17th January, 2017

We arrived in Mandalay and were met at the airport by the wonderfully loquacious Ting Ting Noay, spelling to be verified and known as Noay, who is our guide here in Mandalay and our driver, Mr Soe. She briefed us on our way to the office (that is a bit of an exaggeration) of the tour company as to our programme and lots about Myanmar, not least about recent changes. I will try and give a bit of background when I have the chance. At the office, we met Ma Kai (as in Mackay from Porridge), Ma being Mrs, who is the local boss and who dealt with all the paperwork. It was then off to the Bagan King Hotel and time to settle into our new home for the next four nights. The room is good, though bizarrely there are no drawers and very few surfaces, especially in the bathroom. Makes you wonder who designs these rooms. Still the bed is enormous – you could sleep sideways with ease! I will need a map reference to find Val!

Ok, there you have the standard hotel room pics. We went out for a walk after dinner and to get a feel for the place. First up, Mandalay was only founded in 1857 by King Mindon on a very specific grid system (they are heavily into astrological calculations here), was captured by the British in 1885 and grew from there to the Second World War when it was captured by the Japanese and bombed by the Allies. It is a busy, rather dusty and polluted city, fairly noisy due to a fair bit of honking and known locally as Motorbike City. One effect of the grid system is that, of course, you get a lot of junctions. Unlike say New York, they don’t have many traffic lights or rights of way, so to get across the junction you simply sound your horn and go for it, weaving to avoid everyone else doing the same thing. Force majeure and who dares wins spring to mind! Our walk was suitably exciting when crossing the road, but we are fairly used to it and you have to trust that they will weave their way past you. Pavements are at something of a premium here as well, so it is never dull. Val says it reminds her of growing up in Malaysia in her youth some 50 years ago, which tells you something of the state of the economy. Until very recently Myanmar was number 201 out of 228 countries economically and had a GDP of $1,700 per capita compared to $9,900 in neighbouring Thailand. Things seem to be improving as the generals and the military have loosened their grip on the country a bit. Mobile phones are now the latest phenomenon – the price of a SIM card has come down from about $600 five years ago to something affordable now. It is all happening very quickly, but they do have a long way to catch up. And there is no guarantee the military won’t intervene again.

We walked up to what remains of the royal palace which has a moat and walls and is mostly an off-limits military zone with little left of the royal palace. Still, photogenic. I enjoyed the sign outside a restaurant advertising their wares.

We may try the tight chicken dish one night!

By the way, Kipling has quite a bit to answer for by romanticising Mandalay in his famous poem, not least as he never actually visited the city. He was on his way back home and the ship dropped in on Rangoon, so time for a quick poem (which is also a song sung to a waltz tune of the day, I believe) where a long-time soldier is looking back from a wet and gloomy London to his days ‘east of Suez’. I attach a link for those of you who need reminding – there are some good notes on it as well:

http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_mandalay.htm.

There are a few dodgy geographical moments – the ‘old Moulmein pagoda’ is on the coast, whilst Mandalay is in the middle of the country and you cannot see China ‘crost  the Bay’ from either location as it is some 500 miles away! That said, it is a very emotive poem I always feel, especially if you have lived or visited these parts.

I am posting this now as we had a very busy day yesterday and I need to get it all organised. And we are off shortly on day two of our tour. I will try and catch up a bit tonight.

Bye for now!