We took a day trip to the nearby village of Mingun, which is located 1 hour via ferry ride, to the northeast of Mandalay. We walked around 2 kilometres from our hotel to the Mayan Chan jetty where we waited for 30minutes for our ferry and the ticket costed us 5000 kyats. There were already a few tourists queuing up for the once a day ferry, which I heard would not take us if there were less than 5 tourists then. At 9 am sharp, we boarded the ferry and started the journey.
The ferry sailed upstream of the Ayerwaddy River, passing by fishing boats and transports loaded with all sorts of cargo. I am quite amused to see the other foreign tourists being so intrigued by people living on or beside the river; they get so exhilarated seeing the local people bathing or doing laundry by the river! For me, I tried to catch some forty winks while enjoying the river breeze.
After an hour, we eventually reached Mingun, and we were welcomed by the unfinished Mingun Paya. While we were busy gazing at the temple, wondering whether to go in and visit, we were ambushed by two government officers asking us to buy the admission ticket. Actually, any foreign tourist who visits Mingun is required to purchase the USD3 admission ticket, unless you are fortunate enough to get away with it. We were rather unfortunate, even though we acted dumb and just walked away, ending up with the officer trailing us for around 10 minutes. We gave in eventually; it's just our luck!
Since we paid for the admission ticket, we might just as well have the most of it. The Mingun paya, although unfinished, still looked humongous! If completed, it would have been the largest stupa in the world! Hence, it is now the largest pile of bricks in the world! We were not allowed to climb up to the top anymore as they put up a sign forbidding us to do so since the structure was not stable anymore, hence we just walked around it and take a few snap shots, barefooted under the hot sun.
Next to it is a temple housing the world's largest uncracked bell, the Mingun bell weighing 55,555 viss (90 tonnes). I managed to scramble beneath and stand within the 13 foot tall bell! The Hsinbyume Paya, further down the road has seven terraces, all laid up with small Buddha figures, while there's another Settawya Paya which has a footprint rumoured to be of Buddha's himself.
Otherwise there isn't anything much else here, except hoards of tourist-preying pedlars and souvenir shops. We grabbed a quick lunch, and went back to the ferry to wait for departure at 1 pm.
We encountered a Singaporean elderly couple whom we befriended (possibly a disaster, will tell in future posts) earlier in Bagan. Since they were also heading for Hsipaw too the following day, we booked the hotel they recommended to us. After arriving back in Mandalay, we took a songthaew for 500 kyats per person (cheap!) and headed back near our hotel, where we took a short stroll to the railway station to get us tickets for Hsipaw.
Well, we were advocated to avoid government-affliated facilities as much as possible, but the only way to experience the Gotheik Viaduct is by train, and that left us with not much choice. Hence, we bought 2 upper class seats for USD9 each at the station and headed back for our hotel to rest, after stopping at a local supermarket for some groceries.
I woke up from my nap in late evening, ad we went to try the local Shan dishes, near our hotel. It costed me 3500kyats for a eat-as-much-as-you-can buffet, but I never really liked Burmese cuisine so I felt content with just 2 rounds of servings.
Well, that's probably what we really had in Mandalay, and we skipped Inwa and Sagaing because we were already tired with temples and stupas. Maybe we just need something new.
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