Weekend Blitz

Mandalay is Myanmar’s second largest city, home to roughly 1.5 million people and steeped in Burmese history. Boasting a reputation of being Burma’s cultural + educational hub, the city is often overlooked by tourists who are more interested in relaxing at Inle Lake. This bustling city offers a look into Burma’s past – before the tourists + even before the Brits’ arrival.

View of Mandalay Palace from the Watch Tower

One of the city’s main attractions is Mandalay Palace, a walled and moated “city” that now hosts military officials and families. When you’re walking [...]

Just on the outskirts of Mandalay are not one but three former royal capitals (Sagain, Ava and Amarapura) and the typical tourist path explores all three small villages in one day. So, of course, we signed up for the tour. How can you miss seeing three royal capitals that are right under your nose?

In typical Jeffrey-and-McCown fashion, we had no idea what to expect when we first arrived (we’ve gotten into a habit of planning the cities and towns along our stop – for flying/training/busing purposes, but nothing to do in the city, so when we first arrive, it’s a bit like a deer-in-headlights syndrome). Several tour companies on TripAdvisor offer these [...]

Today marks one entire month since Jeffrey and I went wheels up in Charleston and headed off on our adventure.

We are really loving our time in Southeast Asia and are trying to pack 29 hours into each day (so far, so good). We’re currently enjoying a slower pace for a few days at the Hyatt resort in Da Nang, Vietnam, where we’re bronzing in the sunshine and digging our toes in the white sand before diving into Big City Life again.

Here’s a look back at our first month by the numbers…

In the past 31 days, we’ve traveled to…

2 [...]

Friends who had visited Myanmar before us had completely skipped Mandalay, but we wanted to take our time exploring as much of the country as we could, so we (somewhat hesitantly) added a few nights in Mandalay, Burma’s second largest city, to our itinerary.

View of Mandalay from the Hotel Yadanarbon’s rooftop

It’s only about 445 miles north of Yangon (but, in case you’re wondering, if you’re going roughly 25 mph on a train, that’ll take you about 16+ hours). When we arrived on the overnight train around 9am, completely and utterly exhausted, we found scores of people at the train station, all hounding us to [...]

Disclaimer: I can sometimes write with an air of sarcasm, so please do not be put off by this! This trip was a throughly fantastic experience and we are glad that we have the memories from this train ride.

After taking a trip to the Myanmar Railways Booking Office a few days prior to book our tickets, it was departure day and we caught a cab to the Yangon Central Railway. Due to the traffic, car travel is only marginally faster than walking and, if it weren’t for our bags and the excruciating heat, we would have used the latter option this day. We made it to the station around 4:15pm, about 45 mins prior to departure.

The train station, like most in the [...]

When faced with the decision on how to get around from city to city in Myanmar, the train seemed like a solid choice. On this trip, the only one like it in recent memory, we were doing our best to ditch the standard “Weekend Blitz” type of travel that we’ve come to embrace, feeling like we’re going at 110% all of the time and trying to cram 25 hours into every day. For this trip, we had time on our side and a greater desire to jump into the local culture and see how everyday life is lived for the Burmese.

So, intent on taking the train while in Myanmar, we settled on the Yangon-Mandalay route. The times were appropriate for taking it overnight which [...]

On yet another hazy day in Yangon, we headed up the road to the main train station (the same one that would carry us off days later on the overnight Yangon-Mandalay train) to board the Circle Train, taking us in a circle around Yangon’s “suburbs” and then back into the city.

Because most locals can’t afford apartments in the city proper, the vast majority lives in the suburbs but finds work inside the city. This Circle Train is the preferred method of transportation in and out of the city as traffic can get pretty brutal (and, of course, you have to own a car or motorbike). So, riding this Circle Train provides an unspoiled glimpse into local life away from the [...]