Pyin U Lwin and Kandawgyi Botanical Garden

From the train station I took a mototaxi to Grace 1 hotel. It was just outside of downtown and on a quiet street. The $10 room was a bit expensive but it was large, clean, with TV and a hot shower. It would be okay for one night. I went to Club Terrace restaurant for dinner. The guidebook describes it as a classy place. Now, I'm anything but classy but what sold me was that it also said it had authentic Thai curries and I could really go for that. The place was nice with candlelit tables outside but there was no one else there. Where is everyone in Myanmar?
My waiter's english wasn't great but after talking about my order for a few minutes, I wasn't sure what I was going to get but that all changed when the food came. The green Thai chicken curry was really heavy on the chicken and light on the sauce but the spice was just right. It was the best curry I've had in Myanmar and one of the best I've ever had anywhere for that matter. I wish I was staying longer in town just to eat here again! My dinner with rice and a tasty pineapple shake was $5, still not too much and totally worth it.



Kandawgyi Botanical Garden
This 176 hectare garden was founded in 1915 by an English botanist. Most of it was in immaculate shape, there were a few weeds but that's in every garden. The amount of work and detail that went into this place was absolutely staggering. I couldn't imagine the maintainence here but somehow they pulled it off. The garden had more work than all of the Niagara parks gardens (where I work) put together. It was mindblowing. There were quite a few different types of plants but some they used a lot. These included easter lily, kale, pointsettia, marigold, alternanthera, salvia, pansy, carnation, dusty miller, snap dragon, iresine and bromeliad. They had a big orchid garden. While I was walking along, an Indian/Burmese family that was picnicing called me over. They ushered me to sit down and began filling a plate with food for me. They only spoke a little english but really wanted me to eat a lot! It was good food but I had limited time. I had booked a share taxi back to Mandalay at 2pm and it was after noon already. In hindsight, I should've gave myself more time.
Surprisingly they had a takin enclosure here. The takin is a strange looking animal seemingly made out of spare parts of other animals. I first read about it in George Schaller's book The Last Panda. Takin live in the same habitat as pandas. They are large mammals and difficult to see in the wild. I had wanted to see one ever since I read about them. They had four of them in the enclosure. The large male hung out at the fence breathing heavily out of his nose. Time was running out so I rode my rented bicycle back into town into the market to look for some fruit but couldn't find what I was looking for. I found out I was looking in the wrong spot, oh well. I got the front seat of my share taxi for the easy 2 hour ride back to Mandalay. I went back to the Nylon hotel but they didn't have any nice rooms left. I took a similar room at ET hotel, just down the street. I was only staying in Mandalay for one night. My plan was to head northwest to Monywa the next day.