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Decent lay in not compared to Thailand lay in's but still up at half 9 for breakfast again all you can eat pancakes, toast, eggs some rank melted sugar crap which looked like fish eggs in a bowl is up there with the Durian as the worst things I've ever eaten. Me, Bas and Basma decided to go on a big bike ride all around central Mandalay following the tour in Lonely Planet which was such an experience riding through deep into Mandalay everyone is way more like 'woah a white English man!' it is still amazing how alien we are over here I thought I would spice things up today with it all so had my United shirt on so heard 'Manchester' 'Manchester' a lot which was good ha! :) Cycled around 6km to the first place which we looked around a pagoda and then had lunch in this massive restaurant - with only us in there ha! Food was good we were starving from the ride so needed the energy and then carried on around to another pagoda can't for the life of me remember what it is called but is on this white slip of all the ancient cities in Mandalay I have. Plan was always to end up at Mandalay Hill so we were still on time to see the sunset and then we had a NIGHTMARE! Basma's left pedal on her bike came completely off on a turning the bolt had just had enough and gave way. We found a random bike shop so they fixed a new bolt which was cool until then about 10 minutes later it fell off again! Proved to be a massive problem but fair play Basma kept going Bas was in front as he has this offline maps app which I need to get so was our lead I was behind Basma picking up the pedal every time it fell off which was literally say every 10-15 minutes. At this point we are on our way to Mandalay Hill which is a huge viewpoint over Mandalay great for the sunset so it was getting later and later but the pedal just kept falling off! On this main intersection in Mandalay the pedal fell off just as everyone was pulling off on the green light so I was there in the middle of it all everyone beeping like CRAZY even more than they do already my heart was in my mouth I thought that was it - game over! But got to the side and kept persevering on until we finally got to the bottom of the hill. At this point I reckon we had done around 18km throughout the day my saddle was as hard as a rock my ass felt like I had been savaged by a boy of the lady kind in Bangkok I was shattered and we all were the same! Taxi up the hill and into the temple where we walked right to the top and couldn't of been better timing the sunset was amazing pictures don't do it justice my phone died at this point after a few pictures but we got some great pictures of it all and it was seriously peaceful up there. Had some dinner outside the temple as again starving from all the cycling and then taxi down - back to the dreaded bike! Fair play to Basma she was as cool as a cucumber the whole time just getting on with it I would've given up, lit the bike on fire and got a taxi back and paid the hostel whatever they wanted I was sick of the f***ing thing so we tried getting another bolt but didn't work. On this straight intersection Bas took over and just started really running whilst on the bike it looked hilarious his massive long legs running on the bike! We got to a junction and it came off again we were like 4km from our hostel at this point and a group of Burmese lads saw what happened so pulled over and tried to help with what they had in their boot but nothing could keep the pedal on. So they said this bike shop was left, right, round the roundabout, next left etc didn't understand a word so we just got on with it and carried on! To say it was emotional cycling into our hostel was an understatement we had cycled around 24km throughout the day and it was THE most eventful bike ride I've ever been on hahaha! Literally just all chilling at the hostel now the girls are heading to Bagan at 4 in the morning on the train and we are heading on the bus at 9am in the morning. As I had my United shirt on a worker here said he supported Chelsea and I was like bet you are pleased you won the league and he had not a clue they won the league I noticed out here the games on were all old so we may have thought the country is like a few months behind so I feel like I have like given the ending of a film away by telling him Chelsea won the league this season haha! Sorry geez. Early start for us our hostel manager is the loveliest lady you could ever meet going to miss seeing her welcoming face she gave the girls a packed lunch for the train in case they got hungry and this packed lunch was enough for a packed dinner she is so nice always waves people off when they leave the hostel it's like your mum or nan waving you off to go to school ha! A German lady Kath in our room is cool she starts a 10 day meditation course tomorrow in Buddhism which I had to get her Facebook details for as I want to hear about it all as it sounds mental! I can't believe all this has been in one day - mental! (Which apparently is my word I have a lot of sayings but 'mental' when describing everything wasn't one of them! :) )
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