Mandalay.

 Mandalay photos from 26-May-2012. 

Mandalay is such a planar city & a conscious effort has to constantly be made to seek out something interesting in it. Really, Mandalay isn't a place conspicuously dotted with attractions or exciting cultural monuments, neither does it have places like museums where tourists might be drawn to. All it seems to have are grid rows of tenement blocks painted in unconventional colors, a few shopping centers, and very heavy traffic in the daytime. Yet, moving away from the obliviously busy city centre, you get charming places Mandalay Hill & Mahamuni Paya, where Myanmar really lifts its veil.

 Mobile noodles is an essential because in the daytime, one can hardly find any food in Mandalay unless one's willing to splurge on a 2000kyat/dish meal.

 Surprisingly, the nights of Mandalay get really exciting. Food stalls start springing up by the roadsides & along corridors of closed shops. Don't shy away from the Mandalay night. There's even a night market every night just a few feet away from the clock tower at the city centre which sells lots of Aung San Suu Kyi & Angry Bird merchandise. (It's ridiculous juxtaposing these 2 subjects but it just happens at almost every market in Myanmar)

Minus the artificial lights & color of the sky, that is what you get in the daytime. But I truly love the night in Mandalay, that's indeed when you can draw a parallel between vibrant Southeast Asian cities' night scenes - they all inadvertently revolve around the subject of 'food'.