Mandalay is located North of Yangon and formerly the capital of Burma. While preparing for this trip, I only expected to be amazed by Bagan but Mandalay was quite a pleasant surprise and provided a perfect end to our Burma trip. Thanks to our new found friends Kriz and Apol (whom we "made alliances" with in Bagan, hehe), we not only got to share the tour expenses with 2 more tourists but they also chanced upon the taxi driver Ye Lwin who toured us to the most important places to see.
On the first day, we visited the Shwenandaw Kyaung teak temple near Mandalay Hill. It had very intricate carvings and is definitely one of the prettiest temples I've seen to date. We then proceeded to the largest book in the world which is Kuthodaw Pagoda. This is a funny story. When we entered the temple (which at this point of the trip we were so immune to doing after visiting a LOT in Yangon and Bagan), we started looking for a literal book complete with its cover and pages only to find out that we were actually "inside" the book. The whole place apparently houses the pages. They were made of marble tablets with the teachings inscribed in these stones and were encased in rows and rows of mini stone houses.
