Mandalay City Trip Part 1 - Booking the Tour

After spending a few days of cycling around Bagan, we then went straight to Mandalay. We were contemplating on taking a ferry boat to Mandalay but opted to take the bus instead due to budget constraints. Getting to Mandalay is easy as you can buy your bus tickets directly from your guesthouses. Upon arriving to Mandalay bus station, there are plenty of taxis that could take you to your hostel. The bus station is quite far from where we opted to stay and we paid $15 which I think was quite expensive. Luckily, we shared the taxi with three more travelers so we just paid $3 per person.

We stayed at Royal Guesthouse and the room cost us $15 for a double fan room with shared bathroom. Although it’s not that cheap, it’s very comfortable and also clean and surprisingly fast wifi. The other travelers who we shared the taxi with also opted to stay in the same hostel.

Booking the City Tour

We really don’t have any plans when we arrived at Mandalay but some taxi drivers approached us and discussed some sights and places where they could take us. The price for a taxi cost around $35 for Amarapura, Inwa and Sagaing. We also talked to some travel agencies and the cost was also the same.

We have decided to not book as of the moment and try to commute to those tourist spots instead the next day. Fortunately, when we were walking back to our hostel after dinner, we met a guy who has a small pickup truck and offered to take us to the three places for only $15. He said that his vehicle could accommodate six people and if we could find more people then we could split the cost. We also discuss the cost of going to Mingun and Mandalay Hill and agreed to a price of $35.

The challenge then would be to look for more people to share the tour with to split the cost. Luckily, one of the travelers that we met earlier was still awake and we asked her if she would like to join and she said yes. Splitting the cost now to three people made it very affordable.

The following morning while having breakfast, we met the other two travelers that we shared the taxi with on our way to the guesthouse and asked them if they’d be interested to join the tour. They said yes and we were able to lower the cost more for everyone. We tried to look for one more but unfortunately did not find another traveler to join us but it wasn’t that bad anymore since we will be splitting the cost of the tour to five people.

Taken at Amarapura