Valletta, Malta: I Didn’t See One Maltese Dog But It Was Still Nice
READ IT ALL!
Related Posts
Mandalay, Ancient Cities, & the Scariest Train, Myanmar (Burma)
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin’ lazy at the sea,
There’s a Burma girl a-settin’, and I know she thinks o’ me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
“Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!”
Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay:
Can’t you ‘ear their paddles chunkin’ from Rangoon to Mandalay?
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin’-fishes play,
An’ the dawn comes up like thunder outer China ‘crost the Bay!
WARNING: Due to the whole ‘for visiting/not for living’ setup and the whole rural, unkempt land thing, Inwa has no roads, no cars, and isn’t very walkable. The only way people get around is by horse cart. Upon landing on the Inwa riverbank and seeing what our guide was leading us to, I was vehement about absolutely not forcing a horse to cart me around. I tried to find a bike or something, anything else to use to get around. But after some effort, we learned that the choice was either to use the horses or to skip the visit. So, we went. Hard decisions regarding cultural clashes with veganism always come up when traveling, and I guess I was lucky that this was the worst one I faced in Burma. I still feel badly about it, but I’m not sure skipping Inwa would have been the right decision.
The guide didn’t speak English and didn’t understand what my problem was, so she thought I was scared of horses, and throughout the day kept holding my hand and stuff. It was weird.
The last great sight in Inwa was the Bagaya Kyaung Teak Monastery, another teak wood wonder.
This beautiful monastery had a little classroom inside! We spied on some future monks as they learned. So cute.
After Inwa, we visited Mingun, one of my favorite stops in this region. I like to think that I loved Mingun for its wondrous temples and monuments and not just because it’s where I ate my first custard apple, the most delicious thing in the world. |
Mingun also has the world’s largest uncracked bell, a distinction I appreciated as a Philadelphian. Visitors can ring the Mingun bell by smacking it with a big piece of wood. It’s harder than it sounds, and when you do it you look ridiculous, hence no pictures.
Besides perfect custard apples, Mingun’s other culinary claim to fame is its spirulina beer on tap. As a vegan, I’m pretty hip to the spirulina, so I had to try this even though I despise beer. You know what? It tasted like kombucha!
Thankfully, the rest of Mandalay was pretty welcoming, although not very comfortable. It’s a very dilapidated city, with makeshift sidewalks built by laying stone planks down over holes in the ground. I near sprained my ankles multiple times. So, in summary, tread carefully around Mandalay!
You’ll likely visit the Mandalay Palace, the royal residence of the last two kings of Burma. Most of the grounds were destroyed during World War II, so this is a replica.
My favorite pagoda in Mandalay was Kuthodaw Pagoda, better known as The World’s Biggest Book. Separate little huts house single (huge, stone) pages of the book, and with more than 1000 pages, you probably won’t get to see all of it. Biggest book indeed! This is such a cool sight.
|
We also saw this peacock! How gorgeous is that! I had never before seen a peacock do its dance before. Love it!
Stay tuned for the last leg of my travels through Myanmar, to come next week.
Samarkand, Uzbekistan: Gorgeous Preserved History on the Silk Road
The Sher-Dor was the one place where we saw cops guarding the door, I think just because it is closest to the ticketed entrance. But true to what our guide book warned us about, one of the cops offered to take us into the closed minarets at the Ulugh Beg Madrassah across the square so we could climb up it, for a fee of course. We read about how the cops will offer to do this but ask for money, usually more than they first say, so we were not about to go with a stranger danger into a tower and then either pay him whatever he wants or risk having him lock us in. nah thanks. Corrupt cops are everywhere!
The Registan grounds were almost as gorgeous as the inside bits. I love loved this sea of flowers tipping out from the vase.
On to the next!
The next mosque on our list was the Bibi Khanum Mosque, which was built to house 10,000 people. That’s a lot of praying going on. Luckily there were not that many people inside when we visited, although I did see Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Uzbek doppelganger. When the Bibi (HABIBI!) was first built, it didn’t last long before it started falling apart at the seams (not seams) (not a robot). Maybe it was too big, maybe it was built too fast, maybe it was seismic activity, maybe Tamerlane (remember we have learned about him in past posts but don’t worry we will talk about him again in a few minutes) was just too pissed at the architect for kissing his wife and so he cursed the place — all of these reasons have been put forward to explain the collapse. Yes even that last one. Apparently the architect fell in love with Tamerlane’s wife, whose name was Bibi Khanum so yeah not hard to believe since the mosque just happens to be named after her. So legend goes, Archie kissed Bibi and it permanently scarred her lips, so Tamerlane was suitably pissed and called for the executioner, but Archie climbed to the top of a minaret, sprouted wings, and flew to Persia. I don’t believe it, but I am not surprised that yet another ancient tale has only the woman, the one who didn’t do anything but get victimized, be the only one who actually suffers punishment. Cool story bros.
Honestly the best meal in Samarkand was our hotel breakfast. And our hotel was the best place in town. I’m so obsessed. L’Argamak was brand spanking new, so everything was super clean and fresh and lovely. And the staff was the nicest, most accommodating I’ve ever encountered. They bent over backward to make sure we had everything to our liking, which can get really uncomfortable but they were just so goddamn kind that it was great. And the breakfast was gorgeous. They have all these fruits and jams made from fruit growing in their garden. Loves it.