In which Layla and Roz follow Nellie the Elephant's road to Mandalay, and Layla falls off her bike

By Layla

After the fun of 8800 Buddhas came a pleasant enough 18 person dinner overlooking the lake and another early night - because we were to be standing to attention at 6am the following morning. A strange sort of holiday... But, having gulped down some speedy breakfast, we were duly on the bus and zooming towards the junction that marked the start of our cycle. This was another day euphemistically described as 'undulating'. Indeed, accurately - the entire thing involved going up a steep hill then down a steep hill, repeated interminably as we zoomed past pretty hilly scenery, little villages with waving children lining the road, local workers building the road (as we were forced repeatedly into the red dust at the side of the road I mused that this had lost its charm for me...) and always with a blazing hot sun. Not dissimilar to the day before.

Drama awaited as I took advantage of a precious downhill slope, zooming at an unfortunate angle over a pile of rocks that made up that part of the road - and skidded. As I crashed down onto the road, bicycle akimbo. I noted my good fortune that it didn't happen in front of one of the several local schools where the entire population of students watched us pass. Nevertheless, nearby cyclists and a few random locals crowded around me. Fortunately I hadn't done anything too drastic, though from everyone's expressions I can surmise that my elbow wound looked worse than (hopefully) it was. We pooled medical kits and soon I was on my way again, with multiple types of antiseptic dripping through my bandage. 

When we got to the next rest stop and everyone crowded round to see if I was okay, I decided to use the wounds as a front for my laziness (to be fair the jolting didn't make them happy). I climbed into the bus and soon found myself reading my book on a shady deck chair at the lunch destination, awaiting the cyclists. The fast ones appeared before long. Then the second bus appeared and deposited its load of everyone else, clearly those who had been scooped up in various stages of heat exhaustion along the way, except... Where was Roz?! Just as I began to feel really quite anxious, I saw something in the distance. Sure enough it was Roz, speeding up the hill towards us, complaining accurately that the 10k stage we'd been promised was actually 14k with no water stops in the blazing heat. I was impressed/scared as she dismounted and strolled to greet me!

After lunch the bus trundled us along a very winding path down the mountain for multiple hours and eventually into Mandalay. The guidebook says Mandalay's an anticlimax and this turned out to be true. There's a big fort in the middle but otherwise it's concrete and charmless modernity. Our hotel was a couple of kilometers from the centre, so after a side trip to a pharmacy to get me some bandages, we took a taxi to a vegetarian restaurant... And then, finding it to have no alcohol, crossed the street to the other family restaurant, the excellent Rainforest Cafe. We had tasty curry and some more Ayathaya wine in a lovely place, and were well pleased with our nice evening in Mandalay.

The next day we'd debated about whether to abscond from the tour and spend the day seeing Mandalay/at a swimming pool. But Mandalay didn't seem too tempting and the swimming pool looked potentially depressing so we ended up cycling as usual. We went along busy roads lining a smoggy Irawaddy River, waving to scruffy children, to a famous wooden bridge spanning the river. We climbed up and strolled along it. Very scenic and charming other than all the tourists. Afterwards some other cyclists declared rebellion and headed back into Mandalay in a taxi. We swithered several times, then eventually decided against joining them.

We spent the rest of the afternoon somewhat regretting our decision. Lots of the cycling was along busy roads, and when it got onto the country roads along the river, it was again, ahem, undulating. I got a puncture. The heat was immense. We got to our destination, site of the world's largest working bell, exhausted, and Roz and I naughtily skipped viewing the bell in favour of cold beers in a local cafe, before we all convened on deck chairs in a very pleasant boat and puttered comfortably back to Mandalay, where a tuk tuk awaited to convey us to our hotel.

