3 Days in Mandalay, Myanmar

As part of my 1 Month in Myanmar we spent 3 days in Mandalay.

Day 1: Myanmar hospital experience

The first day was a bit of a forced sick day as one of my travel buddies was sick. She decided to go to the hospital the night before. Finally, I went to go visit her which was in itself a very interesting experience. Looking around the hospital the equipment would be considered ‘antique’ by American standards (and indeed my physician friends were intrigued when I sent them some pictures of things they’d only learned about it textbooks.

When I went to see her they had basically listened to all of her symptoms and given her 1 medication to solve each of them (e.g. 1 for nauesea, 1 for headaches, etc). I also learned she had slept very poorly as the bed was uncomfortable and the nurses came in every hour to record her vitals.

I assessed her situation (no, I’m not a medical professional of any kind) and quickly determined that she’d be much better off back at our hotel. She wasn’t dangerously sick enough to need constant vital sign taking. This was clearly just being followed blindly as a ‘standard procedure’ by the sweet, and well-meaning, but not that helpful nurses. What she needed most was real rest. At first my friend showed a ‘blind trust’ of ‘medical professionals’, but once I asked around I found that there were no diagnoses coming and no other plan of treatment and she couldn’t help but agree she’d be much more comfortable back at the hotel where we had a private room with a private attached bathroom much closer to the bed.

Day 2: Pagoda Tour, Ubein Bridge & Thadingyut

Pagoda Tour

Today we hit the town hard with an intense tour of pagodas with a hired driver.

We started with Mandalay Hill which wound up being a much longer climb than any of us were prepared for. It was all steps which was nice, but it was super hot and as the day wore and we got closer to the top was incredibly crowded. When we got close to the top, my travel buddies decided to bail due to crowds and being tired and not wanting to pay the 1,000 khat at the top. I paid and was rewarded with stunning views and getting to watch all the Burmese families resting and picnicking and enjoying the holiday.

Once we all regrouped at the bottom we were all overheated and shaky so we got some cool drinks and then walked down the street to another temple which had green glittering tiles and was setting up candles for Thadingyut festivities in the evening. From there we found our driver and got out of traffic – we then went to the Teak Temple which we all agreed was particularly cool. Then we also agreed it was time for a break. Our driver however, wasn’t ready to bring us to lunch and wanted to bring us to another temple first. We allowed it, but insisted on a snack so we stopped and got some mini fried pancakes and sat and drank some tea because we all desperately needed a little rest and sugar. This gave us the boost to explore one more pagoda.

Buddha in Monastery Hill Pagoda in Myanmar, Mandalay

Then it was finally time for lunch. A much needed rest in the shade with a cool beer. We were so overheated and tired that we stayed for quite a while. We then had to choose between seeing the Imperial Palace or exploring some of the pagodas in Amurapura or making it to the U Bein Bridge for the sunset, we decided to go to the Bridge.

U Bein Bridge

We started to walk across but it was so crowded that I was scared of getting pushed off so I was relieved when we turned around halfway. Instead, we rented a boat and viewed the sunset behind the bridge from the serenity of the water. We made the right choice: the colors in the sky were so gorgeous that I cried.

Our driver took us back to our hotel where we parted. We freshened up before heading out to enjoy

Thadingyut, Festival of Lights

Thadingyut Festival in Mandalay, Myanmar

Day 3: Imperial Palace, Ubein Bridge (Revisited) and more Thadingyut

Today was the day that we sadly parted with our Swiss travel buddies, leaving our group of 5 to a group of 3. And 1 of our friends was feeling lazy, so 2 of us headed out for some adventures. First we decided to visit the Imperial Palace which we didn’t get to yesterday.

We wanted to visit Mahar Wai Yan Bon Thar Monastery, but were too late and it was closed, so instead we explored some of the temples in the Amarapura area. We discovered this one which we thought was oh so cool with it’s minty-fresh green and discovered that it was indeed in the middle of being painted and this is the color they use under the white paint which makes the paint very white. We also found 2 local burmese girls who were happy to play with us and pose for the camera.

Today we came to U Bein Bridge during non-sunset time and it was less crowded so we could walk across without fear of being pushed off. We were rewarded by meeting a group of sila-rhan, or burmese nuns, whose teacher had spent time studying in the US so was eager to speak English with us and facilitate a conversation between us and her students. This was a true highlight of the trip.

Sila-rhan (Burmese nuns) on U Bein Bridge in Mandalay, Myanmar

Our new nun friend also assured us that there would be even more celebrations for the Thadingyut festival. We weren’t expecting that – so we headed back to our hotel where we met up with our friend and told him this news and we all headed back out to go check it out.