Day 42: Mandalay

The first day of the Thingyan festival in Myanmar! We woke up excited to hit the streets and find out what the festival was all about.

One thing we hadn’t planned well was our laundry. We were both completely out of clothes and desperately needed a wash done, but hadn’t accounted for everything being closed for the festival. After brekky we decided to try our luck anyway, so after putting our phones and money into the waterproof pouches provided by the hotel, we went out for a wander to look for a laundromat.

It was crazy to see the streets so empty! The street alongside the mall that had been completely packed with motorbikes two days ago was now deserted. It was quite eerie, but we did enjoy being able to walk without concern of walking into someone or something, or getting owned by a motorbike.

Once we reached the mall we headed off the main street to try our luck for a laundry in the market area. Although we didn’t find one, we did find many kids in paddling pools with buckets and water guns, stoked to have some foreigners to soak. Many also had an adult with a hose nearby which left us with no chance to stay remotely dry. It was a lot of fun dodging the water throwers on the way back to the hotel, and probably a good thing that we weren’t going to be navigating the streets with a bag of clean dry laundry.

After dumping our washing back at the hotel and preparing for the heart of the water festival by getting into our togs and lighter clothing, we headed out towards the palace square. The water festival is organised around the square, with two sides dedicated to music stages and water throwing, and one side dedicated to food. The fourth side was open to traffic and just had the usual locals spread out along the roads soaking everyone on motorbikes and the back of trucks.

Riding on the back of trucks was a popular way for the locals to enjoy the water festival. It gives them prime position to soak people on the side of the road as well as other trucks. They also end up getting drenched as the drivers seemed to like to stop where there were hoses set up to cover those on the back with water!

We first walked along the southern side of the square, which had many water spraying stations set up. It was a lot of fun getting amongst it, and the locals were quick to involve us, getting us soaked before asking for a photo. We had taken bottles of drinking water with us, so once these were empty we filled them with moat water so we could get involved in the water throwing. Everyone was really happy which created a great atmosphere, and the drunk locals stumbling around in what is usually such a conservative place provided great entertainment!

As we approached the end of this side, we stumbled across a bar and thought it would be rude not to check it out. The beer was cheap, only 1000 kyat ($1) a glass, so we parked up in the shade for a couple each while enjoying the water festival vibes. There were a few cheeky locals around who were enjoying buying cold bottles of water and tipping them down our backs, so we didn’t manage to dry off! It did help to survive the heat though at nearly 40 degrees.

Eventually we thought it was time to continue walking or we would never leave. The next side of the square was for food. Gazebos lined both sides of the road, giving the locals some shade while they prepared street food. It was pretty quiet while we were there at around 3.30pm but we imagine it would pack out at dinner time!

The next side of the square was open to traffic and didn’t have too much going on. One side of the road was in the shade and there were still locals around throwing water which was enough to keep us cool. There was one large party bar halfway down the street which had music absolutely blasting. We went to check it out but tickets were required. On day 1 you pay 5000 kyat for a ticket, and each day from there the tickets get more expensive and peak in price on day 4. For 45,000 kyat ($45) you could get a pass for the whole festival. We didn’t want to hang around here for long so decided not to go in and continued on our walk.

As we approached the corner to get to the final side, a local asked me to poor water on his son (maybe around 2 years old). I happily obliged, but then felt terrible when the kid burst out in tears. We moved on pretty quickly from there!

The final side of the square was lined with huge stages blasting electronic music, and again had entry fees that worked in the same manner as above. There were hoses lined across the front of the stages which people we’re using to spray over the crowds dancing below. The locals absolutely love it, dancing like crazy and getting completely drenched! There was a lot of surface water pooling over the roads and locals were even swimming in this! It was pretty mental to see with people raving on cars, swimming in the gutter and generally causing a rukus. We’ve never seen anything like it in New Zealand.

The other side of the road was used for traffic and was packed with motorbikes. It made it quite difficult to navigate this side of the square, having to leave in between the partying people, motorbikes and a few locals selling food on the island down the middle of the road.

While walking along we were keeping our eyes peeled for another pub to roll into. We didn’t see one that meet the setup of the first bar we were at, so we continued around the square for a second time to get back to it.

This time we decided we would go all in and get a tower ($10). Value wise it is similar to buying cups of beer individually, but then you don’t get the experience! With the tower Kyle scored himself a cool little Myanmar hat. We also got some food at the bar this time – spring rolls and fried vegetables with rice all for $3.50.

We were sitting and enjoying our feast when two local brothers parked up at the table as one of them wanted to yarn to practice his English. They had come up from Bagan and we’re really friendly, however, also quite drunk so it was difficult to understand what he was trying to say most of the time. Anyway, it was interesting to listen to them yarn and provided some entertainment while we demolished the tower!

After finishing the beer we headed back to the hotel for dinner as we weren’t sure of restaurant hours during the festival. We had the pork green curry and tea leaf salad. Both were tasty but were very small servings for the price!