After some shots in Soon U Ponya Shin Pagoda on top of Sagaing Hill, I found my transport down the hill. It wasn’t full at that time so we took our time to relaxing at a nearby eatery. It took quite some time before the driver felt like driving. Such is the sense of time here, though I couldn’t really blame them since petrol is so expensive these days, they would like to make the trip worth it. The bus will be bringing me down to the hill where I can hopefully get another transport to the ancient city of Amarapura.
The bus snaked down Sagaing Hill and at a major intersection at the bottom of the hill, the driver told me to get off and transfer to another waiting bus. This will be taking me to Amarapura. The driver offered me the front seat which I gladly took. I figured it would be easy for me to talk to the driver to let me off when I needed to. It was a hot and sweaty ride towards Mandalay. Fortunately, Amarapura is along the way.
However, I noticed that the bus kept going and going to Mandalay until we eventually reached Mandalay! I seems that they totally forgot to let me off Amarapura, I started to argue with them but it was no use. They even wanted me to pay double the normal fee, which was actually just a small amount but I didn’t want to get scammed. They kept trying to explain to me something which I didn’t really get until much later. It turns out, the privilege of sitting in front of the bus costs double the normal fare. No wonder no one was sitting there.
Fuming that my schedule was ruined, I walked in the sweltering noon-time heat on the streets of Mandalay looking for another bus towards Amarapura. It was easy enough to find since it was the same road I got the ride to Sagaing from. Fortunately for me, it took us a much shorter time to leave Mandalay and when we got there they readily told me to get off. A Burmese girl on road pointed me to where the sights are.
Actually, Amarapura isn’t really that far from Mandalay, a 45 minute walk should be able to take you to the ancient town. Some of the visitors at Royal Guest House were able to do this. I guess if I had enough time, I would have also done it.
[xmlgm {http://www.worldwanderings.net/kml/UBeinBridge.kmz}]
Pingback: Amarapura : informations, photos, carte, vue satellite