The Yankin Hill - hiking in Mandalay

Last Monday we had a holiday and one of the classes in which I’m teaching, decided to use this free day for an excursion to the Yankin Hill at the outskirts of Mandalay. For this occasion they invited their two volunteer-teachers (Dorotka, the Czech girl, and me) and four of their Burmese teachers to come along. At this point I have to say that I found it quite impressive that the kids organised this whole trip on their own – considering that back home it sometimes has been too complicated for a teacher to plan an excursion with a class… AND the organisation turned out to be really good: all the students (and teachers) knew where and when to meet and so we got picked up in the morning by cars and drove to the hill.

The sun was shining and promising to make it a quite hot day, as we started to climb up some really steep steps to the first platform on our way. Enjoying the great view on Mandalay and the surrounding mountains, the kids made clear that this hill was even higher than the Mandalay Hill and partly they wouldn’t even dare to look down! So after taking a short rest there we went on and made our way from one pagoda to the other until we reached a small monastery on the top. From here on we didn’t have to go any further up as there is a kind of loop road starting there. Every five minutes (or probably even more frequently) the kids asked Dorotka and me whether we were already feeling tired and somewhen around this time our answers slowly changed from “no, we’re fine” over “a little” to an honest “yes, very.” After enjoying the coolness of two very nice and mystic caves (with Pagodas in it, obviously) and some good wishes on different ponds and wells, we all sat down next to one stupa thankful for the shade and the soft breeze around us. Afterwards we went to another platform with an impressive view where we had a huge picnic for lunch.

 

 

Having finished lunch we slowly started our way back down again and after quite a few more pagodas, we eventually reached the parking lot safe and sound. While waiting for the Pick-up the kids cheerfully started to sing songs (reaching from ‘twinkle, twinkle little star’ to ‘I have a dream’) and we all welcomed the heavy rain bringing at least a little change from the heat on our way back home.