Experiencing Mandalay Air

It was an emotional moment for me when I had to bid farewell to the ancient city of Bagan. I really liked it and I wish I could stay there longer but then I didn’t want to miss Inlay – another place which is gaining more and more popularity among tourists to Myanmar nowadays. Due to limitation in time, I had to choose between Mandalay and Inlay but thinking that Mandalay was probably just another city – even more modern than Yangon that I was told – Inlay had to prevail in the end.

Thinking of all the precious hours that I was going to waste if I took a bus, I decided to fish out a little bit of my hard-earned money over a flight ticket so that I could fly from Bagan to Inlay on a Mandalay Air. The flight was delayed due to heavy rain in Yangon – something that I had initially failed to apprehend the relevance of until it all came to me in a form of amusement.

Apparently, there was only one flight to fly from Yangon to Bagan then on to Mandalay then to Inlay before returning to Yangon. Meaning, I was going get to go to Mandalay although I could only see it from the window of the flight. Uhuks!

With more and more passengers coming in due to delays of flights, the airport was becoming more and more crowded. I was amused to see how the airport personnel were very handy when it comes to handling the huge number of people, which was now over-spilling. They were so handy by bringing in more chairs and they’d even re-arrange these chairs from time to time. I found it not only funny and amusing but also admiring.

When the flight had finally arrived, I got on the plane, thinking of whatever things that might lay before me in Inlay. Mandalay Air was quite alright, and I’ve got no complaints about it at all. Of course just like most other airlines, they really know how to feed the eyes of their passengers by taking in pretty young ladies as their flight attendants. 2 hours suddenly felt nothing at all. Or was it 3 hours? LOL!

Just when I thought everything was going to run smoothly from there, it was suddenly announced that the transit would take longer because the airport in Inlay was temporarily out of space.

The passengers were given the choice of staying in the plane – which was quite impossible because they had switched off the engines and it was getting too hot in there – or getting off the plane and enjoy the fresh air of Mandalay. Of course I did not want to miss the golden opportunity of taking a walk AROUND an aircraft – something that I had never had any opportunity of doing anywhere else before.

I’ve been on a flight quite so many times in my life but not once did I ever get to see it up close from the outside so it was quite an experience for me. I spent quite a bit of time looking at every detail of the plane. It took me back to my Form 5 Physics Class when I learned about the aerodynamics of a plane – only this time it was visually real 😛

The first thing that I noticed when I got off the plane at the Heho Airport was the cold temperature. It must be around 15 degrees I had to hastily put my jacket on before I caught a cold so unnecessarily. I walked straight out of the airport, towards the gate where a horde of taxi drivers were waiting.

That was when I found out that there were no public transports to take passengers from the airport to Inlay. All the buses that I saw parked at the parking lot belonged to tour companies so I had no choice but taking a taxi.

USD20 did sound quite expensive to me at first, and I was cursing because none of the taxis would take me for anything lower than that. And they were not even taxis but more like mini pick-up trucks which were probably meant for transporting farm crops. Of course that was before I found out how far Inlay was from the airport – and the road was quite rough.

USD20 suddenly felt like – OK. The taxi driver spoke very limited English that asking him about anything was almost impossible. Thanks God he immediately nodded his head when I showed him the address of the hotel that I wanted to go to.

One good thing about taking a taxi is that you’ll be sent right to the door of your hotel. Entering the town area requires you to pay USD10  at the entrance gate – which is still OK to me considering how hotel rooms in Inlay are quite cheap compared to – say – those in Bagan.

It was a hotel recommended to me by Audrey, but quite true to what she said about it, they did not have any room for me. They recommended another hotel not far from there and I instantly took it after I was offered USD15 for a not-so-bad room.

I’ve been to so many hotels of different prices and probably classes but finding a tooth brush and a tooth paste among the free kit was never a common thing to come upon. There were more sockets than they probably were in a much more expensive room. Heh.

Having refreshed myself with a hot shower, I was ready to explore Inlay. Yippies!