Lazy Day

Today we had planned to go off to Mandalay Hill, have a wander up to the top and then have a look at some of the pagodas that are dotted around the area. However while I was waiting for Tanya to get ready for breakfast I read up a bit on it and it turns out that although it’s only 240 or 267m high there are 1729 steps if you go up from the main entrance, just try and imagine the look on Tanya’s face when I told her that and what she might have said to me. And that according to Travelfish (a travel site for Asia that I have found, which gives good honest reviews and information) there are quite a lot of stray dogs in the area, which means that when you take off your shoes and socks to make the journey up the stairs (which you have to) you end up walking in dog poo. Now over the last few days Tanya has walked in bat poo and monkey poo but she absolutely drew the line at dog poo and to be honest I don’t blame her.
After a bit more research, reading maps and the like we decided to book a one day trip to visit the old capitals of Myanmar that are around the outside of the city for tomorrow and to book a half day sightseeing in Mandalay tour for the day after. We decided that as Tanya had been so traumatised by yesterdays bus journey and that a storm had kept us awake for a couple of hours during the night that what was really needed was a bit of R&R. So after breakfast we booked the trips with the front desk then went off for a coffee and to make plans for a restful day. As it’s so hot here Tanya thought we might have a look for a mall to mooch around so asked Mr Google what was available. Well obviously we discounted the two from our first visit here but something promising across the other side of town with ok reviews came up so we booked a tuktuk and set off, giving me the chance to capture some more scenes of life in Mandalay. Tanya ended up having to give the driver directions but in the end we got there only to find that the mall was in fact a department store and a rather small one at that, although it is probably the biggest single store we’ve seen here. But we’d made the effort and it seemed rude not to at least have a quick look round the three small floors of groceries, kitchenware, crockery, hardware, gardening stuff, tools and various other odds and ends that made up quite an eclectic mix. Then a short time later we were back in another tuktuk returning to the hotel. One of the good things about all this tuktuk travel is that we haven’t seen anything that we might be missing.
So for the rest of the afternoon Tanya caught up on her sleep whilst I watched a bit of TV in the lounge area of our suite 😁Read more