Day 8: The Malhika boat experience
Maybe I was a bit grumpy (because of this 5am alarm) but when the guy of the reception asked met to pay 2$ because I broke a water glass in our room, I was really angry that for starters I have to pay for it and secondly that they demand for an astronomers amount of money (it was a ten dollar cent kind of glass). If this was a budget hotel, okay, but hey this hotel cost a fair amount of money. I tried to reason with him, but that didn't work at all. He kept repeating the glass cost 2$, the glass cost 2$. At that moment I realized that service and Myanmar still have a long way to go. Klaas joined me at the reception, asked what the problem was, and gave the guy 2$. As a result of that I didn't speak with Klaas for the next couple of hours.
The taxi guy showed up in time, also very grumpy. Maybe he broke a glass too this morning and was yelled to by his wife. He didn't help us with our luggage and all the way to the jetty he listened to a Burmese stand up comedy version of Eddy Murphy, really really loud. The ride didn't take more then 10 minutes and when we arrived at the Jetty, he didn't do anything. We had to take out our luggage ourselves (we paid the guy plentifully for a ride of 10 minutes: 4$). This was the first Burmese guy I really didn't like.
Here will be a youtube movie of the cab ride after we get back in Holland
It was still dark when we entered the Malika 2. A small elegant boat with rotan chairs on deck and even a plant for decoration. It felt like being on a touristy German Moezel river cruise (80% of the passengers were wearing a silly hat over their grey hair. I am so surprised, where are all the 30/40 year olds? I remember from 8 years ago that I hardly saw any grandpa's and mothers. Is Myanmar's government advertising heavily in French, Scandinavian and American senior magazines or so?
A few minutes before 7am we left. As soon as The Malikan reached full speed, free thee, coffee and toast was being served. It was still really cold on deck. We managed to get the best 2 seats outside, but the first few hours we were suffering hard,..brrrrr. Fortunately I was wise enough to take two blankets out of my backpack for a bit of warmth. Ten hours on a boat is a pretty long time and the scenery is sadly enough not spectacular at all. I was pretty disappointed in this. So I read a great book (Glow-Sandor Marai) and worked on my blog. At noon the crew served noodles with vegetables and fried egg for 3.000K. which tasted great for a boat meal certainly with a Mandalay beer on the side.
The boat arrived at 4.30pm and we weren't prepared for the whole hassle when we of loaded ourselves and our luggage. I guess the pictures tell you enough. Everybody tried to sell us something and offered taxi rides into town. Our guesthouse promised us to pick us up.
Unfortunately they didn't shop up and we had to pick somebody from the hysteric crowd of yelling men. All of a sudden an older (grey haired) man asked us if we were going to the Thante hotel in Nyaung U. YES! we replied. So we shared a taxi with a lovely couple from the French speaking part of Canada. They were probably retired and travelling on their own! That's the way I like it! After stopping at 'customs' to pay the 10$ Bagan fee (which is really cheap for all the beautiful pagoda's)we arrived at the Thante hotel in a minute or 5. We paid 2.000K each for the ride.
The Thante hotel is lovely. It has a swimming pool with a dozen of bungalows placed arount it. They try to maintain a garden but in this climate with such a dusty (I think very poor soil) it's practically impossible. Our bungalow turns out to be huge and comfortable with a wooden floor, a nice porch and a bath. We felt straight away very much at home.
After 6pm it's getting really chilly and you need to wear a fleece or some kind of warm jumper. We went into town and decided to rent bikes for the next two days. The bikes looked a lot better then seven years ago when I visited Bagan. We choose two bikes (actually they are really comfortable) and drove a few times back and forth in the street with all the restaurants. We choose to sit down at 'Aroma 2' an Indian place. We had some chappati's, rice, chicken curry and vegetable curry.
All served on a banana leaf (I like!). I wasn't impressed by the food at all. It was the worst meal since I was in Myanmar. Their pay off is 'no good-no pay, but I guess only asholes will make use of this gesture.
We were cold and tired so we went to bed early. Not a punishment to sleep in these beds with thick duvets. We slept like babies.
The next morning we were extremely surprised when we saw the breakfast buffet. What a feast! Three different kind of fresh melon juices, fresh pancakes, an egg station, all kind of fruits (even strawberry's!) and a lot of pastry (they have a bakery attached to the hotel). We had a blast and a good filled stomach for a day of heavy biking and templing.
We got a free very detailed map of the whole Bagan area from our hotel reception. We decided to go over the whole place just biking around and see the outside and go into the pagoda's the bext day. So we did. It was just great. For Klaas it was spectacular because it was his first time. We had lunch in New Bagan at at the King Si Thu, next to the river. A fancy (expensive) place but great for a moment of peace, shadow and quietness. I ordered vegetable tempura and Klaas noodles, both were very tasteful.
After lunch we road on and actually stopped very soon again because we saw a lovely spot called 'The Black Rose' where we had another beer and a nice chat with two Swiss guys. It's so nice to exchange tips and tricks. The rest of the afternoon we explored more parts of this beautiful serene place. Klaas discovered our -soon to be- own temple. There was nobody there. We looked for a small entry and found one. We could climb up quit a bit through narrow corridors with our torches in our hands. When we came out: WOW! We arrived at the top (don't ask us how..) and had a magnificent view over the whole area. Hundreds of temples. Not one picture can do justice to this amazing view. This was going to be our sunset place for tomorrow (to avoid the whole big panic attack tourist sunset Bagan exodus at the main temple). Klaas stayed a bit longer and I took my bike and headed back to the hotel for a afternoon swim (coldddd!!!!!).
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