Mandalay

To round off our time in Myanmar we spent a couple of days in Mandalay, the country’s second biggest city. Despite Yangon being larger, Mandalay had much more of a big city vibe, although it wasn’t so bustling when we arrived at 3:30am (ahead of schedule) from our night bus. Sleep deprived and in need of a real bed, we trudged towards our hotel in the hopes that our room would be ready for early check in at this ridiculous hour. In fact, the night porter went one better and didn’t even charge us for the privilege, despite the fact that we woke him up!

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Bagan

The largest archaeological site in the world, in July 2019 Bagan finally became a UNESCO world heritage site 24 years after it was first put forward for the title. According to a 2017 architectural survey, Bagan is home to 3,822 Buddhist monuments (temples, monasteries, pagodas and such), the majority of which date back to the 11th to 13th centuries. All this set over 100 square kilometres of dust roads, palm trees and sand. It’s not an exaggeration to say that stepping foot in Bagan is like stepping foot on another planet.

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