Mandalay Palace

Friday 18 February

On our own again, we decided to walk down to the Royal Palace, which we had been told was not far from our hotel. Obviously not many people walk, and we were stopped by a number of people offering us taxi rides, etc. One of them got us to agree that we ‘might’ take his tuk tuk if we needed something when we came out. Projections of the distance varied, and we finally gave in and agreed to go with a trishaw. Very nice man, and certainly an experience, especially crossing a particularly busy intersection, where we were a little too close to the traffic.

On arriving at the Palace, we said to the driver that we didn’t know how when we would be out – ‘but if I am here you will take my trishaw?’ Sure, we said, and wandered into the palace. There is only one entrance for tourists, as most of the area is an army barracks. It was a quiet, mainly shady walk, past vegetable gardens, cyclists and the occasional army personnel passing by. There isn’t too much to the palace, as most of it was destroyed in the war, but there are several interesting buildings. We particularly liked the cows walking around the edge of the building.

On arrival at the gate, we were greeted with a slight problem. Both the trishaw driver and the ‘blue taxi- tuk tuk driver were l waiting for us. We thought that, since we had already given some business to the trishaw driver, we would take the blue taxi – he opened up the back of the truck spread out blankets and pillows, and off we went back to the hotel. This time we were a LITTLE further away from the traffic, but still had a good view of all the motorcycles speeding along – including one right behind us with a toddler riding the handlebars. Apparently the blue taxis were part of Japanese war reparations to Burma – it wasn’t clear if they were still using the original post war vehicles, but it certainly seemed possible.

Our driver took us back to the hotel for a shower before lunch, and agreed to wait for us, take us to the restaurant, and bring us back – ‘you decide how much.’ So we did that, and went to the Green Elephant restaurant, part of a group of 3 or 4, which we would find in other cities. This was probably the best meal I had, with nice creamy curry, good tempura. Unfortunately Harry wasn’t really hungry, still suffering a little from the previous day’s bug, and didn’t get to try very much. We came home with the driver and gave him 5 or 6 dollars, more than we had originally agreed, but certainly worth it.