Naypyitaw to Mandalay ...Different

But the train to Mandalay is another experience.

We organized a whistle stop tour of Naypyitaw with the same driver who was booked to take us to the railway station. We hired him for an extra three hours to see some of the "highlights" and this city is not one you walk around or even ride a bike around in a short time.

Comparisons to Canberra are reasonable but things are on a grander scale especially the roundabouts ...  But unlike Canberra's parliament hill the hlutlaw is much bigger but kept out of public gaze. .. We parked on roadside about a kilometer away and still barely could get in an wide angle lens through the fence. Claims of twenty lane highways are spurious ... We could count no more than about sixteen! But we might have missed a couple certainly a couple of places would be capable of landing a jet ...  Width wise at least dunno about the undulating concrete surface.

The Parliament....so huge

Tour didn't start too well being due to go to jade garden but when we got there 

we're not allowed in and an official looking chap with only slightly less limited English than the driver offered take us to the gem museum instead ... As we followed him back out to another roundabout we noticed the jade garden was on the other side of the street ah well too late.

Entry to the museum was five dollars and it was quite interesting, but we could have considered charging the poor bored attendants for their morning's entertainment ... We had two to four at anytime. A fair bit of jade but also big cultured pearls and supposedly the biggest natural pearl in the world also the biggest chunk of superior jade worth 30 million euros?

Gem Museum

Next stop was the water fountain garden .... Dont know how many fountains are set in the manicured gardens but apparently they don't get turned on till late afternoon - a pleasant spot but obviously just one of the sites of the misspent billions.

Water park

We drove past and stopped briefly near the lavish. And ginormous parliament complex before we took a circuitous route including a free gift tour of the little old shanty town that  has been subsumed by Napyitaw.

We also took as quick look at the huge pagoda copy of Yangon's Shwedagon but I was feeling the affects of yesterday's lunch stop the smell of some tethered white elephants didn't help.

White elephants!

So to the central station ... A big cool space with no hint of catering for anyone but the locals. The only sign I spied in English was complaints desk, but I didn't bother.  In fact after striking up conservation with knowledgable gentleman a guard waiting for train back to Yangon we had no complaints. He told us about the historic engines on display and the fact that the train we were waiting for was second hand -- engine from India and carriages cast off from China or the other way round, and he didn't say how long ago.

The old way....helpful train guard

The announcement that the train was going to be fifty minutes late was pretty much expected but when it arrived the standard of our "upper class" carriage was a little below our not lofty anticipation. The once reclining seats were generally set in down position and the footrests similarly inoperable ... It did have ceiling fans but three out of the five an attendant encouraged into life by pushing the blades with his fingers soon gave up the ghost. At least the windows were all open, if it rained I don't know if they'd close, so we could get some breeze. But they opened with the top going down over the bottom and ours at least was opaque if not just much dirtier than all others. So you had to stand up to see out. Dunny was back to a hole through to tracks between starting blocks

....  Be grateful ordinary class was much worse hard wooden seats that looked impossible to sit in for six hours let alone sleep in but the locals did it along with stacks of luggage, kids et al.

Lots of parking space if you need it

Upper Class carriage

Allowing for a fifty minutes delay to start, arriving Mandalay just before eleven was not too bad .... And into bed after. Lukewarm shower by midnight.