On our last day in Mandalay Peter and me were good tourists. We hired a small, blue mini-cab for the day (6,000 kyat) and looked at the sights around Mandalay: Sagain, Inwa (say: Awa) and Amanapura. Peter had already been to Minguin and I didn't want to see it that badly, so we skipped it.

Sagain is o.k. but imho not really that great - basically it's another Pagoda on a high hill - I think that if you can skip it - and save yourself two dollars - if you have been to Mandalay Hill. But Peter went into some caves under the Pagoda (for another dollar) and rather liked it. He said he's never been surrounded by so many bats in his life before. But the monk assured him: "Don't worry - no bite".

Inwa was very disappointing - and is pretty much a tourist trap. First you have to pay for the ferry to get to the actual island. Once you are there you find out that you need a horsecart to get around cause the islands two sites are very far away from the ferry-jetty. We toyed with the idea of walking there but in the end we were happy that we didn't - would have cost us half a day. Unfortunately the horsecart-guys not unsurprisingly have formed a price-cartel so that they are very inflexible regarding the price: 2,500 kyat. We were not prepared to pay that much, and it took us probably something like 20 minutes or arguing and nearly stepping back on the ferry to get the price down to 2,000. Actually it wasn't really the 500 kyat we got so worked up about. It was just so damn obvious that these guys just want to screw us. So in this case it was a matter of principle. Once we got to the sites we found out that we were supposed to have the "Mandalay Archeological Zone"-pass, which of course we didn't have. But, not problem, because - surprise, surprise - we could buy it there for just ten USD.

We didn't feel like paying this, so that we explained to the guard at the first monastery that we belonged to the French package tour ("Club Med" - can you believe it?) that had passed us by just a few minutes earlier. The guard didn't believe us but let us in anyhow. Unfortunately though, this group left the monastery just as we were walking in. And we were pretty sure that the guard would ask the groups tourguide whether they really had a German and a Canadian on the tour who were 30 years younger then everybody else and who had overslept that day. So we decided to make our way back to the horsecart through the monasterys garden and through the nearby village. And really: and at one point, as we sneaked though the bushes, I saw the guard strolling through the monastery compound - no doubt looking for us.

We tried to pull the same trick at the next site but unfortunately the people there asked our horsecart-driver whether our story was true. And he sold us out. Well, no tip for him.

Our last - and best stop was Anamapura, which aside from the inevitable pagodas and monasteries has something really cool: Ubein's Bridge, which they claim is the longest teak-bridge in the world - 1.2 miles. The nice thing about it is not its length - it's how busy it is. This is not some scenic tourist-attraction. It is very, very busy with people going from A to B and vice versa. It's a really nice stroll and pretty interesting.

We then returned to our hotel and waited for the bus that was supposed to bring us to the highway busstation. Why we did this and didn't pay the extra 1,000 kyat for our taxi-driver to bring us there is something that in hindsight doesn't make sense at all. To cut a long story short: It was ridiculously crowded and uncomfortable with people actually sitting on our luggage. And when we got out, Peter broke one of the wooden reliefs he had bought in Anamapura.