12/26/2016. From Yangon to Mandalay

December 26, 2016. Mandalay

Greetings (Mingalaba)

So last night we had our last dinner in Yangon (except that we will be back for one night – January 1 — while in transit to Tokyo) at the Rangoon Tea House  — a clearly upscale café serving Indian foods and frequented by foreigners (who seem to live in Myanmar). Food was good. Left at about 11 pm and headed to hotel to pack.

Then a small panic attack. As we approached the hotel, it dawned on me that every time we looked at all of our paper work for this trip — I never saw any flight from Yangon to Mandalay. In the taxi, we both searched emails and couldn’t find anything other than a few requests to different airlines questioning whether or not they serviced the two cities. Then I had a vague recollection of getting an email from one airline saying it had folded, and from another that didn’t post their schedule until close to the date of travel… and I think we just dropped the ball after that — too much going on: Thanksgiving, work projects, end of semester, office move, FTA Open House… and who knows what else. Anyway, from what we could tell, we didn’t have any reservation… Just a notation of the time of the flight in each of our calendars, but no confirmation number. So we moved fast.. I went online and captured the last two seats (and that they were – in the total back of the plane.. last row) and purchased them. Turns out Golden Myanmar Airlines (!!) has three prices for each flight – but no indication of what the differences are between the three fares, and the cost differential is $10. .So we opted for the middle price. Not sure what that gave us, since it clearly wasn’t for a stellar seat.

Anyway, good thing we did that. We asked the hotel to phone the airlines (at the same time I was purchasing the tickets) and the Airline Offices were closed and would not open again until after we would need to be at the airport. Given that we didn’t see any empty seats on the plane, I’m pretty certain we didn’t wind up double booking.

So, this morning off we went to the Yangon Airport – a fairly new and large airport located about 45 minutes from downtown Yangon. Taxi driver was friendly, but not very  familiar with the airport since he tried to drop us off at the International Terminal (they have two terminals). The 45-minute taxi ride cost about $6. Our plane was an hour late, but there was very little in the way of information sharing. Ticketing is interesting. They write the information by hand on the boarding pass. 

We made it to Mandalay and then dealt with a far more chaotic taxi situation than the rather orderly system in Yangon. Lots of drivers trying to get our attention; young guys trying to entice us into hiring them to give tours; others vying to carry our bags to waiting taxis. We “picked” the first taxi in the row, ignoring the requests for us to take mini-vans and shared vehicles, etc. It’s about an hour drive to downtown and where hotels are located. This taxi cost about $9.

Made it to the hotel – Hotel at the Red Canal – another funny choice. Realized about 10 days ago that we never booked a hotel for Mandalay – looked at many, but never decided. So again, mad scramble and checking where there was space. Anyway, the HRC (as they refer to it in the literature) was waiting for us when we pulled up. They had fancy signs welcoming guests arriving today. Our sign said “Professor Fern Tiger and Party”… When we were scrambling to find a hotel… I signed the email “Professor” knowing full well that Asia has very high regard for “titles” and figured we might have a better chance of getting a room. I neglected to give Mike a title (and maybe he didn’t even get a name). Anyway, when we went downstairs later, they had hastily created a new sign that included Mike with title!  And now they put his name ahead of mine. Well at least I wasn’t “and Party.”

By then it was about 4 pm and we were pretty hungry, so we stopped at the hotel restaurant and had a pretty nice late Indian lunch. Settled in to HRC and will soon take a stroll and get dinner (I think eating is all we did today). The hotel is quite charming. Another small, boutique style hotel – with nice gardens and lots of teak… They go a little overboard so when we got to the room, the bathtub was filled with hot water and hundreds of rose petals. We found a letter in the room indicating that our room rate (we’re probably overpaying because we were so desperate) includes two massages. Given our ride yesterday for about a total of two hours in the tuk tuk where we were pretty much airborne 50% of the time, I think the idea of a massage sounds great. Maybe tomorrow.

First impressions of Mandalay – a city of about 1.5 million people – seems like a lot of newer buildings and a lot of construction; scores and scores of pagodas and stupas between the airport and the city. We are supposed to be here for four nights, but we might shorten by a day and add a day to Bagan, enabling us to take the boat from here to Bagan (10 hours on the fast boat) rather than get a car (probably with a driver, since driving is pretty dicey – did it in Thailand and navigating the horses, goats, cows, trucks, motorcycles, buses, and the other cars was an exhausting and white knuckle situation). Anyway, we shall see… and you shall hear.

Before closing this note, a few observations in general and some miscellaneous images…  

• I’m tall in Myanmar; Burmese people, in general, are pretty short.
• They like to exchange cash rather than use your credit card, but they are very very discriminating with regard to what money they take. Mike got pretty hyped after his cash was deemed “inappropriate” and “not possible to convert to local currency” (which by the way has no value on the open market). They don’t take any bills that are folded (and have a crease) or have any wrinkles or any marks. They rejected $80 of his $120 at the airport, at the hotel, and at the second check cashing place. They found a folded corner, a small red mark, wrinkles, and the like. They only like crisp, clean, new dollars. Yet they give you very old, wrinkled money in exchange. So we need to use ATMs which are also pretty picky with regard to your bank.
• Literacy rate is 83%
• Life expectancy is 57 years old (so I’m elderly here?)
• 89% of the population is Buddhist
• Exchange rates are based on the denomination of the bills you exchange, with $100 bills yielding higher rate than five $20 bills; the money is called Kyat (pronounced “chat”)
• The Burmese chew betel nut leaves.. they fill the leaves with the nut and spices and a pinch of tobacco.. fold this mixture in the leaf.. put it in the mouth, chew.. and then spit it out. In many areas you see a lot of red liquid on the sidewalk. That’s the remains of the spitting of the betel nut and leaves. Pretty gross. First I thought someone was spitting blood and nearly rushed to help them… 

All my best… 

Will report on Mandalay tomorrow.

Fern