Maha Gandayin Monastery

There are, of course, downsides to traveling during the low/wet season. I contacted several travel agencies to ask if they were running their Ancient Cities tour, and none of them had the requisite minimum participants. I had no choice but to call the driver who drove me to my hotel from the dock. Fortunately, he was available and we negotiated a fee of about US$20 for the day.

Win Aung picked me up at my hotel in the morning. It was raining when he came, and I immediately knew I had made the right decision to hire a car and not a cheaper motorcycle taxi (I didn't fancy riding pillion that long anyway). The tour covers three ancient cities on the outskirts of Mandalay - Amarapura, Inwa, and Sagaing.

Our first stop was Maha Gandayin Monastery in Amarapura. The attraction here is that at 10.15am, all the monks will line up to get their main and last (yes, you read that right) meal of the day. After about 20 minutes of waiting, a bell was struck three times and hundreds of maroon robed monks started lining up and shuffling into the dining hall. It was quite a sight. I was, however, a little uncomfortable about being a spectator in a human zoo.

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