With our afternoon free, Roz and I shunned the sights for an air conditioned drink in V Cafe/Skybar near the fort, and disclosed our anxieties that we don't love this trip: Burma isn't that exciting unless you really like repeatedly looking at millions of Buddha images. It's quite charmless having mass meals and sleeping in rubbish hotels. It's quite tiring/dull spending all day every day cycling. We missed our Layla and Roz adventures. We felt disinclined to spend ages pfaffing every time we went for a meal. It was annoying we couldn't stop at a nice cafe when we saw one. Perhaps tours weren't for us... And yet we still had almost a week to go! We drowned our sorrows with Myanmar beer and found a taxi driver who took us to A Taste of Mandalay (reasonably pleasant food) and JoJo Cafe for a sneaky ice cream, then to Mandalay's famous marionette theatre where Roz had to prod me awake multiple times though it was quite good, if reasonably incomprehensible... And we ended the evening in true Roz and Layla style at the local hospital, with our taxi driver leading the charge in search of a bandage for my arm - fun! Monks in the waiting room, medical notes written in school jotters, and an excellent bandage for me! Off home feeling cheery but musing on how to improve our holiday...

Of course we were up at the crack of dawn today, missing breakfast as the van awaited us at 6.30. And we were off again, this time bound for Monywa. Again, we drove for a couple of hours, then started cycling. After about 12k of the same sort of thing, in the sun with my injuries disliking being jolted, I was tempted on to the bus and sheepishly (but delightedly) watched as Roz and the others slogged along. I was proud/embarrassed/disconcerted to find that without me to keep pace with, Roz is a speed demon! Indeed, she was leading the entire group! I took a photo... And returned to my book. Our first stop was the world's tallest standing Buddha (and one of the world's tallest longest lying one - with a new, bigger one under construction!), set amid fields of identical smaller Buddha statues), and a temple with a little tower which we climbed. The site's called Bodhi Tataung. Next stop was Thamboddhaya Paya, a temple built by a monk who just didn't think there were enough Buddha statues around. He duly built one with about a million Buddhas in it, all over the walls and roof. A key feature of Burma: there can never be enough Buddhas (and nor can they ever be big enough). Motto: empty nook or cranny? Stick a Buddha in it!

After our temple fun, we cycled/drive to Hotel Monywa, our base for the evening. A quick lunch in the hotel restaurant, discussing how we didn't want to spend our last two days in the not-very-delightful Rangoon/Yangon, and then we sat down at the hotel computer. Rebellion was in the air as we typed a subversive e-mail to our friend. Perhaps the fact that the electricity went off three times while Roz was typing was an omen, but we chose to press on. The content of the email: "we want to go home 2 days early. We can't make phone calls. Please enact on our behalf." And thus our excellent friend did. 

After our emailing, we got in the bus (except for 4 deranged fellow cyclists who chose to cycle 2 and a half hours uphill in a million degrees of heat) and went off to visit the local attraction, ie Hpo Win Daung. There is a temple at the top of a hill, carved out of the hill, and quite cool (with many Buddhas within). And there is a huge complex of tiny 'caves' (really mostly indentations in the stone), all numbered, and each holding - you guessed it - at least one Buddha statue. Quite nice, if hot, climbing up the hill - scenic and pleasant, with lots of monkeys to entertain us, and we left just as the sun was setting over the hills.

Of course our tour guide again instructed us to eat in the hotel restaurant, and again we rebelled, hiring a tuk tuk to take us to the Tripadvisor-recommended Pleasant Garden restaurant. Which turned out to be quite pleasant. A crazy undulating bridge delivered us to a little island, upon which we were directed to our own little corner. The menu was fairly identical to every menu here, so Roz decided to branch out and go for ginseng and egg. I ordered vegetable vermicelli and braced myself for a sharing scenario... Sure enough, when what turned out to be a ginseng omelette appeared, Roz took a bite, declared it tasted of moisturiser (we subsequently decided perfume was more accurate), and duly fed some of it to an initially enthusiastic and thereafter reproachful skinny cat.

We came home, found our flights had been changed, and felt excited/scared/rebellious, and mostly impressed at our lovely friend's efficiency! So we leave on Thursday night instead of Saturday. And we will be extending our holiday US-style when we return. Stay tuned...