Day 10: Mandalay - the Irrawaddy Literary Festival and the Lady!

I think today could be described as the most ridiculous and most exciting coincidence of the trip, if not my entire year. At our hotel, we become aware of a debut literary festival in our back garden with a big line up of names, Burmese but also Western with Louis De Berniers, Joan Bakewell, Martha Kearney and others - a lucky coincidence in itself! Made even more so by the fact the festival should have passed us by because the government at the last minute had forbidden use of the original hosting location, hence the move to our hotel. Then I catch sight of a literary agent I've met in London - weird, The final, most exciting coincidence, though - the Lady, Daw Su herself, Aung San Su Kyi was going to be there.

The tiniest room for Burma's Nelson Mandela seems ridiculous - there is no way we are going to get in... That is until they say 'all international authors first, please'. Suddenly we find ourselves in a group of convenient writers... Aka westerners who want to catch a glimpse but don't have a pass... So we rode the wave... And in we got. Not just in either, three rows back from AUNG SAN SU KYI with hundreds of surging fans all around us with iPads and camera phones going mental. I'm still buzzing. Oh. My. God.

Other than that casual morning... We made time for the city's top 3 sites - the old royal palace (a 2 square mile walled mini city at the centre of Mandalay, now a military base), then 'the worlds largest book' (a pagoda compound containing over 700 white temples, each with a tablet inside with ancient Buddhist teachings inscribed - quite a sight, as you can see!) and finishing with climbing Mandalay Hill to see the city from above. Another occasion for yet more strangers to grab my arm for photos with me... Peace sign everyone!

We also took a lovely trip up river to the almost abandoned ton of Mingun, home to an unfinished 19th century temple - built with a view to being the world's largest. It's big... Very big. But unfinished and post-earthquake, it looks like something out of The Mummy or Indiana Jones... Further in,and we are later witness to what, in my view, is the most beautiful pagoda we have seen yet. But my final thought? Why SO many pagodas in Myanmar?? In literally cannot imagine a place with more. It's nuts.