Mandalay sounds like a place I should know about but the more I thought about it the more I couldn’t work out why. The Road to Mandalay, I don’t know it sounded so familiar (I have since realised that it’s from Rebecca by Daphne De Maurier – the house that she lives in)

We started off our day by visiting a fairly impressive site, as sites go – the World’s LARGEST book that is situated at Kuthodaw Pagoda. The book is the entirety of the Buddhist scriptures which are written on 729 marble slabs each housed in its own individual mini-stupa. They were commissioned by King Mindon in 1857 and took more than a decade to complete the total of mini-stupas on the site though is actually 730 as there is one that holds a slab describing the creation of the complex. It’s a pictorial haven and I spent most of my time trying to capture the scale of the place and the mass of slabs without getting loads of people in the pictures! Unfortunately during the British rule the site was quite heavily damaged with a number of bricks from the stupas used for building military roads but thankfully they have all since been rebuilt.

Here we were also able to try thanaka that we had seen Zar Zar wearing on her face to help protect her from the sun. It’s a natural product that is ground into a paste with a little water as she showed us and several of us then had it on our faces too – nothing like looking like a PROPER tourist by getting in with a local tradition! I mean clearly mine was never going to last very long as I had he whole Niagra falls effect in full flow down my cheeks from the heat!!

Our next location was a quick bus trip across the city (THANK GOD FOR AN AIR-CON REPRIEVE!!) to the magnificent Shwenandaw Monastery all made out of teak, some seriously intricate carving work. It was a beautiful looking building but what made it all the more fascinating was the fact that the WHOLE BUILDING had been moved from inside the walls of the palace where it was originally built as a residence for King Mindon. Unfortunately he passed away isn’t he building and so he decision was taken to turn it into a monastery and to move it to the position it now sits in. His son thought this to be incredibly unlucky, but by moving it to its current position prevented it from being burnt to the ground during World War II like so many other buildings in the palace at the time. The depictions that adorn the walls and roof of the building are Buddhist myths and Jataka stories. It was mesmerising the detail that was contained in the carvings and I did wonder how long it must have taken to create. Outside of the entrance there seas a local artist who was creating pictures from ink and a razor blade, not just any pictures, beautiful ones. Of course I ended up in buying one, but I had spent a while filming him creating a piece which I found utterly fascinating. Kudos to Zar Zar for pointing him out!

From here we fled up Mandalay Hill (not in the itinerary for those following that!) in two mini buses/taxis as we were NOT keen on he 45 min walk up here and would take up,WAY too much time for this additional item the itinerary. It was hilarious , open backed sort of well, what I would call backies in South Africa but I’m not quite sure how to explain them! In ours on the route up we picked up a Nun who was heading to lessons part way up the hill who we dropped off too and was immensely grateful for the lift. The views from the top were spectacular it has to be said and interesting to see the layout of the Royal Palace and grounds edged by the palace walls so clearly from up here. The Wish-Granting Temple at the top had a host of glittering and bright mosaics and I spied someone working to mend some as well, such a delicate process.

We had totally lucked out with this off piste visit as on the way back to the minibus we came across a wonderful bright procession with cows pulling chariots with pretty small children all dressed up to the nines. Zar Zar had explained to us that this was a really wonderful thing to run into as it was a novication ceremony which the really small boys partake in as they enter into the Buddhist faith. There was even an elephant adorned in ceremonial robes which was amazing to see. We were all really grateful to have run into something that was part of everyday life and not put on for the tourists, something that was so different to our own culture.

From here we headed over to the Royal Palace which takes over a huge piece of land in the centre of the city. It was built just after King Mindon established his capital in the city in 1857. It was very similar to the Forbidden City in Beijing, I felt, with deep sort of deep russet red colour to the majority of the buildings. The walls of the palace themselves were huge and in total run 8km being 7m high and 3m thick and have 12 gateways which were to symbolise the signs of the Zodiac. There are 4 main gates, one on each side and the number of tiers on the roof of the entrance donating the importance of the importance of the person using the building below. The one that the King would have passed through was seven tiers high!

The strangest thing about the Palace as it is was that a large majority of the main buildings are not the original. Only one King after Mindon, Thibaw, was able to rule from here before the British overthrew them and renamed it Fort Dufferin and billeted troops in its former Royal Quarters. Worse than that though, in World War II was when the majority of the buildings were flattened by allied bombs. The current buildings are actually circa 1990, I kind of felt a bit fraudulent taking photos and visiting as it was essentially a mock up of the originals, none the less it was fascinating to see – and ROASTING! There is still a large military presence (clearly off limits to tourists) that uses the majority of the space in the former Palace grounds which we were keen to spy in from a distance.

Our afternoon took us a little outside Mandalay to Mingun which had a number of things for us to see in the heat. It involved a short boat ride and gave us an opportunity to sightsee what life was like along the river banks as we headed upriver. Once off the boat the order of the day on route to the Mingun Pagoda was ice creams as we spotted a little shop whilst ambling up passing also street stalls selling all the usual things (mainly tat) for tourists.

The pagoda itself is unfinished but, had it been completed, it would have been the largest pagoda in the world. It was constructed by using thousands of prisoners of war and slave labour and was originally intended to stand 150m high. Only one third of it was completed What makes it rather astounding are the monumental cracks in it which appeared when earthquakes hit the area in 1838 and again in 2012. Work stopped on it because King Bodawpaya who had commissioned it passed away in 1819. We were understandably not able to get too close to it to explore it owing to the potential danger. It would have been in a prime location on the Irrawaddy River and the bell that was cast to be hung in the finished pagoda can now be found in a near by shrine. It’s the largest uncracked bell in the world and weighs in at 90ish tonnes. The base of the bell is 5m in diameter and there were sticks around the place to be able to strike the magnificent. Outside of here we met two beautiful orphaned nuns dressed in light pink robes who were being looked after by an elder nun we were explained through translation from Zar Zar. We heard a little about what they are currently doing, schooling wise and then we were sung a chant which I only managed to catch the tail end of on video and we gave them some change for sharing their story with us.

Our final stop before heading back on the boat to Mandalay was the Hsinbyume Pagoda which Zar Zar also referred to as the wedding cake, you can see why from the photos below! It’s wavy design is thought to represent Mount Sumeru which is the mountain at the centre of the Buddhist cosmos with the seas surrounding it and represented but the central stupa and the seven terraces on which it was placed. The views from the top, yes even I climbed it in the heat, were wonderful, looking out to the river and also over to the Mingun Pagoda and the countryside surrounding.

Our trip back on the boat was made even more sublime by being able to catch the sunset whilst heading back downstream to Mandalay. Certainly can’t knock the sunsets over here to put it mildly!

Hotel: Victoria Palace