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| Mandalay |
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there was a big Buddhist festival going on for a few days when we arrived in Mandalay. here are people hanging out and watching a travelling theatre group outdoors. these plays with singing and dancing telling mythical stories go on all night long
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playing a game of chance at the fairground during the festival. we accidentally stumbled upon this fairground one night, and it was fun wandering around here
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another burmese lottery game
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the ferris wheel operator was standing high up on the wheels, looked quite dangerous
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games of chance seemed very popular
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all kinds of interesting food at the fair
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serving some kind of noodle dish and having a good time
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i finally couldn't resist the temptation - had to eat one of these yummy crepes, despite my earlier resolve to stay away from street food. and we didn't get sick from it!
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this is a travelling band with instruments hooked up to amps and speakers on wheels, wandering the streets at night and blaring music
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view of the city of Mandalay from the restaurant on the top floor of our hotel where breakfast was served. i LOVED burma, but Mandalay was the one place i didn't, despite its beautiful euphonious evocative name
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many of the streets of mandalay would get flooded whenever it would rain and sometimes the only way to go across a street without wading knee-deep in water was to take a rickshaw for that short distance
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looking at the moat & Mandalay Hill (in the distance) from the foreigner's entrance to Mandalay Fort -there are 4 entrances, but foreigners are only allowed to enter through 1, which we discovered after going to the other 3, which took a long time
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chuck on the motorbike he rented to go around Mandalay
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one of the rooms in the Royal Palace inside Mandalay Fort. you have to be barefeet to enter these buildings (same with temples, whether in active use or ruins).
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all these individual buildings and the grounds make up the inner palace. outside this center, but still inside the fort (which is surrounded by the moat) there's huge amount of land which is used to house the local armed forces and their families
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the watchtower in the corner of this photo has amazing views of Mandalay
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the Hills of Mandalay in the distance
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this building with the seven-tiered roof is where King Mindon sat (his throne room)
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view of the palace buildings in the inner core of the Fort (the Royal Palace was turned into a fort after the British annexed Burma)
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view from another entrance to Mandalay Fort, of the moat and Mandalay Hill
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this girl at one of the pagodas had thanaka paste on her face in really cool looking leaf patterns
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chuck chatting with a monk at Kuthodaw Pagoda
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Monk at the Kuthodaw Paya - this temple complex at the base of Mandalay Hill houses the world's largest book.
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each of the 729 white pagodas contains a mable slab inscribed in Pali and they constitute the Tipitaka (sacred texts of Theravada Buddhism), so all 729 sabs together make up the one book. it took 9 years to complete the book
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one of the pages of the book
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monks waiting to catch the sunset on top of Mandalay Hill
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