Mandalay!

To me, the name Mandalay has always held exotic appeal.  I wondered if it stemmed from Kipling's poem, or the old movie Road to Mandalay with Bob Hope???  And, I did find the city charming.   The second largest city in Myanmar, Mandalay has the “distinction" of being the last royal capital (before the British took over).

We arrived in Mandalay early in the morning, and used a driver to get around to the main tourist stops.  Here are some highlights of what we saw -

The last royals:
Queen Suphayalatt and King Thibaw

•  The Palace and Fort of the last king.  Our driver explained that the twelve turrets and three gates on each of the fort’s sides represent the twelve months and three seasons of the year.   “Three seasons!”  I blurted, then caught myself.  “What do you call the three seasons?”  He answered: “Cool, rainy, and hot - of course.”   

Foreigners, both now and in the king’s time, can only enter through the East gate, so that's where we entered.

There's not a whole lot here

The palace wasn’t ostentatious.  Built of wood that is now painted red and gold, there was not a lot to see inside the buildings.  (Much of the King's jewelry and possessions was looted by the British.)  However, I enjoyed just getting a sense of its size.  The grounds are two miles square!  Only about 30% is open to the public, with the remaining seventy percent still an active military compound.  A moat runs around its entirety!  According to some sources, this moat was recently re-dug by local citizens coerced to “volunteer” by the country's military rulers.

One of the few royal items not looted 

I  always like to walk around and try to imagine what it would have been like to be a servant there or one of the Lesser Queens.  (The King had over 100 queens, but only one Primary Queen.)

•  Kathodaw Paya.  After the palace, we went to see what we were told is the world’s largest book. The Kathodaw Paya contains 729 marble slabs inscribed with the entire text of the Buddhist canon.  The human-sized “pages” lined the entire street in all directions around the Shwenandaw monastery.

Over 1300 monk scholars live and study here.

Kathodaw Paya

While looking at the slabs, monks started lining up with their rice bowls.  Monks usually eat two meals a day, and even though it was only 10:15 a.m., they were queueing for their midday meal.   At first I felt bad about all the tourists snapping their pictures as if they were “monkeys in a zoo.”

Tourists taking pictures of the monks

However, there was a sign posted that said that we were welcome to take pictures.  Beth conjectured that they allowed pictures as one way of welcoming people to learn more about the Buddhist religion. 

Most of the monks were serious, but occasionally I would catch several sharing a joke and smiling.  I thought that they were probably commenting on all the funny tourists lined up, like “monkeys in a zoo!”   

      •  Then there was my favorite place -- the iconic U Bein Bridge, the most frequently photographed bridge of Myanmar.  It is approximately 200 years old, a kilometer long, and completely made of teakwood!  I loved seeing the people’s silhouettes walking across the bridge.

Silhouettes against the sky

We took a small punt out to the middle of the bridge and then walked to the farthest end.

All aboard!

The boats were so colorful

Jim, Beth and Leon went further and walked into the little village on the other side.  I just enjoyed sitting on the bridge.  It was the best place ever for people watching!!!   There were young people strolling on "dates," families carrying supplies home from the bigger town.  It turns out, however, that most of my pictures are of Buddhist monks and nuns.

This beautiful woman was
taking a bath in her longyi

I wondered at what age these girls first became nuns...

I wondered if these two were brothers...

We casually watched the fishermen catching fish with nets and poles, but were truly amazed when

some caught fish with their bare hands.   

 

These two caught fish bare-handed,
 then put them in a small net

Once we joined up again, we all walked the bridge 

back, and spent a little - too little - time poking 

around the small shops immediately on the shore.  

Called Amarapura, it is a thriving area of sellers of 

crafts.  The colors of the materials sold were so

bright!  

There was also one craft there that I did not see anywhere else. Can you guess what the purse she is holding is made of?
Give up?  It's .... watermelon seeds!
Beautiful, but I did not think I could get one home safely.

I don’t know if you can tell from this picture that this woman vendor has very red lips and teeth.   This comes from chewing a mixture of arcea nut and betel nut leaf, a custom that dates back thousands of years.  Betel nut leaf is very popular chew both here and in Bangladesh.  (In fact, betel nut was given out as a small gift to the guests at Shazreh and Rajib's wedding.)  The heart-shaped betel leaves, or paan, are sold from street corner carts all over Myanmar.

A few last pictures from the bridge:

The countryside from there

We enjoyed the palace - and Mandalay!