On the Road to Mandalay

© Wagaung

By the old Moulmein Pagoda,
Lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin',
And I know she thinks o' me

Less than a fortnight ago, I found myself on Kipling's fabled road to Mandalay.

Hubby and I had landed at Mandalay International Airport, about an hour's drive from Mandalay proper - "international" being a mildly amusing misnomer as the only planes which fly in and out of this white elephant come from within Burma itself, apart from the occasional flight to Kunming.

© Wagaung

The journey to the centre of town is a joy - noisy, dusty, beautiful and bumpy with all manner of picturesque traffic like sidecar rickshaws, scooters and beasts of burden.

I love Yangon with all my heart, yet it's not till I get to Mandalay that I feel that I've truly come home.

But that's all shove be'ind me -- long ago an' fur away,
An' there ain't no 'busses runnin' from the Bank to Mandalay;
An' I'm learnin' 'ere in London what the ten-year soldier tells:
"If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed naught else."

Mandalay was never actually home for me, but it's where my beloved grandparents lived all their lives, and I've been back and forth since I was eight years old, so in some ways I feel like I grew up there.

My father and both brothers were all born in Mandalay, but to my everlasting chagrin, I first opened my eyes in the rather more prosaic Margate.

One of the other reasons I adore Mandalay is the plethora of street eats.

Safety rules and regs are few and far between in Burma (for example, car seatbelts have yet to manifest themselves), but a few years back in Yangon, some jobsworths saw fit to sweep away all the roadside vendors and most of the street cafes.

But in Mandalay, such places persist and for this I am truly grateful.

© Wagaung

Our first port of call is this Indian tea shop called ပန္‌းသခင္‌​ (Hbun Thakin or Flower Lord), where we hunker down on tiny stools to be served one of the finest breakfasts known to man - a metal platter of aloo poori.

First thing in the morning, nothing beats dunking huge, crispy, fresh-fried puffbreads in luscious curried potatoes, tamarind sauce and okra stew.

On the side, there's samosas to snack on, cabbage shreds and onion chunks to crunch, lime to squeeze, and tiny chillies and mint leaves to chew.

My father plumps for his favourite dish of samusa thohk - samosa salad, about which the great Madhur Jaffrey had this to say:

"One of the most unusual Burmese-Indian creations in the market is a samosa salad. Two very Indian snacks, deep-fried, savoury pastries and split pea fritters, along with boiled potatoes and tomatoes, are crumbled and dressed with lime juice, as well as a sauce made with dal, rather like a thin, south Indian sambar".

Madhur Jaffrey's Ultimate Curry Bible (Ebury Press, 2003)

No! you won't 'eed nothin' else
But them spicy garlic smells,
An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the tinkly temple-bells;
On the road to Mandalay . . .

And now we're actually home, back in cold and blustery Blighty, and I'd give anything to be back on that roadside, sipping cups of hot green tea and chewing on sprigs of mint.

I am sick o' wastin' leather on these gritty pavin'-stones,
An' the blasted English drizzle wakes the fever in my bones

ပန္‌းသခင္‌​ Tea Shop
Junction of 80th and 35th Street
Mandalay
Burma

Watch take-away samusa thohk being made:

(Excerpts from Mandalay by Rudyard Kipling)