Myanmar PTR - Part 7: Mandalay and Surrounding Area

[Gavin]

It feels like I haven’t done one of these for ages. This definitely wasn’t a coaster/park trip since there’s very little there, but I wanted to try a new country. Obviously, if there are a couple of creds around, I’m going to grab them though. A bit of a rant first. Feel free to skip ahead.

I left my place at around 4 am, but ended up not being able to take my original flight because of a tiny mistake on my visa letter. My passport expiry date is 20 March 24, but it had been entered as 24 March 24. Obviously this was my fault as I either hadn’t entered the information correctly or hadn’t checked it when it came back, but I later found out that it wouldn’t have been an issue.

The airline wouldn’t let me on the flight, which is entirely within their rights to do, but basically they were just being c**ts about it. It was a budget airline, so they had my money and weren’t going to do anything remotely helpful like put me on a later flight, which a proper airline would have done. Most of you won’t understand that concept since you’ve never NOT flown a budget airline, but the normal, non-peasant ones are usually very accommodating and helpful.

Anyway, I went back home and waited for a couple of hours for the immigration office in Myanmar to open so I could call them and try and sort something. They said that there would be no problem entering the country with that visa since the passport number and name were correct and the passport was well within the expiry date, also saying that the airlines know this, thus confirming HK Express were just being c**ts.

They rushed me through a new visa within the hour, which is supposed to take 3 days, and I got myself another flight for the following afternoon with a different airline. There had been a flight that night, but it was ridiculously expensive and was sold out by the time the new visa came through and I went to book.

So, the next day it was back to the airport, with a new and correct visa, but I thought I’d just try something out. When I was checking in, I gave them the old visa to see what would happen. “Just to let you know, there is a small mistake on your visa, but it won’t be a problem as long as your passport is well within its expiry date.” More confirmation that HK Express were being c**ts. I apologized for the “mistake” of giving them the old one, and handed over the new one, explaining that I hadn’t been let on the flight the day before, which was, apparently, “ridiculous”.

Yeah, it was my fault and HK Express were “right” not to let me on the plane, but they had no real reason not to other than they had my money already, would never in a million years put me on a later flight, and could probably give my seat to one of the overbooked passengers. C**ts.

To be fair, it’s the first time in what must be a couple of hundred flights by now that I’ve ever had an issue, so it was bound to happen sooner or later. I’m just happy that the visa issue could get sorted quickly enough for me to still stick with most of the original plan.

Yangon

I was supposed to land in Yangon around 7am on the Thursday, and ended up landing around 5pm on the Friday, so essentially it was two whole days gone. Luckily, there wasn’t a massive amount to do and I’d allowed way too much time there, so I managed to just cram everything in on the Saturday before flying out on Sunday.

After I checked into the hotel on the Friday, I grabbed some food and had a quick wander. Finally, here are some pictures:

The only real plan was to walk up to Shwedagon Pagoda and have a quick look. It was still open, but I didn’t bother walking up since I figured I’d do it the next day.

That was the west entrance (there are entrances on all four sides) which is very close to some creds, which I got the next day. I walked around to the south entrance to then walk back down to the hotel.

Right opposite the south entrance was Happy World. I hadn’t figured on it being open – it was around 8pm by this point – so would have done it the next day. I was just walking that way anyway, so just got it done.

Not much to report really. It was tiny with not much in it.

The ghost train looked decent from the outside. I kind of wish I’d done it now.

There was a slightly dubious cred in there as well. It’s a tiny, powered thing with single cars. There was a bit of a drop to it, and it’s been included on coaster sites, so I’ve counted it.

I was going to shove the next, proper, day in here now, but I’ve got carpal tunnel syndrome from typing “c**t” so much.

 

[Hixee]

Sounds like a real pain in the arse with the flights. Really makes you think they just wanted your seat to give to an overbooked passenger. I agree, ****s.

Myanmar has always intrigued me, all the pagodas always look so spectacular in photos. I've seen a few of your posts on Facebook, and I'm looking forward to hearing more detail of what you got up to.

 

[caffeine_demon]

I never pass on a ghost train/cdr!

did you go on the 9d mini theatre?

