Getting around Myanmar generally involves very lengthy (and exhausting) journeys on buses and trains. I did want to visit Mandalay, mainly to see the famous U Bein bridge, but getting there involved a journey of over 1000 kilometres. So I decided to bite the bullet and fly; it transpired there is a very small airport in Dawei about a fifteen minute ride out of the town with regular flights to Yangon, and I managed to catch a connecting flight to Mandalay.
Dawei airport is the smallest imaginable. The check-in area doubles as the site of a cafe/snack bar, as well as the waiting area for flights. When the plane arrived, we literally walked out of the lounge across the tarmac to the plane and boarded it. If you took away the runway, the whole place was smaller than Bradford Interchange.
Arriving in Mandalay, I took a shared taxi to a hotel in the downtown area, which arranged a driver to take me to U Bein bridge, which was about an hour away. it was recommended I make an early morning visit to beat the commuter traffic, so the driver arrived at around 4.45am.
The U Bein bridge did not disappoint. It is the world's longest teak footbridge and stretches about 1200 metres across Lake Taungthaman. It was nice to be there at daybreak, and I felt I was the only tourist there at that time. The bridge itself arose from the royal palace being shifted from Amarapura to Mandalay in 1859, and the mayor of Amarapura's decision to create a bridge using the teak support columns left behind. It looks fantastically impressive hovering some distance above the lake, with the city in the distance. There are over 1,000 columns, and it is amazing how they have lasted, although there is a constant process of repairing the teak columns. A triumph of engineering. I wondered what Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the famous civil engineer, would have made of this structure that was built during the year he died.
The driver and I walked the bridge back and forth, in the early morning gloaming, and visited a Buddhist temple nearby.
In addition to the bridge, it was wonderful to see boats on the lake that looked so serene in the morning light. The Kyuk Taw Gyi temple on the other side of the bridge from where we crossed had some interesting features.
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| Fishing on Lake Taungthaman |
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| Kyuk Taw Gyi pagoda |
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| Kyuk Taw Gyi pagoda |
After returning to the hotel, and again in an effort to save time, I hired another driver to take me to Pyin Oo Lwin, a hill town built by the British to escape the heat of Yangon and Mandalay, and then onto Hsipaw. The drive to Pyin Oo Lwin out of Mandalay involved running the gauntlet of more Water Festival drenchings (even though it was raining!), and there were some lovely views over Mandalay. Pyoo Oo Lwin is a real relic of the Raj with its horse-drawn carriages, and the National Kandawgyi Gardens felt like it ought to have been nestled next to a Victorian stately home. Immaculately maintained with stunning flowers, but somehow incongruous.
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| View of Mandalay |
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| Water festival |
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| National Kandawgyi Gardens |
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| National Kandawgyi Gardens |
The distance from Pyin Oo Lwin to Hsipaw was about 140 kilometres, but I hadn't realised that it essentially involved driving around one mountain to the summit, then descending before driving up another mountain on the other side of the valley. In the darkness it was a fairly daunting drive full of acute bends and, of course, virtually no lighting.
Arriving in Hsipaw, I went in search of a bite to eat and stumbled upon a local place where I ordered tea leaf salad, a Shan state favourite and possibly the best salad i've ever tasted. It is made by fermenting tea leaves through lightly steaming them, and then packing them into bamboo lengths before allowing them to ferment for a year. Different kinds of nuts are added to provide a crunchy texture. Amazing flavours.
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