Road to Mandalay (part 3)

Let me continue here.....


So after lunch, we will start our excursion tour to the Mandalay city.   First, we need to take a small boat that will take us to the shore where the van has been waiting for us.  It is quite challenging for some of us, as the boat is really small wooden boat and we need to "jump" into it.

Here is the picture of the boat that takes us off-shore.   The process is quite challenging for transferring the passengers from/to the main boat to small boat.  It is quite a labor intensive activities.  Kudos to the crews that make this happen.

When we arrive on the shore, we have to walk on the wooden plank and you can notice the staffs purposely holding a pole for us to hold on it while we are walking on the plank.

Through out the journey, you can see the local make use of the river to do their daily bathing and washing.

Our first stop is the Golden Monastery (Shwenandaw Monastery) which is located nearby the State Paritatti Sasana University (Mandalay) which I found has a very beautiful main gate.

You can read the details in the link I put above.  This Monastery has been around for hundreds years and it was built on Teakwood.  It is very magnificent building with very great details of the crafting.  Through out the journey, it shows that Teakwood is really use to build buildings as there are abundant of Teakwood in Myanmar.

From Golden Monastery, we then visit Kuthodaw Pagoda where you can find the world's largest book.  Each page of the book is crafted in the stone and each page is hosted in a small pagoda.  So there you go, the largest book in the world.  I was told that the monk needs to study each page every day.  Not really sure how long it will take the monk to complete the study.


Here is the page of the book

 

And this is where the page of the book is being stored inside a pagoda

 

 

And this is the whole complex of the books look like

And some views in the Pagoda compound

From this place, we make a short stop in the Golden Leaf factory to see the process on how the golden leaf is made.  They are still using manual labor to do it, which is very labor intensive and I am not really sure how much the workers are being paid for this hard works.  Here are some pictures you can see and I found this interesting youtube to clearly show the real process.

 

 

From the factory, we visited the Mahamuni Buddha Temple, which is considered 1 out of 3 most holiest place that must visit by the Myanmarese.  The other 2 are Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon and Golden Rock Pagoda in  Kyaito, which you can read in my other post.

 

 

So the final stop for the day before we go back to the boat is U Bein Bridge, which is the oldest and longest teakwood bridge in the world.  We supposed to see a sunset on the bridge.  However, the weather was not so kind to us, as it was cloudy and we cannot see the sunset.  There are many restaurant and people selling souvenir around the bridge as this is one of the tourist destination.   Interestingly, the restaurant seems to be submerged under water if there is a tight.

So we went back to the boat which is docking at the station for a night.  After dinner, a local folk dance was performed.  If I remember correctly the story was about the Ramayana epic.  Beautiful and colorful dance.

This conclude the first day of the trip.  



Road to Mandalay (Part 2)

The might Road of Mandalay boat is awaiting for us at the river bank.  We have to walkthrough this wodden flap which later on we know that it can be considered very luxurious in Myanmmar.

Once we were on the boat, we were greated by the Front Office Team including the Hotel (Boat?) Manager.   The Boat Manager is a Kiwi and other than him and the Head Chef, the rest of the crews are Myanmarese.

There are few types of room, ranging from Governor's Suite, State Cabin, Deluxe Cabin, Superior Cabin and Single Cabin.   I think the majority of the rooms ste State Cabin and follows by Deluxe Cabin.  You can get the comprehensive layout of the room from the official website.

Once we got our key, we went down to our room.  The receptionist is at the main level, and our room was in the basement.    This is the stair from the main floor to the basement level and the hall way to our room

 

 

Our room is a Deluxe Room.  The room, I think, is about 22 sqm.  It is very functionality nonetheless.  If you do not look outside, you do not know that actually you are in the boat.   It is equppied by a telephone and TV.  There is not much programmes on the TV anyway.  It has a fully functional bathroom also.  We have warned that the water used for toilet flushing is not treated.  Only the tab water and water for shower are filtered.  If I remember correctly, it is not recommended to use the tap water to even brush the teeth.

 

 

 

The view ourside the room.  There are quite some activities on the rivers.  Apparently, the river is used as a mode of transportation.  There are many pagodas also on the other side of the river.  Anyway this is a Land of Golden Pagodas.

 

 

 

 

 

So now, it is time to go touring the boats.   As the other guests were not arriving on the boat, we have the priviledge to look into other type of room.

 

Here is the State Cabin, Superior Cabin and Single Cabin

 

 

 

 

 

 

It has fully functional gym room to keep you fit through out the journey.  It also have spa for treatment and Clinic and Doctor on board.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to the main level which the receptionist is, on the other side, we have piano room and also a lecture room which is used for shows and presentations.   It has also traditional Burmese musical instruments.

 

 

 

 There is also a gift shop on board which you can get souvenir including the Myanmar Longji (Saroong).

 

It is time to go to the upper deck.  BTW, here is the boat name.

 

 

There is a swimming pool on the upper deck including the tanning bed. Here is the few of the upper deck.

 

The captain and his room.

 

 

And other of the crews preparing for our journey

From the upper deck also, you can see there are quite some activities by the local makinng use of the Road of Mandalay base camp for daily activities such as bathing and washing clothes.

 

 So once all the guests are on board, we were going for lunch.  After lunch we will go to our excursion tour to Mandalay town which I will cover in Part 3.