmen . . . who wouldn’t think of letting me carry my own backpack into the elegantly appointed lobby. It looked like the kind of place the Colonial British would have reserved for their upper-est crust.

I was here as part of a "ground package" lumping 16 hotel nights together with various tours, transfers, and intercity transportation. Tour organizers, who negotiate substantial discounts, rarely if ever disclose a particular hotel’s rate, nor would the hotel say what I was paying. I can tell you that it was considerably less than the Sedona’s published rate. My guess is less than US$100.

For this I got a large twin-bedded room with a private balcony (though it looked down on the swimming pool, not the Royal Palace). Plus, a full buffet breakfast including custom-made omelets, assorted hot meats, and Asian noodle dishes. There was a large outdoor swimming pool and outdoor bar, a small work-out gym, and two lighted tennis courts.

The "Coffee Shop," which was actually a quality full-service restaurant, was more than adequate for my needs. There was a smaller, more intimate fine-dining restaurant, but it didn’t open until 6:30, later than I prefer.

Though the Sedona was directly across the street from the walls and moat of the Royal Palace complex, one had to walk more than a half mile to reach the only entrance open to the general public. There was what appeared to be a quality restaurant and night club 2 to 3 blocks to the east, but the rail station and main shopping areas were more than a mile away.

Sedona also has a hotel in Yangon, even larger and more opulent. (You could launch a small yacht in its swimming pool.) The Yangon Sedona offered me one of Asia’s greatest travel bargains: 8 hours’ daytime use of a room, the pool and fitness club, and the restaurant for just $32 to tide me through an awkward airline connection on the way home.

This half-day excursion provides a triple return on your investment:

- A 45-minute cruise up the Ayeyarawady River, an important 1,425-mile-long channel for agriculture and commerce. (Your school geography text may have spelled it "IIrrawaddy.")

- A visit to what would have been the world’s tallest stupa--had the king lived long enough to finish it.

- A stroll through a village where bullock carts are still the principal means of transportation, where photo opportunities abound, and where you can hear the deep ring of the world’s largest free-hanging bell.

It looked a bit scary at first.

The boat dock northwest of downtown Mandalay was about 50 feet below street level, down a steep hill. The launch was wedged in a cluster of others, forcing one to climb over another boat to reach it. And, the "gangplank" was a single 2x6 timber! I have arthritic legs and poor balance, but my guide promised the crew would get me aboard safely--and they did. If you have similar difficulties, trust these guys. I doubt, however, that a person requiring a wheelchair could have made this trip.

Enjoying all that Mingun has to offer requires walking a mile or so inland and uphill from the boat dock, or hiring a ride. You’ll undoubtably be met by a dozen or so dockside vendors proferring postcards, craft work and other souvenirs. There are several shops with QUALITY goods as well as trinkets here; Myanmar is said to be famous for hand-made marionettes.

The unfinished Mingun Paya was begun by King Bodawpaya in 1790. He intended it to be the world’s largest, but work stopped when he died in 1819. An earthquake later collapsed part of the stupa. There’s a small working model of it near the boat dock. Mingun Paya was impressive, but the almost-pure white Settawya Paya was even more so. It photographs well from many angles.

Mingun does have one claim to "world’s largest": The Mingun Bell, cast in 1808, weighs 90 tons. (Most of the statistics quoted in this journal were provided by Sita Tours, my travel agent, or Lay Maung, my guide.)

Boating to and from Mingun, we passed all sorts of river craft--some quite weird--and saw many squatters’ huts atop barges or timber rafts.

I’d arrived in Mandalay after a night with little or no sleep. Lay Maung said this relaxing, low-key afternoon excursion would be a perfect way to recuperate. He was right. It would probably be a good antidote for jet lag, as well.

Pyin Oo Lwin (PIN-oo-lihn) was once a British "hill station," a mountain retreat where soldiers and civil servants could go to escape the lowland heat. Good enough reason for us to go there as well.

