To Mandalay
Beez Neez now Chy Whella
Big Bear and Pepe Millard
Fri 24 Nov 2017 23:57
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To
Mandalay
   Waiting for the lift this morning, we
looked down and thought dolls house, Bear tucked in
to a hearty breakfast, that done it was back to our
room, along the very long corridor to collect our
joint case – never tried before but we’ll see how it goes. I’m completely segregated, zipped into one half so I shouldn’t
interfere, it’s the shared smellies bag on my side that I’m not sure
about.....all too personal.....
   Approach to
Bangkok.
Nine o’clock and we walked the short
distance from our digs to KLIA2. Check in, Immigration and Security were
painless and for the first time we decided to be disciplined and didn’t head
into Duty Free..... Our first flight to Bangkok was uneventful save for my left
frontal sinus giving me a hydrochloric acid sensation of pain as we landed.
Mmmm.
 A happy, snooty looking chap with a lovely
beak parked beside us.
  Instant mayhem as we walked through
Bangkok arrivals. The queues to get through Immigration were thousands deep, but
because we were transfers we could by-pass the masses and turning left found
ourselves alone as we showed our Passports, had our hand luggage x-rayed and
made our way to Departures. Along the way we saw a unique
Air Asia plane, on closer inspection three
faces of we-know-not-who but it makes plane spotting so much more
fun.
  Back into madness with a Thai flavour and more Duty Free
shops.
   We found a quiet corner in a Japanese eatery called Fuji. Had to
really, missing all that gorgeous food, yes, your waistline can
attest to that fact. OK, skinny bint. Point
taken......the food was indeed delicious. By the time
we had put our clocks back, found our departure gate and read for a little
while, we were soon sitting in the exact seats, different plane, air-con ‘smoking’ nicely.
  Fuelled up and off once more above
Bangkok.
   A bit of cloud
watching, before we bumped our way through to see Myanmar below us. My left
sinus created merry hell as we descended and I felt as if I needed to blow my
nose. A bit of an explosion of blood to which my shock-proof travel mate
informed me that I had had a bit of an extrusion and it
was all over your chin.........Well, thank you for that. Extrusion
my a - - -, it feels as if ...........let’s just say it
hurts.
      Throbbing left eyebrow or not,
pictures to be taken. An amazing amount of stupas as
we approached Mandalay Airport.
 Incredible patterns on a river bed.
   Fairly unique
scenery.
  One final big
Stupa before we landed, just on sunset.
 After a long pootle, the airport came into view.
 Off the plane, I
got Bear to pose by the sign, no hope with learning this language.....
Still mastering Thank You – Jay-zu-ding-ba-de (said Je-su-bar-de, response
ya-ba-dee). Please – Duh-say’-lau’. Hello – Ming-guh-la-ba. OK, let’s stick to
thank you.
Very few people before us as we
approached a very kindly looking lady at Immigration. She not only wanted to
help me with my overcrowded Passport, she even found a smaller path than I had
to tuck her stamp. Case, ooo that sounds and feels weird to type was soon being
trundled to our final x-ray of the day. A nice man wearing the traditional skirt
(longyi) was waving a placard with our name, slightly more expensive than
bartering for a taxi but eight quid for an hour and ten minute ride didn’t seem
too steep at the time of booking.
    Our driver led the way to the Bureau
de Change where we became millionaires to pay for all our hotels and food as
credit card machines (we believe) are few and far between. We were instructed to
bring in ‘perfect’ US dollars, ours were indeed brand new but still, each of
them was closely scrutinised and some of our ‘new’
money had seen better days, the smaller the note the ‘softer’ to the
touch. Our ‘wingnuts’ were cast aside for our
‘kayaks’. Actually the Kyat is pronounced ‘chat’, once again
reinforcing the difficulty with this language. Myanmar in the modern name but
Burmese as a language..... (The ten thousand Kyat is worth five pounds forty
nine and a bit).
Next, to the SIM card lady who
effectively dealt with Bear and off we went.
   Dark soon after we left the airport,
we passed many lit Stupas until we went round the main
roundabout at the edge of the city of Mandalay. Thirty minutes later we
pulled up at our digs and soon learned that bravery
when crossing the road, that is, walk and assume everyone will miss you, is the
local way. Good practise for Vietnam...... Opposite a Thai
restaurant and many fruit and veg stalls.
  A welcome juice on arrival,
formalities done and we bought our ferry tickets for Tuesday and soon in our
room. Creased brows from the skipper who had our room
rearranged before I could say there we are then.
 No heated toilets here but a more than adequate bathroom with separate shower (next to
the bath but not in a cubicle).
 Thoughtfully placed hot spicy
Pringles and a pot noodle didn’t tick the box as I fancied Chinese. Off we went
to the night market but I didn’t feel the need to try
chickens foot anything or pork bits anything else, it was back to the Thai, en
route though we saw a Chinese restaurant under the hotel next door. A very happy
welcome.
  We settled as the only customers,
well by now it was nine o’clock, we began with the complimentary, eye-watering soup. Bear had crispy beef
and rice. I had a chefs rustled sweet and sour chicken, special fried
rice, which I shared, Bear had a beer, me a Coke all for the princely sum of
eight pounds. Although this was probably double the chickens foot whatever, we
felt we should splash out on our first night on The Road to Mandalay. “Time for
bed” said Zebedee.
.
ALL IN ALL A GOOD TRAVEL DAY
TO AN INTERESTING DESTINATION
STRAIGHTFORWARD JOURNEY, GREAT TO BE
HERE
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