 

[Gavin]

Because I only had one full day and night in Yangon thanks to the flight f**k up, I crammed quite a bit in. I’d given myself way too long there anyway because I wanted to have a Saturday night there and the original, cheap-s**t flight I’d booked only had an option for the Thursday morning (I’d have done Friday otherwise), so it turned out to be fine. There’s not really a massive amount to do there.

I basically did an 8km circuit from my hotel, then back up to the main pagoda area for some creds and the pagoda itself.

Some church that I didn’t go in, but was very unMyanmar:

Some market. It was still quite early in the morning, so it hadn’t properly picked up.

Some cathedral, assumingly built when Burma was part of British India, which I went into this time.

It was actually pretty stunning and totally unexpected.

I don’t know what this abandoned building was, but it was huge. I love old, crumbling stuff.

Some pagoda/stupa thing. This was the first one of these I saw properly in Myanmar, so took a bit of time looking around. Turns out there are s**tloads of them and they’re all mostly very similar.

I thought the disco Buddha lights were quite quirky, but it turns out they’re very common. So tacky.

With it being a former British colony, there were a lot of old colonial buidings scattered around. Some of them were kept very well and were still in use, while others were falling to pieces.

Another pagoda, this time in the middle of a busy traffic roundabout and next to really nice little park surrounded by old, British s**t.

My hotel was in the Chinatown area, and with it being Chinese New Year, the area was decorated. I popped back into the hotel for an hour to take advantage of the air-conditioning before heading out again and heading up to the park.

I’ll just throw some general thoughts in about Yangon now before I shove the park section in. Obviously, I’ve thrown pictures in of interesting/nice stuff, but the bits in between those were basically what you’d expect from a developing country: dusty, noisy, crowded and largely uninteresting. It kind of reminded me of Mumbai in that respect, which makes sense given the location and colonial history of it. It was nowhere near the scale of Mumbai, which was massively more impressive, but, like Mumbai, there are some interesting old buildings scattered around with most of it is basically being a dump. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the day having a wander, but I’m kind of glad I didn’t have the extra day there that I’d been expecting.

Right, park then.

Natural World Amusement Park

This was pretty much at the base of the west entrance to the Shwedagon Pagoda mentioned in the first part of the report, and part of the bigger People’s Park area, which was really nice.

The first cred I spotted was this, which wasn’t on RCDB. Woohoo!

These Golden Horse worms are hit and miss as to whether they’ll let adults on – at Fantawild and other bigger parks it’s a big no – but this one was ok.

The park had a decent enough collection of other rides, including a gyroswing-type ride, log flume and Disco. Everything here was from Chinese manufactures. It felt very much like a smaller Chinese park actually.

The second coaster was a Golden Horse spinner. I think I may have done one or two before.

I think I may have f**ked up a bit at this place, but there’s currently no way to tell. RCDB had a coaster called Sky Train listed. It’s just a small kiddy thing, but I couldn’t see it anywhere. There were a couple of patches of dirt which could have housed it, or I thought maybe the unlisted Worm Coaster could have been a replacement.

However, after talking to Duane at RCDB, he checked with someone at ACE and it seems that it is/was supposedly in another area of the park, away from the main rides area, so even though I definitely had a decent scout around, I could have missed it. If that’s the case, then it’s not actually part of Natural World at all.

It might still be there, or it might not, and I’ve had sleepless nights and an overwhelming sense of despair ever since. I NEED TO KNOW!

The park was in a really nice setting, with views of the pagoda from certain areas.

In more positive news, after I had booked this trip, another coaster popped up on RCDB, a much more substantial coaster than anything else in the country.

RCDB had it listed, but with little information. I’m thrilled to be able to inform you all that it’s called “Roller Coaster” and is a Single Loop Double Spiral model from Beijing Shibaolai. You’re welcome.

I thought this was great actually. Not as a coaster – it rode fine, but was obviously bland and nothing remotely new – but that something like this existed somewhere like this in the first place. There is no amusement park industry in Myanmar, and it’s a very poor country – one of the poorest once you take Africa out of the equation, and roughly on-par with Cambodia – so the vast majority of visitors would never have seen something like this. Because of that, it had a big group of spectators clapping and cheering their friends as they went through the loop.

