Mandalay

Ok well it's been another bit of a stretch between blogs again but that's how it works here. It could be similar in Thailand but it will be more because of the chilling on beaches and less internet access problems. But we are back in Yangon now with 2 nights and a day left before we fly out to Bangkok on the 4th. So Mandalay was an interesting place and it would have been very nice to spend a week there as there are many one day or a few days trips that you can make up and down the river to many villages and such but of course, we only have so much time here and so we must only see what we can. (It would have been also nice as we would have travelled by boat which we learn how great that is more and more with every bus ride.) Well that first day we walked around a bunch, and of course after spending 3 hours of internet at one place walk by another for 1/3 of the price. Ahhh, sweet. We bought some local market fruit, tried in vain to find this travel agent that no longer existed and entered this posh supermarket with lots of chocolate, like real chocolate as everything here is only chocolate flavoured and they have no good chocolate. I know it's scary but true. We should have gone for the cadbury but we could get twice as much for the malaysia stuff at the same price. Got greedy and paid for it in quality. After a break back at out hotel we emerged a little too late for most of the restaurants. well i think it was maybe 8:30pm but everything here just closes soooo early. You can't even get a bottle of water here after 10pm. Anyways, on the way to the street chappathi stands (some of the only food available at this "late" hour), a trishaw approached us, his name was Jo-Jo and he suggested that he take us around to all the sights for the day. We agreed that it would be a good idea and so we agreed on a price and a time to meet and went on to our street dinner. Its amazing sometimes how small and young the kids here look and yet how old they can act. At many of the street stalls and such, that get most of their business, employ young kids, mostly around early teens but sometimes as young as 9. But this one 9 year old that was serving us acted as if he was in his thirties and running the show. It was great but kinda too bad as these kids need to grow up so fast.
The next morning after breakfast, we met Jo-Jo outside at 9:30am and we headed out to see the sights. As we hadn't bought the $10 Mandalay archeological zone ticket (fancy word for govt tourist tax), Jo-Jo took us to all the sights that didn't need to ticket and knew how to get around it when possible. It seems after talking to some other trishaw drivers as well as they kinda respected the fact that we didn't buy the ticket. We saw quite the amazing temple with this huge Buddha statue that was stolen/sent, i don't know which one, from far away, i think even northern India. It was carried over mountains and floated down rivers before arriving to a place where Buddha himself it was to stay. The people here think it is quite special and the smoothness is no more as it has been covered many times over with gold leaf. And of course women aren't allowed to get close to the Buddha or touch it, ahh religions and their discrimination. We then saw a very old monastary and a gold leaf factory. There we witnessed true back breaking labour where these guys pound on huge stacks of leaves all day long, each leaf has gone through 3 stages and a tolta of 6-7 hours of pounding. Had some oily lunch and back to the hotel to rest. On the way to Mandalay hill for a lookout of the city we stopped at this amazing place where there were hundreds of large tablets with each of them having their own payas. Then the hill was neat but couldn't get all the way to the top as we needed a ticket but that's aight, we got the idea. Had some Nepali food dinner and then went to see the famous Moustache Brothers show. Well they were famous around the country but then banned by the govt and 2 out of 3 of them were in jail for 7 years, so now they just cater to their tourist and have a little show out of their house. And it is true, just as the one brother says many times in his elmur fudd accent, it is a "toowist twap". Oh well it was interesting. After the show, yes Jo-Jo was still with us, he insisted he stayed, we cycled home and gave him a little extra which he was thrilled. They relaly don't make much those guys, he says he pays $5 rent a month, $5 school for his kid a month and then there is all the rest still. And sometimes he gets no customers some days so he actually loses money because he pays rent per day on his trishaw. On top of this he has to deal with the police who harass them sometimes, just the other day he told us this story where the police took his trishaw lisence away from him for no reason and then he had to go to the police office then to a lawyer to pay him and get him to fill out some sheet and then back to the police office to pay them and get his lisence back. In the end is cost him K8000, which is more than he pays in rent for the whole month. It really makes you mad sometimes the way the people are treated here.
Ok well before i continue, just 2 things that made us quite frustrated about our hotel staff. They were quite unfriendly first of all and we decided to buy bus tickets from them to Kalaw. Now this was a little bit our fault as we didn't even check other options and just bought them and so we ended up paying almost double the price necessary. Our fault. But he says that the bus trip takes 12 hours and you get in at sometimes around 6am the next day into Kalaw. Fine then. The next thing was they had a computer in the lobby that had a sign that said internet access. So they turned it on and we just wanted to use it for 5 min to check if the flights that we booked online went through. As we leave to go to our room they ask for money. Well you really should have a sign or tell us how much it is before we get on, but ok how much is it for 5 minutes. Well he says that it's K2000 minimum. Are you crazy! the other place we went to was K400 per hour. So now your just trying to rip us off. So we argued a bit but right from the start they were quite rude. They said that we should care that they have to pay taxes to the govt. Well actually that's your problem not mine and you should tell people it's K2000 before you let them on. But if they did no one would use it probably. Anyways we didn't pay. hehehe
The next day we got up and checked out. Then we caught a taxi out to the longest teak bridge in the world at Amarapura. It was neat and one of those things where you should just go and do it. At the start of the bridge there was the bird sellers again but this time they had all kinds of birds for sale, huge beautiful owls and such. It was sad but i wasn't paying this guy $4 just to free a bird that he has caged. Just doesn't seem right.
Well we got back and waited for the transport to the bus station that was "included" with the bus ticket. Another thing that was annoying. It was just this pickup truck that we filled with people but the thing was that it took pretty much 1.5 hours to go maybe 5km. It was ridiculous. At one point the drivers and the workers of this bus company got out and just left where we waited for like 30-40 minutes doing nothing. It's amazing how much these Burmese put up with, they were all calm but we were close to freaking out a little. Then we get to the bus station and get in this very crummy bus. Like it was bad. My chair was broken and wouldn't go back and the armrest wasn't even attached to the rest of the chair anymore. So the bus ride sucked as they all do here in Burma with basically no road ahead of us and no room to move and always for me, no sleep at all. So then around 2:30am in the morning and were told that we are in Kalaw. So not only did we pay double the money, we got a shitty ride to the bus depot, a shitty bus and then lied to about how long it takes to get there. So we arrive in Kalaw at 2:30 am and mad at our hotel because now that we are here , we have to wake these nice people up to see if they have rooms, something for which we could have phoned in before. The second try they had a room available so we went to bed.