Sunset Cruise (and return to Mandalay)

So to round off our day today I had booked a sunset cruise on the Irrawaddy River, which is the original ‘road’ in Kipling’s Road To Mandalay and I’d booked a private one because it wasn’t much more expensive than a group one and you never know if you’re going to get lumbered with an idiot on a group one. It probably sounds a lot grander than it was, which was something similar to a large wooden long tail boat. We had to clamber down the banks of the river and walk along a plank to get aboard but then we were off and spent a very pleasant hour and a half or so watching the sun go down and keeping an eye on the weather, it was rather blustery and we had a bit of a sandstorm going on to our left and a big rain storm off to our right, fortunately neither hit and all we got was just a little sand. Anyway, photos duly taken of everything we returned to the hotel, noting all the temples and pagodas we hadn’t visited yesterday. Another visit is definitely in order.
That was going to be it, after writing this yesterday I had intended just to post it when we got to the Mandalay hotel and some decent WiFi (because the WiFi in Bagan had stopped working) and call it a day until we ventured out again tomorrow. However, the bus trip back to Mandalay has prompted me to write more. It was a different company to our bus trip a few days ago and it was an older bus, same type of bus, just older. Which wouldn’t have been a problem but the air conditioning didn’t work properly, well it didn’t work at all - it blew out warm air and our allocated seats were broken. We thought it was just my seat to start with, which was stuck in recline and leant in towards Tanya’s so that I couldn’t use it without rolling in to her. This wouldn’t have been so bad if we were in a cooler climate or the air conditioning was working but as it was it wasn’t pleasant. So the only thing for it was for me to sit forward in my seat and sit as close to the side of the bus as I could, it didn’t help matters that on the aisle side of the seats was one of those old fashioned fold down extra seats that you sometimes find on older buses. I also opened the window to get a bit of air in, I wasn’t the only one doing this. As if things weren’t bad enough as it was, apart from us and one French couple the bus was full of Chinese.
Anyway, after about an hour and a half we reached our first stop and i had a chance to see just how broken our seats were - they were held together at the back with bungee cords hence the leaning in and supported underneath by a large metal toolbox. I had hatched a plan to move to a vacant single seat at the front before we set off leaving Tanya with the double seat, which would be okay for one. Unfortunately my plan was thwarted by one of the Chinese who got there before me, having moved from a perfectly serviceable seat. There was nothing for it but to move to the little fold down seat for the rest of the journey, at least Tanya was able to get some sleep, although I discovered that the back of the fold down seat was broken as well so I still couldn’t lean back. Oh well, all part of the experience again 😎.Read more