The whole park had a great atmosphere actually. It was busy – busier than the equivalent Chinese parks I’ve been to – well-maintained and with people really enjoying themselves.

It made me think that while it’s easy for most (uninformed, inexperienced, stupid) people to jump on the “OMG CHINESE KNOCKOFF!!!!!” bandwagon, these manufacturers have actually made it possible for parks like this to exist in places that would otherwise never be able to afford them, and that’s fantastic.

So, when I’d booked thus trip, I was expecting a +2 at this park, which then turned into a +3 a couple of weeks before I flew out. I got this +3, but it could have been a +4 if the older coaster is/was in fact still there.

From there, it was a quick walk to Shwedagon Pagoda.

It was very impressive, but like a lot of bulls**t religious monuments it kind of made me uneasy that something containing 70 tons of gold and 5,500 diamonds exists to be fawned over and worshiped in a country with a minimum wage of $3 a day.

I got there in the late afternoon, so hung around for a bit to see it as it got dark as well.

I went out that night to some monthly gay club night thing, which was good but also bulls**t. The group organising it were going on about inclusivity, raising visibility and all that s**te, but had shoved a $5 cover charge on it, thus pricing out a massive proportion of the local gay community, and it was mostly full of straight, white people. Hardly “inclusive”.

That was it for Yangon. I had a flight out the next afternoon, so just waited until the last minute to check out and headed to the airport. It was an interesting place. Despite losing a couple of days, I felt that I’d had enough time there really. Shwedagon Pagoda was massively impressive, it has to be said, and I like the whole aesthetic of crumbling colonial stuff, even if that is an indication of a lack of money.

Next up: s**tloads of culture crap.

 

[davidm]

Temple overload ; but that Shwedagon Pagoda is very cool indeed (just read up on it - HUGE).

 

[Hixee]

^If my [limited] knowledge of Myanmar is anything to go by, we're only getting started on the temples.

Certainly is very cool though. Looks really impressive, especially at night. Looking forward to a bit more of the culture.

 

[vaugc002]

Awesome report as ever... Myanmar looks undeniably interesting - especially the impoverishing pagoda thing

 

[Rachel]

Brilliant report Gavin, after seeing some of your photo's on FB i'm really looking forward to hearing about some of the culture stuff you got up to.
Those Pagoda night photos are stunning!

 

[Gavin]

If you were a bit templed-out after the first part of this, you’re not going to like the rest of it. There is another park coming up later, though.

I had an afternoon flight out of Yangon, so could have used the morning to do something, but figured that I’d pretty much seen it, so had a lie in and checked out of the hotel as late as possible and got a taxi to the airport. I think the flight was around an hour and a half, and there are loads of them every day. It’s doable by cheap overnight train or bus, but the sense of false romanticism, Lonely Planet bulls**t has never been my thing. Besides, I don’t own tie-died baggy pants or vest tops, my hair is usually clean and I was travelling on my own dime instead of Mummy’s credit card, so I wouldn’t have fit in.


Bagan

It was late afternoon when I got to the hotel, so I just had dinner there and didn’t bother going out again. It was a lot closer to the airport and a bit further out from the main sites than I’d thought – still fine though – but it was really nice and there was a decent view.

I got up around 5 the next morning to go and do the whole sunrise thing. Initially, I’d planned to hire a car/driver for the day, but the hotel rented out these e-bike things, basically electric mopeds, for $8 a day and I figured that one of those would allow for a lot more freedom to just drive around without having to make a proper plan. It was definitely the right option since I found out that there are only really a few proper roads and a lot of stuff would have pretty inaccessible with a car.

I didn’t take into account that I’ve never actually operated any vehicle other than a dodgem, so it was fun getting used to that in the pitch black, in Myanmar, without a helmet and realising that I’d forgotten to get travel insurance.

I bypassed the most popular pagoda to watch the sunrise from, and found a smaller one very close to it, with a large terrace but with far fewer people. I think there were about 20 of us.

