Kipling’s poem – Mandalay – is one of the reasons I wanted to visit Myanmar in general and Mandalay in particular.<\/p>\n
“On the road to Mandalay,
\nWhere the flyin’-fishes play,
\nAn’ the dawn comes up like thunder outer China ‘crost the Bay!<\/p>\n
Although Kipling never visited Mandalay those words are evocative of a simple, peaceful journey on the mighty Irawaddy from Rangoon to Mandalay.\u00a0 I had hoped to catch a boat from Bagan to Mandalay and to read the poem out loud at sunset on the prow.\u00a0 Sadly for my plan, the boats do not operate in the monsoon season so Bobbie and me hit the road.\u00a0 It was an interesting journey.\u00a0 In the South I had seen green paddy fields and now, as I travelled northwards, the fields were golden with long grass, it is time to harvest.\u00a0 I saw rice being threshed and laid out in the sun to dry.\u00a0 It’s also chili harvesting time.\u00a0 I cycled past huge swaths of cloth covered in tens of thousands of\u00a0 drying chilies, the fumes are quite intense, my eyes would water and I’d have the catch of chili in the back of my throat.<\/p>\n
Mandalay was a surprise, I’d say that Mandalay is to Yangon the way Cape Town is to Johannesburg.\u00a0 It is a laid back city that looks as if it was built in the ‘sixties and nothing has changed ever since.<\/p>\n\n\t\t