After having spent four nights in Bagan, Mandalay seemed very crowded and hectic. All of a sudden there were tons of cars, motorbikes and trishaw-drivers instead of the odd horsecart, pickup or bike. On the way to Mandalay I met a 30 year old Canadian, Peter, who has far more experience travellling SE-Asia and the middle east. Actually he has just come down from the Himalayas where he went trecking. And he is far better at bargaining then I am, so I definitely can learn a thing or two from him.

Mandalay itself is not so exciting. But it's a good place where you can buy all sorts of things that you'd have a hard time finding in smaller places in the countryside. Like bookshops that carry english books, large sized internet cafes and of course there is a lot to do around Mandaly.All in all I spend four nights in Mandalay, in the "Nylon Hotel". Not a bad choice really, since it's pretty central, clean and the showers are just great! For once the lonely plamnet actually was right. When I arrived the only room that was available was a 5 $-room. The difference to the 4 $-rooms being a non-working TV. Ah, how I loved to see snow in Burma...

The city of Mandaly is pretty much dominated by two things: Mandalay Fort and Mandalay Hill. I decided to skip the fort since all original buildings inside of the walls were destroyed by a big fire in the 1940s and I felt like I don't really have to pay something in the neighbourhood of 3 USD just to see walls from the inside that I could see for free from the outside. From the outside it is pretty impressive, though. The Fort is a huge rectangle, each side running for one mile, with a 70 meters wide watermoat surrounding it. In the evening I went up to Mandalay Hill, where again, you were supposed to pay 3 or 5 USD. Fortunately the guards were so busy, though that I managed to slip in without having to pay. The walk up to Mandaly Hill is really quite funny. You go up a flight of stairs, arrive at a pagoda, go up another flight of stairs, arrive at another pagoda, stairs, pagoda, stairs, pagoda ... and most of the time you can't see the next flight of stairs when you have arrived at one level so that, once you have reached a certain height, you never know whether you already are on top of the hill or not. After a while I felt like in a Escher-drawing. It was fun, but it is quite a walk!

On the way up I met Peter again who hadn't stayed at the Nylon because they were fully booked. We also ran into two Israelis and a Belgium doctor (Greet) with whom we went to see the famous "Moustache Brothers" after having climbed down from Mandaly Hill again. Now, these Brothers are highly recommended by the Lonely Planet and have been so for years. But what a disappointment! What a tourist trap! It's neither funny nor good! The guiy running the "show" was just repeating over and over that his wife was on the cover of Lonely Planet Italy and that he would prefer polygamy to monogamy. His wife actually showed some interesting dancing figures but everything that came after was just lame. Even the dancing was sloppy. Yes, his brother was in prison for seven yeasrt because he critized the government. Yes, that is sad. But this family is profiteering from this fact in a way that is just obscene. They charge 2,000 kyat per person and when I was there there were 31 people there. They make a killing! And as I said earlier> They are neither good nor funny. And they keep repeating how poor they are and how the audience should support them. And then, apparently to prove their point, they show a ten second clip from the movie "About a Boy" where Hugh Grant collects money for these guys. I mean - Come on!!!!