This picture was obviously after the sunrise, but in case anyone goes there (jokes; there’s no Merlin park), it’s this one you want to head to:

In here and find the stairs:

Photo dump from the roof…

I’d only found out about the hot air balloon thing about a week before I took the trip, and it gets booked up pretty far in advance. I got myself on a reserve list with a couple of companies that evening, but it didn’t happen unfortunately.

Sorry for loads of “the same” pictures, but the whole thing was fab. I don’t often see a sober sunrise, so to see it somewhere like this was pretty amazing, definitely worth getting up early for.

The view at the back was nice as well:

There’s loads more (f**king temples) to this day, but I’m about to start my lunch break and don’t want to do a trip report during it.

 

[Hixee]

It’s doable by cheap overnight train or bus, but the sense of false romanticism, Lonely Planet bulls**t has never been my thing. Besides, I don’t own tie-died baggy pants or vest tops, my hair is usually clean and I was travelling on my own dime instead of Mummy’s credit card, so I wouldn’t have fit in.

Love this so much.

Okay, what? That looks phenomenal! Seriously, I'm so impressed by that.

You may have just added a "must do" trip to my list (not really a list, but you know what I mean).

 

[DelPiero]

I'm so glad I read the non park parts of your reports, some wonderful photos in there, sprinkled with enough witty Gavisms.

 

[Lofty]

Absolutely beautiful.

 

[Pink Cadillac]

These photos are fantastic. Almost looks as good as Chessington's Wild Asia!

 

[Gavin]

Temple Time!

After the whole sunrise thing, I got back on the moped and just drove around to a bunch of stuff, starting with the temple that is more popular for sunrise/sunset and that I’d bypassed earlier to get to the quieter one.

What was fab about this morning is that there was nobody around for a good few hours. The people who had been around for the sunrise all f**ked off back to hotels for breakfast and more sleep, leaving the whole area basically deserted until around midday.

I went an awkward way to this next place, coming off the bike since it was basically a sandpit. At this stage, I was seriously regretting the decision to use the bike at all, but it was never as bad after that. Some of the “roads” were a bit dusty, but it was all very manageable.

This was one of my favourites. It was probably down to the fact that I was the only person there, and it was massive. Proper Indiana Jones s**t. The king who built it got into power by murdering his own father, oversaw the construction of the temple – executing any stone mason if he could fit a pin between the stones – and was assassinated here by Indians as revenge for executing an Indian princess. Even the name was like something from Temple of Doom –Dhammayangyi – and the entire middle section has been bricked off for hundreds of years, so nobody knows what’s inside it.

You can see across to some other stuff from outside.

Like I said there was nobody else around. A few locals selling souvenirs were setting up as I was leaving, but I had the place to myself apart from a few dogs and a load of bats.

I’m just going to throw random pictures in now. There were so many temples that I can’t offhand remember which one’s which. Like I said before, I just spent the day riding around on the moped between various places.

This next place was quite fab since there was a hidden staircase to get up to the roof.

Ananda Temple is one of the busier ones since it’s still very much in use as a place of worship. Since it was early afternoon by this point, people had started re-emerging from hotels as well.

I didn’t mention it before, but a lot of the temples have scaffolding around them, especially around any high points. There was an earthquake last summer, which did quite a lot of damage. There are a few places that have been shut off completely, but for the most part it’s not a huge hindrance; it’s not like there aren’t enough temples there to miss out on a couple.

More stuff:

This place was fab, but what was even more fab was that there’s a small temple across from it which was completely ignored and empty, but had a way up to the roof for a fab view of it that nobody seemed to know about.

I thought that this pagoda was just a bit of a s**t copy of the one in Yangon, but it turns out that it’s the original and that Yangon’s was modeled after it.

The gold from the stupa had been removed for some work.

My original plan had been to head to some place for the sunset, but I sacked it off after climbing partway up. I didn’t get any pictures of it since once I realised I didn’t want to stick around, I had haul out of there to get somewhere else in time. I’m not overly bothered by heights as long as I feel quite secure, but I just didn’t at that place. It was just really steep steps with no actual landings/platforms. Quite a lot of people started showing up as I was getting near the top, and I got a bit panicky with the lack of space and anything to hold onto, so just left and decided to try out the really popular place that I’d avoided in the morning.

