Mandalay: Catching both sunrise & sunset in a day

The day started at 5am. It wasn’t a great start – 2 ladies checked in at 4am in the morning and Miss Korean was snoring away (I had to slap her bed frame to try and make her change her sleeping posture so that she would stop snoring for 3 mins while I quickly fall back asleep).

My initial plan was to hike Mandalay Hill but I met a couple of travellers and we had booked a taxi for half a day so the driver drove us all the way up (thank god for that the hills were steep!).

KjXMenSNTA6q3O3nqqbQAg — Sunrise over Mandalay Hill

jcx8GiagQfqZPUJvxTLP+w.jpg — May my future be as bright as this sunrise

What followed were more trips to the different temples and pagodas.

srBz0OY1TD+O15CcLrqNMA — With Nok (from Thailand) and Mai (from Japan) – we had met in Bagan two days before and stayed in the same hostel. Pure coincidence that we were staying in the same place in Mandalay again (this time round in the same room)!

7b6do%pCTFKg%iz1ieh3fA — Mandalay Palace – not worth the trip. It’s expensive and you need to pay again just to use the toilets! The lady insisted I pay 2000 kyat since I’ve used it, but nope.

fullsizeoutput_a71 — Kuthodaw temple – burned my feet in order to get a cool photo

The trip ended around 2pm, and we got a quick lunch before retreating back to bed. Afternoons in the summer heat in Myanmar were no joke. We took a nap and caught the sunset over at U-Bein Bridge.