It’s less than 50 miles--but 2 1/2 hours of mostly mountainous driving--from Mandalay. The drive was most of the reason for going there; we would climb more than 3,000 feet on the way and it was sheer pleasure to watch a skilled driver tackle curves as sharp as a U-turn on a city boulevard, but on up- or down-slopes of 20 degrees or more. All this in a right-hand-drive car on roads meant for left-hand driving.

Pyin Oo Lwin is a small city with a cultural mix that includes Indians, Nepalese, and enough Muslims to have a mosque. Relics of British colonial days abound; the city’s ornate clock tower, a gift from Queen Victoria, is said to be identical to one she offered to Capetown, South Africa. I’ve seen others like it in once-British outposts in the Caribbean.

The 400-acre Botanical Garden--another legacy of the British--was also worth a long stopover. It featured a rock garden, a "swamp walk," and many attractive walking paths. You could also find clean public restrooms there, although men might be startled to see a female attendant in "their" room. (Don’t be bashful; this is common practice in Europe, as well.)

My guide said shopping in Pyin Oo Lwin was much better than in Yangon or Mandalay. In fact, he asked if he could turn me loose for a half hour or so while he did some Christmas shopping for his family,

"Christmas?" I asked. "I thought you were Buddhist."

"Yes," he replied, "But we enjoy Christmas, too."

While he shopped, I watched the comings and goings of horse-drawn carriages that looked for all the world like the old Wells Fargo stagecoaches, downsized. But they weren’t for tourists--they were the local equivalent of taxi cabs. Schoolkids were using them to ride home for lunch.

Occasionally one of them would sidle up to me, obviously wanting to ask me what I was doing in Pyin Oo Lwin but not knowing how to. I think they were surprised to see a white man wandering around without a guide, but I never caught anything remotely resembling a hostile look.

Although there was an attractive, golden-domed hilltop temple not far south of town, and another, spectacular-looking one on a mountaintop too far away to photograph, Pyin Oo Lwin didn’t have any truly memorable scenic attractions to draw tourists. I enjoyed it mainly for the exhilarating mountain drive we took to get there. Like those long-ago British, I enjoyed leaving the flatlands behind for a short time. This was as good a destination as any; "a pleasant day in the country."

"Shwedagon" translates to "Golden Temple" or "Golden Pagoda." The tour agency said viewing it at sunset is the perfect way to start a sightseeing tour of Myanmar. YES! Visiting this Golden Temple the night before my Mandalay journey was, indeed, a superb introduction to the country once known as Burma.

But do go there early enough to photograph the interior before the sun is too low to penetrate the walled inner courtyards. The best sunset view is from outside the temple.

Shwedagon is on a hill dominating central Yangon. Fortunately, one can reach it by elevator as well as stairs. Allow at least an hour to admire its many shrines, Buddha icons and chapels, and the tall, gold-leaf-encrusted stupa at its center. It requires 60 TONS of leaf to gild it, my guide said, and the gold must be replenished every few years.

(Later, we’d tour a small shop and watch the extensive hand labor required to turn a small gold ingot in hundreds of square feet of leaf.)

Visitors to Shwedagon quickly learn that this is a worshipper’s temple at least as much as it is a tourist site. Buddhists seem to have no objection to being photographed while kneeling at a shrine. They do ask that you respect their customs, including leaving your shoes and socks at the door. If you enter a chapel, take care never to sit with your feet pointed toward the Buddha.

(The "wash room" behind the counter where you reclaim your shoes isn’t what you think it is: it’s a facility where, for a small tip, attendants will wash your feet for you.)

Inside the walls of Shwedagon are a variety of individual refuges for worship or meditation, with many different sculpture interpretations of the Buddha, each having its own small knot of the faithful who kneel, pray, and move on. The place is a symphony of gold, marble, porcelain, brick, and concrete, shaped by the hands of incredibly talented artisans. Reserve your first afternoon in Myanmar to savor its splendor.