It was, predictably, crowded, but it’s clear why it’s popular. It’s still a steep climb up, but there are handrails and wide terraces on different levels.

The top terrace was closed off due to earthquake damage, but it wasn’t much higher than the next one down anyway.

More sunset pictures to finish off the day.

After that, it was back to the hotel, which was a bit unpleasant really. Everyone was leaving at the same time, so the road back up to the town area was really busy. A little moped dealing with craploads of cars and buses, driven by someone who’d only got on one for the first time that morning and had only dealt with mostly empty roads/tracks up until that point, wasn’t fun.

Next up: MORE TEMPLES

 

[davidm]

Some epic shots there ; temples poking up through the foliage - great stuff.

(Can't help but think it could only have been better if there was some sad jungle mouse popping up between the temples, come on Myanmar, you've got enough temples, lets help improve that coaster:temple ratio.)

 

[Hixee]

I'm with David, that looks great. Very jealous.

Just out of curiosity, do you pay to go into the temples, or is it a "national park" type thing, or is it just free?

 

[Gavin]

You pay one price for the whole area - around US$20 - which you've got to pay before leaving the airport. I'm assuming it's the same at the train and bus stations. I think I was asked for my ticket twice the whole time, but it's not really an avoidable cost. Still, $20 is f**k all considering.

 

[Hixee]

I'm sure if I went to the expense of visiting, I could live with $20. Especially when it's as beautiful as that!

 

[Gavin]

Ready for more of the same? Here you go then.

I had another full day in Bagan, but had managed to cover a lot of ground the previous day. I slept in a bit, then went for a walk into a different area to the north east of the more popular sights. There were still a s**tload of temples, but mostly a lot smaller and with nobody around.

This monstrosity was erected a few years ago. It’s part of a luxury hotel complex. Luckily, it’s not too visible from most other areas.

In pretty much any other place, any one of these would be a massive tourist attraction. Here, nobody bothers since they’re slightly apart from the bigger temples. Not that they’re exactly small in many cases.

This place had a tiny number of people passing through it. It was a bit closer to the more popular sights and was a bit more unique because of the paint job. I ended up getting a couple of drinks from a vendor near the entrance and just chilling out on a bench in the grounds, with a book, for a couple of hours.

More stuff. Every temple, regardless of how small and remote it is, has a Buddha statue in it.

Most of the temples/pagoda/stupas outside of the larger ones don’t even have names. They’re just identified with a number.

Fugly:

Despite hating the tower thing, I supported it with my tourist money and went up. At US$5, it was expensive by Myanmar standards.

There was a good view of the immediate surrounding area, but it was too far away from the major temples to get a decent perspective. To be honest, you’re better off just climbing one of the more southern temples for free. Having said that, I’m glad they didn’t build this thing in a more central location; it would ruin the whole area.

The hotel complex it’s a part of:

Not a bad sunset spot, but not as good as being in the middle of it all really.

It’s a bit too far away to get decent pictures of the bigger temples – well, with a crappy little compact anyway – but it sort of adds to the atmosphere a bit.

I walked back to the hotel – about half an hour – and that was it for Bagan.

It’s an amazing place and I would recommend anyone to go there. It’s not on the radar anywhere near as much as somewhere like the area around Angkor Wat in Cambodia, but is equally as impressive, even more so in many respects. That’s partly down to Myanmar only becoming more accessible to tourists very recently, and because it’s not actually UNESCO listed.

Apparently, they took issue with some of the reconstruction/preservation efforts in the past, so have refused to list it. However, the current reconstruction after last year’s earthquake is being done in consultation with them, so there’s a good chance they’ll list it in the future. Frankly, it’s insane that they haven’t already.

Obviously, Myanmar is going to be very low on people’s lists of travel priorities – I only went because I wanted to try somewhere new and have done so much of Asia already – but Bagan can’t/won’t stay so much of a secret for long and it’s likely to go the way of Ankor Wat – amazing, but basically a theme park now - sooner rather than later.

There are creds in the next bit.

 

[Hixee]

Feel the need to comment so you know someone is reading it all (I appreciate the time it takes to type these things up), but I admit I don't have anything much more to say over what I've already said before!

Bring on the creds, I suppose.