Last night I dreamt I went to Manderlay ...........

You have so many romantic visions of Mandalay in your head from your youth (ignoring the shadowey figure of Mrs Danvers creeping around like a malevolent spectre) that when you arrive to find a dusty and noisy town, with the usual high level of bikes and cars parked on the (what are supposed to pass as) pavements, forcing you to walk in the road at the mercy of the kamikaze drivers, your initial feeling is one of disappointment. A long walk round the town, in the searing heat, does little to improve on this image.

But the magic of Mandalay is not to be found in the town, but a little way out. The amazing site of The World's Biggest Book at Kuthodaw Pagoda at the foot of Mandalay Hill is best appreciated from above, but not having a hot air balloon handy, I had to make do with walking round it, where you can't fully appreciate the sheer scale of it. So look it up online where you'll find many overhead views and see what I mean about it being an incredible sight. In the meantime we'll have to make do with a non-bird's eye view of it:

To help you understand, each of the white stupas contains one page of the book, and there are 1460 pages. One page shown below, all the letters carved into the marble block:

It is such an outstanding place, even from the ground, that you are going to have to look at some more photos:

All in all a wonderful sight but I'm sure that from above it's out of this world.

So onwards on my travels. Next stop Mandalay Hill, but on the way there I came across a special procession, one that takes place rarely, a procession taking a new novice monk, or monks, to the monastery. This one was special as this week is the celebration of the New Moon, which occurs once a year, not once a month as you would expect. This is a time of praying and feasting and joy in praise of the past year and with hopes for success in the coming year. Despite how little many families have they really go to town on dressing up for this and your level of prosperity and success is shown by how much of a show you can put on. Many families manage to get a sponsor or donor to help out financially for this pageant. Note how 'well off' one family is in that they've hired an elephant, a case of keeping up with the Jones'?

A wonderfully colourful sight ( but maybe not the best use of very limited funds?)

Still onwards and upwards, quite literally. The view from the top of Mandalay Hill was sadly quite obscured by the heat and dust and the smoke from the crop and stubble burning, no pandering to global warming or the ozone layer here! March is I've been told one of the worst months for air quality and visibility but what I could see I offer up for your viewing:

View from the top of Mandalay Hill.

You can see what I mean about the haze.

But it won't surprise you to know that there is an impressive temple on the summit:

 And to end the day a walk along the Wooden Bridge. It's incredible to think that in the dry season it sits about 30' above the ground but come the rainy season the water reaches up to the walkway and laps at your feet as you cross. I enjoyed the sunset standing in the middle of the bridge and got a better view than those who had hired boats to sit on the river to watch. Being higher up was a definite advantage:

There were more temples today but I'll spare you those, I think we're all a bit templed-out at present. In my next blog: the 'fun' of locating a Post Office in Mandalay plus what they say is the largest ringing bell in the world.