My guide ad-libbed this 4.5-hour tour after I decided to fly back to Yangon instead of joining him on the overnight train. You’d need a car and driver to duplicate it.

"The World’s Largest Book" is the magnificent temple containing marble tablets inscribed with every word of Buddhist scripture. Think the original Ten Commandments times 600, graven on 5-foot-tall tablets. Just northeast of the Royal Palace compound, the central chapel offers a breathtaking view from its entrance. Allow at least half an hour to admire and photograph it.

Amarapura means "City of Immortality." King Bodawpaya located his capital here in 1783, but soon changed his mind. Making no small plans, he built a 4-square-mile Royal Palace in what is now Mandalay, complete with high brick walls and a moat all around. Today’s Amarapura is a quiet village with a few old temples and a gold-leafed stupa. Horse- and oxcarts compete with taxicabs for local transport. Its principal tourist attraction is the 4/5-mile-long footbridge, made entirely of teakwood, across Taungthaman Lake. A former monastery houses a small museum and library.

Sagaing, the long ridge across the Ayeyarwady River from Amarapura, has some 600 pagodas and monasteries scattered along its slopes. It’s an impressive sight from the combined rail/highway bridge over the river, or from the road along its east bank.

Even after taking a 45-minute walking tour through Amarapura, we returned to Mandalay in time for a quick look inside the walls of the Royal Palace. Much more than just a residence, it was the king’s administrative center, place of worship, parade ground for his army, and home to the palace staff and hangers-on. It was a perfect place to end my Mandalay sightseeing and retire to the hotel swimming pool.

To a serious rail enthusiast, Mandalay was obvious: an oft written-about destination in an exotic land, reachable by an overnight train that would let me avoid both an airline ticket and a hotel room. The schedule -- more than 14 hours to cover just 400 miles -- should have warned me that this wouldn’t be the most modern of trains. Still, I asked the travel agency to reserve private sleeping accommodations and, when they said they’d reserved the "best available compartment," I went for it.

OOPS! The "best available compartment" was the only two-bunk room in a car where all others slept four-to-a-room; on vinyl-covered benches one above the other. "Private accommodation" meant that I’d be sharing the room with my guide, rather than a total stranger.

The guide, a nine-year professional, offered to accept a reclining seat in the "upper class" coach and, because there might be no food service on the train, found an American-style deli counter with sandwiches massive enough to sustain us for the night. I bought a liter of surprisingly good wine, which he and I shared in my compartment as we rocked and rolled northward before he retired to his coach.

We were on rough, narrow-gauge track; a later daytime inspection of the line confirmed that it was, indeed, an unusually light rail, under-maintained. That said, the evening at this point was pleasant. Riding through the darkness with the room lights off and my elbow perched on the sill of an open window was incredibly relaxing despite the bouncing. Until I realized that (1) the bedding I’d expected was not coming around and (2) it was getting really cold. Foolishly forgetting how far north we were going, I’d left my winter clothes behind.

To be fair, my guide told me that the Yangon-Mandalay trip by road was probably just as rough as the rail journey. Given the privacy of a compartment and a reasonably soft bunk to lie on, I would probably have been quite comfortable had I the foresight to bring warm clothing. I’m sure I’d have gotten more sleep on the train than on my 14.5 hour flight to Asia from the US. The train was about two hours late into Mandalay, but there WAS coffee to be had in the morning.

Pubic toilets are always a concern in Southeast Asia. My car had two: one Asian style, one Western. Surprisingly, the Asian style was the cleaner; probably because it allowed a greater margin of error on a rocking train. The Western toilet had both seat and paper -- amenities found lacking in some Western countries I’ve visited. Ignore the freeloaders sleeping on the floor outside.

I did save money. My rail/sleeper fare was about US$33. One-way return airfare and a quality hotel room cost $190. Since I had an unused return rail ticket, the guide enjoyed MY private compartment going home.

Photographing railroad facilities is forbidden in Myanmar. So, I’m sharing photos of our pre-departure city tour.