In Yangon, you can check in to a guesthouse; take a nap; walk the couple of kilometres into town, where religious services proceed to the sound of prayer songs and clapping; and visit a brace of two thousand-year-old gold stupas, all by noon.
In Yangon, you can also watch people get beaten.
One afternoon, at the train station, several policemen gather around a dishevelled man loitering on the steps. One officer pulls out a large wooden stick, about the size of a baseball bat but slightly longer and thinner. The officer holds the stick in the air menacingly then starts to beat the man, whacking him until he finally gathers himself up and leaves the premises.
During the government's crackdown last September, soldiers were filmed striking demonstrators in the same way. The CNN reporter was shocked and I am, too. I've just seen a policeman beat someone with a bat for five minutes. And no one stopped him.
AFTER ABOUT 14 HOURS ON the train to Mandalay, it goes dark. The light bulbs and fans rocking from the carriage ceiling are not operational after dusk.
The inconvenience is forgotten when the train reaches the U Bein Bridge, a 200-year-old teak pedestrian bridge - the longest in the world - that stretches across a lake in the former royal city of Amarapura. People pause to watch the sun set over the glittering water and are just happy to be here. The monks seem the happiest - climbing trees, wrestling and posing for photographs.
The Lonely Planet guidebook tells you that in Mandalay, you have to see the Moustache Brothers.
