The Road to Mandalay.

The first 160kms today was on a perfect rally road.  We were leaving the Shan hills to drop down to the plain and thence to Mandalay.  The "roads" were rough and narrow with: bumps, ruts, dips, rocks, potholes, twists and very sharp bends - altogether marvellous.  It was also a journey of outstanding natural beauty.  Alas, none of my photos capture that fully so you will not be seeing them; you'll just have to take my word for it.

With few motos and even fewer cars we were definitely far from the tourist trail and very few Western people would have been seen here.  The welcome, as always, was quite wonderful.  First, you get an incredulous stare, then, when you wave and smile, a great big grin appears.  

We started to see lots of pick ups, crammed to the gills with people, all going the same way as us.  It soon became clear why.  We reached a small town to find a festival in full swing.  There were elephants made from papier mâché  being carried on litters with matching parasols.  The pretty little elephants needed shading from the sun, obviously.  Their trunks were made of cloth and were constantly having water poured on them. Everyone in the district must have gathered there.  Stalls, full of exciting goods, had been set up and everyone was dressed in their best clothes.  Long processions of pretty girls were carrying gifts for the Pagoda, a little pile of oranges or cans of drink, for example. We longed to dawdle a while but, alas, we had to just inch our way through the crowds and move on.

We soon left the rich farming area during our descent and the land became more dry forest.  Theonly food being grown on the arid land was the odd banana tree so, consequently, habitation was sparse and very poor looking.   

We finally reached the hot dusty plain for the final 50 kms of the road to Mandalay.  Readers, I know, thanks to Kipling, you are expecting me to wax lyrical about the romance of it all, but I am afraid I have to disappoint you.  It was 50 kms of dust, chaos, industry, agricultural merchants, and a myriad of unattractive concrete buildings.  Our hotel is at the bottom of Mandalay Hill which rises up like a pimple on the flat land.  It's topped by a golden Pagoda, naturally, and is quite attractive. On the way we passed the old walled Palace surrounded by a moat.  It is a barracks, mainly, untouched since the British time and in very poor repair.  The armed forces in Burma are known as the Tamidaw.

Tomorrow is a rest day and we hope to find the Mandalay we long for - teak buildings, ceiling fans and shutters.  We are going for a lunch cruise on the Irrawady - how marvellously evocative does that sound?  Although we loved the hills we are not sorry to have left the freezing cold nights behind.  Tonight, we had dinner in the pretty garden in the lovely balmy night air.  Sorry, wet and cold people of England!

I'm going to whisper the next bit for fear that the "A's" hubris becomes its downfall.  It overtook a Bentley today.  A Bentley!  I will probably never be able to write that sentence again.