Mandalay

We flew to Mandalay and spent only one night.  We didn't see an awful lot of Mandalay except the hotel, Mandalay Hill,  the Kuthodaw Pagoda and a couple other sites. We did see some locals who wished they would have stayed in school.

Our hotel was probably just south of the "d" in "Kuthodaw" so we were pretty far from the town centre.  The main thing here was the pagoda.

The sign we saw leaving the airport...I thought it was pretty cool until I realized it was an ad for some sort of clothing line.  Every where you go these days...advertising...advertising and more advertising.  I think only on our trip to Antarctica, the previous winter, were we free from it.

We had a bit of time to kill after getting to our hotel so we went for a walk.  The next two shots are the Mandalay Palace. It used to be a home for the royal family but now it's occupied by the military.  Myanmar is still controlled by the military contrary to what they want you to believe.

Each side is 2 kilometers long so we didn't have time (nor inclination) to make it all the way around.

And the day we were there no foreigners were allowed inside so we couldn't go in. A very nice moat runs all the way around.

Below is something we saw very little of in Myanmar...homeless people sleeping on the street.  This may be the only occurrence.  And in fact perhaps he's not homeless...maybe just drunk...or maybe just reallllyyy tired.  

A sign on one of the gates to the palace.   "Crush all those harming the union"...beware Rohingya!  Had to look up what Tatmadaw is.  See here.  I think Myanmar is a place where you don't fuck around with the military.

One thing funny about Myanmar is that hotels will take US money and exchange it for the local currency but only if the bills are in pristine condition. The sign below was on the desk in our hotel. I've no idea what "big head" means. Is Trump now on an American bill?

One thing about Scenic (the company we are travelling with) is they always put us up in top-notch hotels. The lounge area shown below.

So we go up to the Mandalay Hill the next morning and as usual you have to walk through a half mile of tourist trinkets. I don't recall any of us buying anything here.

As usual it was just the same crap we'd already seen.

A shot of Mandalay Hill that I scooped from the internet.

The shots below we're taken at one of the pagodas on Mandalay Hill . Our hotel is in the bottom left of this pic. The huge green area just beyond the hotel is the palace grounds.  2 kilometers per side so that makes 4 square kilometers of forest.  It's too bad we never got to visit. I usually say "next time" but I'm 100% sure we'll never be back in Mandalay unless through reincarnation.

The smog is as bad here as in Yangon.

A golf course below.  

And even a Buddhist monk uses a selfie stick

There are a lot of monks and nuns in Myanmar. They don't do anything and rely on people to give them food and money.  They're supposed to give up all material things but each and every one that I saw had a cell phone.  I think they just don't want to work.  I don't either...maybe I'll move to Myanmar and become a monk when the money runs out.

Ian and I in our man dresses.  We were warned a few days ago that we'd have to cover our sinful knees at many of the pagodas and temples that we'd be visiting. We decided it would be better just to put on the longyi over our shorts, rather than wear long pants all day long, and then revert back to shorts when the pagoda visit was finished.

Konstantin decided on the long pants route instead.  

We also had to take off our sinful shoes at a lot of these places. It wasn't a big deal most of the time but some of the floors (not here though) were really dirty. It's a really stupid religion (as most are).

After the pagoda on Mandalay Hill we went to another one, the Kuthodaw Pagoda, where the world's largest book resides.

And below was a statue of Buddha covered with gold. It used to be just a regular statue but then people started adding gold leaf to it and it has been going on for years and years. Got to be worth millions of dollars by now.

So each of the little buildings shown below has a section of a book in it.

This is one section of the book.  There are over 700 apparently.

And there are scads of these little buildings where the books sections are kept.

Read more about it here.

It's a popular place for the locals hang out ...the girls are just like anywhere in the world..dressed up and on their smart phones.  It's scenes like this that always remind me that people are the same no matter where you go.

or get important pictures taken...like a wedding...

or graduation...

And there's a lot of other stuff to see at this pagoda...

A little guy selling flowers.  Check out his makeup.

A mom and her pup.

After we went to a place where they create a lot of Buddha statues.  Big ones and small ones.

Shiny ones...

Noisy and dirty work. The guy below is using an electric grinder to shape Buddha's head. No dust mask, no goggles - I wonder what happens when you lose any eye here at work.

A finished product.  The long ears have some significance - can't recall what though.

And one final wooden temple or pagoda or something...the royal family or somebody important lived here years ago.

One last stop before we go to start the river cruise is at a shop where they coat many items with gold leaf.  I'd never wondered how they make gold leaf but the video below shows how...they take a small piece of gold and beat it and beat it and then beat it some more until it is very thin and flat.

And another video of a very hungry but skittish pigeon at our hotel last night. This video really has nothing to do with the trip - I just like it.

And at the end of the afternoon we take a short bus ride and finally arrive at our ship the Scenic Aura.  The red arrow points to our cabin. We spent a few extra $ to get this cabin. Our friends Konstantin and Marian are in the one next to us.

That's it for Mandalay...tomorrow the river cruise starts.