The (Bumpy) Road to Mandalay

After three nights in Yangon we decided to move up the country to Mandalay. We had to get a overnight cross-country train there which took 18 hours and left at 3pm in the afternoon. After a sweaty walk to the train station with our backpacks we arrived and couldn't find our train because everything was in Burmese, even the train numbers and times were written in indeterminable Burmese script so we wandered around trying to find someone to help. Eventually we were led to our carriage and shown to a cabin with four beds (two tiers on either side), quite different from the three-tiered bunk bed/open plan style of the Indian trains. Don't get me wrong, the train was extremely rickety and run down but we were so pleased with our little cabin because we ended up having it all to ourselves; once we were settled a man with stained brown teeth knocked on the door (pan, a form of chewable tobacco, is popular here as well as India and it stains the teeth and causes saliva to be acidic hence why you see a lot of the men spitting red liquid on to the street) and said he was our waiter and offered us beer...we were loving life! There was one problem however....the train was ridiculously bumpy! Paula said that she got up once in the middle of the night and said I was literally flying off the bed. Going to the loo was the real problem because, not only was I being thrown around the smelly, urine covered cubicle but the lock kept being rattled undone because of the bumps which meant the door would spring open. I'm surprised I didn't end up sprawled in the corridor unconscious with my trousers round my ankles - now that would have been blog material!

There was a real risk of chipping a tooth whilst I held the glass of Myanmar beer up to my mouth, never mind about all the spillages! 

Friendly Myanmar people unobtrusively trying to sell fruit at the stations.

The Myanmar country side is dotted with golden pagodas.

We arrived at our destination at 5am and got a ride through the dark streets on what looked like a wheelchair attached to a bike - called a trishaw - to the backpacker district of Mandalay and quickly found a guesthouse so we could get a few hours sleep. When we emerged hours later we decided to try and find Mandalay hill which is a shrine on top of a hill that overlooks the city; we used a map from a guidebook but still hadn't found it after an hour of walking, it turned out we'd gone in the exact opposite direction, this was probably down to the fact that there are hardly any road signs here!

Mystery street food for breakfast - fried quails eggs with some unknown beige balls!

A typical street in Myanmar - market stalls and, of course, a golden pagoda at the end.

They LOVE disco Buddhas here!

This is the view from the top of Mandalay hill - the temple was covered in pink and gold mirror mosaics.

Paula got her palm 'read' by a complete nutter. Look closely top centre and you can see a chubby, blue woman milking a cow with her mouth...as you do. 

I bought a mini kettle from Thailand so I can have tea when I want and eat packet noodles to save money!

It is much more expensive here compared to neighbouring India and Thailand so we're trying to fit in as much as we can by only spending 2-3 nights in each place. There wasn't very much to do in Mandalay so we caught an all day boat to our next destination at 5am in the morning. All these early starts, long journeys and constant moving from town to town has left us exhausted...it's such a hard life being a traveller...! Half asleep on the boat I went to the toilet which was by the noisy engine and because the handle was broken I got stuck inside! I thought I was going to be there all day since it was so loud that nobody could hear my banging and Paula was dozing on the deck chairs outside. Luckily, for some unknown reason, Paula looked behind her from the other room and saw a door handle going round and round. She grabbed a crew member who eventually let me out and 'helpfully' showed me how the lock works whilst laughing.

He wasn't laughing when he had to fix the door later on in the day after other people got stuck in there!

We watched the sun rise from the boat.

More pagodas....

Sunset on the boat! Yes, the pointy things you can see are Pagodas.

After a nine hour boat journey we arrived in Bagan and the only way to get to the guesthouse area was by horse and cart!