Michael Batson

Mandalay is home to one million people and is the second-largest city in Myanmar. The city is regarded as the commercial hub of the north of the country. It was Burma’s last royal capital, and has been immortalised in books, poetry and song.

“The Road to Mandalay” coined by Rudyard Kipling, refers to the journey up the Ayeyarwaddy River from the former capital of Rangoon during British colonial rule, on the boats of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company. Back in those days Burma was known as the back of beyond, and the journey took 5-6 days. British commerce in Burma was pioneered by the British East India Company, and for two centuries “Golden days in a golden land” was how the British described commerce in Burma. Burmese nationalists naturally took a somewhat different view.

The IFC was a Scottish innovation and built in the Clyde shipyards. The Scottish had a strong Burma connection and had been travelling there for 200 years. Many of its vessels failed to survive the Japanese occupation however, the retreating British forces scuttling as many of them as possible. The IFC was also naked in its racial exclusiveness, barring Burmese from cabin class, or from any form of skilful employment, and was earmarked early on for expropriation by the newly independent Burma after 1948.

I got to take the other road to Mandalay, the new highway built with Chinese assistance, straight up the middle of Myanmar, passing the new capital of Naypyidaw on the way.

My newly acquired Burmese friends, U Tin Tut and his student James (not their real names), met me in the coffee shop at the government owned department store in Yangon Ruby Mart, where their slogan is “giving you more for less.”

We walked over the overpass with the giant Samsung television showing football advertisements towards the central railway station. U Tin tut informed me that Burma (as he still referred to it) was divided, “about 80 percent Manchester United and 20 percent Chelsea. They like Alex Ferguson,” he said, “because he wins most of the time.” Indeed.

Prior to independence, Yangon’s railway station was painted red, but as soon as the British were gone the new government painted it white and placed traditional Burmese designs atop the building’s four towers.

“Where do you come from?” asked the man at the bus company. I told him and he turned to Kyaw Nyunt and said something in Burmese, which translated turned out to be “take me there.” U Tin Tut said that he and Johnny would come with me to buy my ticket so as to avoid paying the “skin tax” as he referred to the inflated price often charged foreigners.

Yangon’s bus station is miles away, a 30-minute drive in a “shuttle” a small cramped and overloaded truck spewing diesel fumes over its passengers in life-threatening quantities. Before I could be sick the young Burmese opposite suddenly leaned over the backboard and vomited onto the road, his mother holding his belt to prevent him heaving himself face-first from the moving vehicle.

Before the bus station the vehicle stopped. I could tell it was the police by the way the blokes on the back quickly ducked their heads back inside the truck. As we drove off I could see the police wandering back to their roadside booth to count the takings, another day another bribe.

Mandalay is hot, dry and windy. The streets are laid out in a grid-like pattern and numbered, around the central core, the 413-hectare Mandalay Palace, which is surrounded by a 60-metre wide moat running 2000 metres on each side of the palace. The city reminds me of a cross between Hue in Vietnam and Phnom Penh.

The city was founded in 1857 and takes its name from nearby Mandalay Hill. Officially, its name was Yandanabon, now the name of its leading football team, and the Burmese version of its name in the local dialect, Ratanapura which means “The City of Gems”.

For the next 28 years, Mandalay was to be the last royal capital of the last independent Burmese kingdom before annexation by the British at the end of the Third Anglo-Burmese War in 1885.

Throughout the colonial years, Mandalay was the centre of Burmese culture and Buddhist learning, and as the last royal capital, was regarded by the Burmese as a primary symbol of sovereignty and identity. The British looted the palace and some of its antiquities are still on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Between the two World Wars, the city was Upper Burma's focal point in a series of nationwide protests against the British rule. The British rule brought in many immigrants from India to the city. Now it’s noted for the numbers of Yunnan and Shichuan Chinese migrating there, making up over one-third of the population.

