Mandalay, BKK, & into Lao

After making an arduous exit out of the Chin state, I arrived back in Mandalay with two days before my flight back to Bangkok. Arriving from my bus at 6:00 am after getting no more than two hours of sleep, my first day in Mandalay did not yield much sightseeing. Quite tired, I walked slowly in the relentless heat to the Grand Palace. Costing $10 to enter, which is outrageously expensive here in SE Asia, foreigners are only allowed to stay on the main road and can only view the Grand Palace. While the palace was interesting and impressive to see, it needless to say was not worth the $10 fee and 20 minutes to view the area.

That afternoon I met a woman who has biked around much of the world and currently biking Myanmar and Thailand and we arranged to rent a motorbike and tour the city together. Rising in the dark, we traced the normally chaotic Mandalay streets, which were happily quite empty. We arrived just before sunrise at the famous U Bien bridge, which is one of the longest teak bridges in the world covering a distance of 1.2 km over a shallow lake. There we watched the orange sun rise slowly into the sky and had tea and donuts to start the day.

The rest of the day we visited different sights around Mandalay such as Mandalay Hill, a teak monastery, and different stone carving businesses. In the evening, I sat along the Irrawaddy river watching boys play in the water, women wash clothes and dishes, and the sun fall into the horizon. Watching the sunrise and sunset during my last day seemed a fitting end to my stay in Myanmar, recalling the sunrises and sunsets I viewed in Yangon, the train to Bagan, Bagan, and the Chin state.

The next day my time in Myanmar came to a close and I made my short flight back to BKK. Upon arriving to the enormous city, I instantly realized the stark difference between the highly developed Thailand and the still up and coming Myanmar. I enjoyed relaxing for a few days in Bangkok, visiting with friends met during my previous stay here in November/December, working with fast wifi, and preparing for the next phase of my trip. One thing I also thoroughly enjoyed was walking down the street and not being stared at by everyone as was the case in Myanmar.

After a few days in Bangkok, I boarded the overnight train to Nongkhai and my eventual destination of my next country, Lao.