Mandalay

After leaving Inle behind we headed for the warmer climate of Mandalay. We flew with Yangon Air - short sweet flight. We took a taxi (which if you paid in dollars was3 x the price of the local currency!) and detoured to a famous 1.2km bridge made from teak. Once there we were met by young children with gifts to sell and also about 1000 flies. There were also locals selling owls and rare birds. We took a few photos and continued to Mandalay.

We climbed Mandalay Hill slightly too early. It's quite a dirty place so after chatting to some monks we headed back down. There are lots of Stupas and shrines allong the climb.

Unfortunately during the night Chris then became sick with terrible stomach cramps and diaorea. He also had a burning fever and was wrapped up saying he was freezing.

We got some tablets from a traveller in the next room who's brother is a doctor. The next day was sleep for Chris. I wandered around the markets saying hello to people. And was stared at quite a lot.

Mandalay is a small but very busy city. Its very dusty and noisy with broken and messy roads. There is an alarm that has a siren as lovely as any modern day ringtone. It is then followed by chimes and denotes the hour of the day. Every hour day and night! Lovely. Our hotel the Royal City Hotel has a garden on the roof where you can take breakfast and watch the beautiful sun rise in the morning over the misty and busy city. For a few hours every morning you can hear songs being sung that echo loudly around. Really quite nice.

The next day although Chris was still ill we managed a half day boat trip to Mingun so see many temples and stupas. It was a really nice morning spare all the terds floating pass the boat! The locals were lovely, they live on tourism selling paintings, clothing and trinkets.

On return we took another walk around the markets and stopped for ice cream.

In the evening we went to a lovely and expensive (in burmese terms) restaurant.

but Uh oh.... you've guess it now Chris and I were both really sick. Thankfully no fever but we both had terrible stomachs.

So our plans to head for more hill trekking and cold freezing nights in Hispaw have been cancelled. We have decided enough is enough and that we want to leave Mandalay. There was no point in going to Hispaw as it is no place to be ill.

We also wanted to take a 9-12 hour boat trip south to Bagan but we have cancelled that too in favour of flying. We will now leave Myanmar on our previous date of 30th Jan.

Tonight we arrive in Bagan and our hotel boasts a pool! We will spend a few days there cycling around lots of vey old temples and then we plan to head to Yangoon and explore that.

Where Next?

Our initial and excitable ideas of going to Borneo and diving Sipadan are not going to happen. It is out of season and a lady we met on our travels said they are having an extra bad bout of bad weather. As is Maylaysia.

We have been searching to find good weather in Asia and were toying with the idea of going to the Phillipines, but Chris isn't too fussed. So to try and stay with good weather we are going to stay in Thailand and head back to Koh Lanta and hopefully dive with Lanta Fun Divers again.

Koh Lanta was our back up plan. Its a shame we won't be travelling to new waters but it will be nice all the same.

Lots of love to everyone.

Steve and Rach - hope you had a nice holiday.

Love Anna and Chris