Hsipaw back to Mandalay

On February 13th, I headed to the train station with the three Canadians with whom I'd been trekking. We caught a train together to Mandalay, which took a long time, but was good for a few photo opportunities and some conversation.

There were LOTS of pineapples for sale at the train station.






We stopped every once in a while at different stations, which sometimes make for good photo opportunities, like these kids playing with an old rail truck:




Crossing the Gokteik Viaduct again, we leaned out and took more photos like this one:




Even the locals get up to stare out the windows as we pass over the viaduct:




At one point, we locked Luke out of the train for a bit:




And later we had ice cream at another station. It wasn't too tasty, but it looked nice!




We arrived fairly late in Mandalay, headed to the Nylon Hotel, and in the morning I got up nice and early to buy a ticket and catch a train north to Myitkyina. My room in Mandalay was on the roof, and this is what I saw when I woke up and looked way down to the street:




I left Mandalay at noon, and took loads of photos from the train, which will be posted in a couple days.