To travel here is to encounter men wear

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MANDALAY & AROUND


AROUND MANDALAY


you explore Inwa by horse-cart. Pay slightly
more to be driven around Inwa, to add Pa-
leik or to substitute Mingun for Inwa. Doing
the whole lot in one day would be exhaust-
ing – and quite impossible if you wanted to
do the Mingun boat. Ideally, make two or
three more modest day trips.

Amarapura
amrpUr
%02 / POP C35,000
Myanmar’s penultimate royal capital, Ama-
rapura (pronounced amuRA-puRA) means
‘City of Immortality’, though its period of
prominence lasted less than 70 years (from
1783). Starting in 1857, King Mindon dis-
mantled most of the palace buildings and
shipped them 7 miles north to Mandalay,
which was to become the new capital ac-
cording to a Buddhist prophesy. These days
Amarapura is essentially a spread-out sub-
urb of Mandalay, but it’s leafy and attrac-
tively set on a wide, shallow lake, named
for an ogre who supposedly came looking
for Buddha here. The lake is crossed by an
iconic wooden footbridge. Several other
scattered attractions can be visited, but
they’re widely spaced, so a bike or taxi is
almost essential.

 1 Sights


oU Bein’s Bridge WOODEN FOOTBRIDGE
wI"pin't®t;"
The world’s longest teak footbridge gently
curves 1300yd across shallow Taung tha-
man Lake, creating one of Myanmar’s most
photographed sites. In the dry season it feels
surreally high and mostly crosses seasonal
vegetable gardens. But at the height of sum-
mer the lake rises several feet and laps just
below the fl oor planks. Just a few of the 1060
poles on which it stands have been replaced
by concrete supports.
A great time to visit the bridge is just af-
ter sunrise when hundreds of villagers and
monks commute back and forth across it.
The light is often best around an hour be-
fore sunset, but by then there will be a large
number of tourists and trinket sellers. A
popular visiting tactic is to walk across the
bridge then return by paddle-boat (K3000)
as the sun is setting. However, as boats are
usually only available at the bridge’s western
end (where tour buses arrive), you’ll need to
make pick-up arrangements before you walk
across. Or simply ask your taxi/motorbike
driver to drop you at the eastern end. In the
dry season a track along the southeast side
of the lake is passable by motorbike.

WHICH CAPITAL WHEN

CAPITAL FROM... NOTES
Inwa (Ava) 1364

Taungoo 1555

Inwa (Ava) 1636

Shwebo 1752 then called
Mokesebo
Sagaing 1760

Inwa (Ava) 1764

Amarapura 1783

Inwa (Ava) 1823

Amarapura 1841 following the 1838
earthquake
Mandalay 1861-85 the British later
banished the royals
to India

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Free download pdf