During the war, the palace citadel had been turned into a supply depot by the Japanese, and was burnt to the ground by Allied bombing. Today’s palace is a replica rebuilt during the 1990s using forced prison labour and is now headquarters for the Central Military Command. The entrances are marked by large propaganda signs from the Tatmadaw, Myanmar’s military, with slogans like “Tatmadaw and the people in eternal unity – anyone attempting to divide them is our enemy.”

In Myanmar there are constant battles continuing between the government and the various ethnic minorities in the country’s border regions.

The week I arrived in Myanmar there were a series of bomb blasts in Mandalay, Naypyidaw and the Kachin capital of Myitkyina.  The bombings came about two weeks after fighting erupted between the Tatmadaw (the collective name for the armed forces of Myanmar) and the Kachin Independence Organisation’s armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army. The bombs are thought to be linked to fighting with ethnic minority militias in other parts of the country.

The night bus from Yangon dropped me at Mandalay bus station at 3am. I then got a ride in the smallest taxi I’ve ever ridden in, a small blue Mazda with little head room and all the fittings removed, so the cab was just bare metal. Even the original seats were gone, replaced by wicker chairs tied to the floor.

Mandalay is bordered by the mighty Ayeyarwaddy River, which at this point is about four kilometres wide. Upstream there are two bridges, the old and the new. One wonders why the new was built given there is barely enough traffic to have justified the obvious expense.

Mandalay Hill is the physical feature dominating the city landscape. Climbing the series of steps to the top is like being in a K-Tel commercial, “but wait, there’s more.” The path is lined with a series of mini-summits each with its own temple, and the usual collection of hawkers. They were even selling DVDs of Charlton Heston in the Ten Commandments and Wonder Woman, and scarves of Bob Marley and the Italian national football team, the Azurri.

You will be charged 500 kyats to take photos, least you offend the group of locals who earn a living taking photos of visitors in a variety of poses. From the summit, when you finally get there, you get a great view of Mandalay and its environs. The grounds of the palace look like Central Park in New York, a big square of green surrounded by water.

When the Tatmadaw came visiting in their army greens they all dutifully removed their footwear, but not their side arms, which seem to accompany them everywhere. They appeared overweight and unsmiling middle-aged men with gold bling and bodyguards, some of whom walked about as official umbrella holders.

Mandalay men frequent bars drinking whiskey and water in handles and smoking green cheroots. One bar had a flatscreen TV with a giant poster of the Great Wall on one side and a larger than life poster of Wayne Rooney advertising Tiger Beer on the other.

I went most evenings to a family run restaurant facing the palace. There they served Mandalay Draught on tap, brewed since 1886, and fussed over my food. The food would come with side dishes, often a clear soup flavoured with lemon, or chillies or sometimes chicken. A small plate of vegetables picked with chilli and then the main course. The food was tasty and varied. I never got quite the same thing twice no matter what I ordered.

Other sights in Mandalay include: Maha Muni Pagoda, revered as the holiest place in Mandalay; Shwenandaw Monastery famed for its intricate wooden carvings; Kuthodaw Pagoda which contains the world's biggest book on 729 upright stone slabs on which are inscribed the entire Buddhist scriptures; Kyauktawgyi Pagoda on the northern side of Mandalay Hill completed in 1865, and containing an image of Buddha carved from a huge single marble block; Atumashi Monastry, though the original structure was destroyed by a fire in 1890 it was rebuilt in the mid-1990s; and the great Mingun Bell, reportedly the largest “uncracked” bell in the world.

Also of interest are the Moustache Brothers who put on a great show with slapstick comedy, Burmese dancing and political jokes. This is a fun night and a truly unique experience. If you decide to go to this show, realize that these actors are braving incarceration to practise their unique craft. The government forbids them to perform, so they must entertain “guests”, with a “donation” request. After all, the performance is in their living room.

When I left Yangon U Tin Tut made me a present of a book, The Burman by Shway Yoe, the pseudonym of Sir George Scott, a British civil servant who spent more than 30 years in Burma during the 19th century, “the best book about Burma written by a foreigner,” said U Tin Tut. I told him my hobby was travel writing. “Ah” he said, “travel is knowledge.” Indeed.