Mandalay to Bagan sunrise cruise


Traveling on the Ayeyarwady river from Mandalay to Bagan is one of the tours in Myanmar that I found really worth the money. Even though the boat trip costs about 55 US dollars. I found it to be worth every cent. We were picked up by a very polite and friendly Burmese taxi driver at 05:00 AM. The boat pier was not crowded at that time of the day and we were lucky to be on a boat with a capacity of 50 people with only 15 more fellows traveling the same direction.

There was plenty of space for everyone. Soon after we left Mandalay the sun started rising and we had some really nice views of the surrounding shore and the river itself.

The trip took almost 11 hours. As we’re in dry season I guess this is not too bad. The river does not carry as much water as it would during the rain period. But still we were able to complete the journey without stranding like in Battambang.