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17th March: After a 13 hour bus journey which wasnt too bad, smooth, air-con and english films we arrived in Mandalay. We did another walking tour here and visited a lovely small paya called the Shwekymyiny paya, it was very quiet, calm and beautiful. LAter on we got teh Burmese version of a tuk tuk to the top of Mandalay Hill to watch the sun set, it was quite a walk but worth it for the great view of the city.
The next day unfortunatly Charlotte was really poorly so myself, Fred and Chris got a boat down river to visit Mingun to see the ruins of a stupa that would have been enormous had it been completed, but it was dammged by an earthquake and never finished.
Charlotte was better the next day so we arranged a tour of three ancient cities, Inwa, Saggaing & Amarapura. We ended up with a great guide called Ashin, he was an orphan that had become a buddisht monk and taught at the local school.
We saw teh three ancient cities which was reasonably impressive and on the way he took us to see a Buddist monk initiation ceremony. Most children in Mynamar will at some point in their life spend some time in a monastry as a monk, usually when they are bout 12 or 13 and the usually stay for about a month in the summer holidays. This is a big deal within families and the ceremony is very important, the children are dressed up and the whole family will turn out to see the ceremony - a bit like graduation or a christening.
I the afternoon he took us to visit his school and village and we met so many lvoely local people who all showed us their trades, cigarettes rollers, flip flop making, silversmiths & ceramic pot makers. Charlotte and i even had Thakra painted on our faces which is used by Burmese women as anti-ageing protection.
We ended up watching the sunset over a teak bridge that had been built by the British- it was extremly picturesque.
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