Day trip to the royal cities Amarapura & Ava (L)

You will be picked up at your hotel around 8:00 a.m. Together with your guide you will travel to Amarapura. The ‘City of Immortality’, located around eleven kilometres south of Mandalay, was the capital of Upper Burma until 1850. Along with the surviving pagodas, the ancient silk- and cotton-weaving tradition using handlooms is very much alive there. You will take a rowing boat across Taungthaman Lake to the picturesque village of Taungthaman; return to Amarapura via the U Bein bridge, which, at 1,200 metres in length, is one of the world’s longest teakwood bridges; and visit a mill where the art of weaving is still performed using handlooms. In the afternoon, continue to Ava (short ferry crossing). From 1364 onwards, Ava (Inwa) spent almost five hundred years as the most prominent royal city in the country, barring brief periods of interruption. Explore this small island by horse-drawn carriage, which lies at the confluence of the Myitnge and Ayeyarwady rivers. You will ascend the 27-metre-high watchtower and visit both the Maha Aung Mye Bonzan Monastery, one of the few existing monasteries to be built from bricks and stucco, and the Bagayar Monastery, which is still regarded as one of the most beautiful traditional wooden monasteries. In the late afternoon, return to Mandalay.