Bagan to Mandalay

Most buses in Myanmar seem to leave really early morning, at 6am or before. Thankfully going to Mandalay I had a choice and choose the latter bus at 9am. The bus wasn't in great shape. I didn't get a window seat either! Myanmar is one country that is really particular that you sit where your seat number says. I've never seen this more strictly enforced in any other country. After an hour the guy beside me got off, so I took his window seat. We stopped around noon and I asked a guy if we were staying for lunch. He said we were. He spoke a bit of english and I sat beside him and his friend. He was very smartly and cleanly dressed.
There are a few things very unique to Myanmar. One of them being the longyi, kind of like a skirt for men. Women also were them but they just look like a regular skirt on a woman. About 95% of the men wear a longyi and it looks comfy but I'm not going to be one of those foreigners that wears one! The other thing is thanaka, a sandalwood type paste that is smeared on the face during the day and the body at night. It's a natural sun block and supposed to be good for the skin.
This guy from the bus was wearing pants, not a longyi. After lunch, he paid for my meal, very nice of him. The bus trucked along slowly. At another rest stop, this guy paid for my pop too. There was no stopping him!
We finally arrived in Mandalay at 4.30 at the highway bus station, 7km from the downtown. The guy, his friend and I shared a pickup into town. I took the $7 room at the Nylon Hotel, over the $5 room, basically because it was much larger, nicer and had TV, HBO at that! Mandalay is the second largest city in Myanmar and is kind of a smaller version of Yangon. I didn't like it too much. Lots of crazy traffic. The British designed the block grid street system, which is great for finding streets. The downside is, there are mass intersections and hardly any traffic lights. The traffic that wants to cross the street just inch their way out slowy into the other traffic until they are forced to stop and they can cross. It's a crazy system but seems to work. I've learned to stand right beside a car or motorbike and cross synchronised with them.
I ate a delicious dinner of chapattis and curry chicken on the street at a chapatti stand. All that and a Star cola, for $1.80. I watched movies later when the power was on. The electricity is erratic here to say the least. When it's not on, the city is very dark. Many places have a generator, hell, Nylon hotel is above a generator shop! But there are few street lights on the government grid, so it's dark in the streets. Thankfully, traffic dies off early in the night. It's really warm here, my room stays a lot warmer than outside and at night it's about 28C. I do have A/C but it only works when governmentt power is on, so I've just been using my fan. It's fine, I can sleep in the heat with a fan. I'm on the 5th floor which is a pain for going and coming on the stairs but breakfast is served just outside my door in the dining area.
I'll be spending the next 2 weeks of my trip in this area of Myanmar. I wanted to fly from Mandalay to Chang Mai in Thailand when I leave Myanmar and then overland into Laos. The guidebook said it was possible but I went to a travel agent and he said those flights haven't been running for 2 years now! I wonder if the guidebook authors do update everything or just add it in from previous editions? I have the latest edition, with information no more than a year old. Going back to Yangon and then flying to Chang Mai is expensive and time consuming. I can fly to the border with Thailand but need a government permit to do this and cross the border. Going overland to the border is not allowed, not sure why. There's stuff going on there the government doesn't want seen, like opium fields. It is afterall part of the Golden triangle, the tri-border area of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar that grows much of the world's opium.
I went to the government run Myanmar Travels and Tours (MTT) to apply for my permit. It would take 2 weeks but that's fine because I have 18 days till my one month visa expires. When applying they want to know everything. Where I've been so far, where I stayed, how I got around and where I will be going for the rest of my trip. Maybe they'll follow me around! Seriously, they do that. The guy at the office said permits are generally issued without hassle most of the time but can't guarantee. A lot hinges on this permit for me. He told me to call the office in a week and he will know for sure then if I get my permit. Either way, they have my $50!