We left Bagan on Xmas eve to catch a boat to take us up river to Mandalay. The journey to Mandalay was going to take a day and half to reach, so that meant that most of Xmas day was to be on the river.
The day didn't start off well as Linda, our tour guide, had come off a moped the night before and had fallen on her face. It wasn't a good sight and she had also broken one of her front teeth, she had good teeth too, which is more than I can say about most of the red beetlenut stained teeth that the people have here.
The journey didn't start off the best as after half an hour we had to stop as there was a problem with the engine. We were moored for about an hour and there was a lot of banging coming from the engine room and then all was ok, I'm not sure what they had done but it had certainly worked for the time being.
The journey was very relaxing as we went upstream, passing numerous villages situated along the river bank. We did manage to visit a village although due to the engine problems in the morning it was nearly dark when we reached it.
We continued up the river for an hour in the dark before mooring on a sandbank for the night. A scene from Rambo did enter my mind a few times. The evening was a typical Xmas eve for me, a few beers were drunk but I wasn't going to have to many as I was sleeping on the top deck under the stars and i didn't fancy the trip to the toilet on the lower deck. The bugs were a bit of a nightmare, they looked like May flies, but as soon as any light was produced they were on it, just opening my iPhone to see the time was becoming a pain.
Xmas day started with being woken by the engine of the boat around 6ish. I watched the sun come up which was nice experience compared to what I would be doing back home.
We made our way up the river stopping off at the pagodas at Sagaing hill which is roughly an hour away from Mandalay. We visited the Umin Thounzeh pagoda that has a cave that you can walk in and see 45 Buddha images lined up in a circular array. The second pagoda that we visited was Soon U Ponya Shin Paya which is high on the hills on Sagaing hills so I was able to get a panoramic views of the river and the pagodas below.

We arrived in Mandalay mid afternoon and we were blessed with a bit of Internet, I can't believe how reliant I have become of the Internet over the years. The afternoon was a relaxed one although we did venture out for ice cream to find out that the cafe was closed, I suppose it is Xmas day. I was looking forward to my Xmas meal as I think my appetite could be back. The resteraunt we were taken too was a bit grim, exposed electrics but there were a few customers in there so I suppose it couldn't be too bad. The smoking ban hasn't hit Burma yet so what ever I ordered I was going to have the pleasure of sharing it with cigarette smoke. I really didn't fancy rice or noodles again as I was getting a little tired of it, I chose French fries, or as most places on SE Asia call it French Fried. I don't know why I ordered it as my Xmas meal as I know from experience that in Asia they struggle to cook anything western...but surely they couldn't mess up chips. They did, I've never seen such poor chips in my life, each chip was battered in thick fat and they were roughly an inch long. I think the potato content was less than 5%. I ate them but it won't go down as my best Xmas meal yet. A few of us went for a drink after the meal in a roof top bar called sky bar, I had a few cocktails which weren't bad considering. We were served by 3 people, one who carried the drinks the other 2 guys just followed him to the table, it seemed a waste of employment to be honest.

Boxing Day started with the mosque across the road from the hotel making a commotion. We were going to be given an early morning waking tour of Mandalay. A usual visit to the market just to enlighten your eyes of what tasty treats you may be fed later on that day when you eat the neighbouring resteraunts was in store. Afterwards we visited a couple of places by vehicle. The first place we visited was Shwenandaw Kyaung teak monastery which was having some construction work going on outside it. It amazes my in SE Asia, as I saw this in Vietnam too, woman carrying bricks on their heads. The monastery itself was ok although the flooring needs sorting out in places as walking around it bare foot is risky due to nails in the boarding. Following the visit to the teak monastery we made over to Mahaumuni Paya another temple. This temple has the attraction of a seated Buddha that has had so much gold leaf applied to it over years that in some places it is 6 inches thick of pure gold, apart from its face which gets washed every morning.
Other places we visited was an area near Mahaumuni Paya where you could see stone carvers carving Buddhas out of marble. One of the guys on the trip nearly bought one a meter high Buddha for $250, although the postage back to Germany was going to cost $500 so it left it in the end. On return to the hotel we went back to the ice cream shop and we were in luck as it was open. I took no chances and settled for chocolate, some people tried to be daring and went for 3 assorted flavours only to find that Durium fruit was a flavour. I don't know how they could justify making this fruit into an ice cream flavour, it tastes like sick and smells even worse.

Evening time we went up to Mandalay hill that overlooks the city. We didn't do the 45 minute bare foot climb to the top but opted for the escalator route. At the top there was obviously a temple, there has to be, but there was also stunning views over Mandalay. Unfortunately there was a fog over Mandalay which I wasn't sure if it was mist or pollution, but either way it didn't do the sunset again good.

Boxing Day evening we tried a new resteraunt, which did seen in appearance better than the previous night. Some went for barbecued fish, I chose something with chicken and rice that was horrendously spicy and was laced with loads of msg, so chose completely wrong. We again visited the sky bar for some more cocktails although I started getting into the run sours.