Belmond Bellini Bravissimo

The village lies not far from Mandalay along the Ayeyarwaddy river. 

Belmond Bellini club members walking through People's park enroute to Shwedagon pagoda. 

The Belmond Road to Mandalay has an incredible, full-length open top roof complete with pool and bar. Here, the guests are enjoying a longyi cocktail party. 

A Belmond Bellini club with her forehead decorated by local, traditionally made gold leaf. 

A Bellini club member waits for the Yangon circle train to arrive while chatting to a local. Three monks look on. 

A yoga instructor performs a demonstration of sunrise yoga aboard the rooftop of the Belmond Road to Mandalay.

A Bellini Club member getting thoroughly soaked during the water-carrying challenge.

One of the first activities on the trip was a visit to a local market to select food for a cooking lesson later in the day. 

One of the most appealing parts of The Governor's Residence is the grounds - lush, green and flowering. 

One of the Belmond Governor's Residence chef guiding Belmond Bellini Club members through a local market. 

Offered on the Belmond buggy tour, outside Bagan's Ananda Temple.

A Belmond Bellini Club member riding the Yangon circular train, one of the activities offered during the trip. The train is extremely popular with local commuters as it avoids the heavy local traffic and loops in a circle around the whole of Yangon. The full trip takes several hours. 

A child on their way to become a novice monk. The procession is loud, colourful and beautiful. 

A Belmond Bellini Club member photographs the High Court building in downtown Yangon, a building built under the British and recently renovated. 

Bellini club members wrote well-wishing messages on parts of the new building being constructed at the Bagan Belmond free clinic. 

Belmond Bellini members were treated to a meal inside a stunning disused teak monastery in Mandalay, opened solely for the Bravissimo trip. 

Chinlone is one of Myanmar's national sports, and these are some of the very few female practicioners and performers of the sport. 

Belmond Bellini club members participating in an alms giving ceremony in Mandalay.

Bellini Club members in front of the former Rowe & Co building, known as 'the Harrods of the East' under British rule. 

A Belmond Bellini Club member lighting the first few lamps of an oil lamp ceremony at Shwedagon pagoda, Yangon. There are several thousand lamps at each ceremony. 

A chanting ceremony in a Bagan temple Belmond guests were invited to attend.

One of the 4 modes of transport between the 4 Belmond Rally challenges. 

Inside each clay mould is a hand-cast bronze figure of Buddha from the bronze-works in Mandalay. 

Taken from the deck of the Road to Mandalay.

Belmond established the first Bagan buggy experience for the trip, allowing guests to travel along a route that e-bikes and buses could not have traversed.

A Belmond Bellini club member inspects on of the four enormous Buddha statues that decorate the interior of Ananda Temple, Bagan. 

Part of the flotilla of music-blasting small boats that accompanied the Road to Mandalay when it started its journey to Bagan.

Guide Win directing Belmond Bellini club members in Yangon central railway station. 

Several Bellini Club members taking part in the ceremony. 

The group was visiting a bronze-casting factory established in the grounds of a monastery in Mandalay.

Yound Burmese children often spend a number of months or years as novice monks and nuns. This procession, complete with loud music, dancing and immaculately dressed novices, is the start of that journey. 

Bellini club members boarding the Belmond Road to Mandalay, which is moored at a private jetty on the Ayeyarwaddy river, just outside Mandalay. 

This challenge involved using basic, hand-powered machinery to chop and mix food for the village's cows. 

The challenge: to roll and cook as many rice balls as possible in a short period of time. 

The temple complex of Sagaing is in the background. 

One of the musicians performing traditional Burmese music on the Belmond Road to Mandalay.

Belmond provides a breakfast of traditional Burmese Mohingya for all of the visitors to their sponsored clinic in Bagan.

Two male dancers, one dressed as a woman and one as a slightly grotesque figure, followed at the rear of the procession. 

Part of the crowd watching the Belmond Rally.

Some of the villagers watching the Belmond Rally.

A Belmond Bellini Club member looks out over Bagan from the viewing tower.

Free mohingya breakfast at the Belmond free clinic in Bagan.

1 villages, 4 teams, 4 challenges, 4 modes of transport - only one victor. 

Making gold leaf is big business in Myanmar, as many religious sites in Yangon make use of it. Mahamuni temple in Mandalay is the most obvious example of this. 

Belmond Bellini Club members donating school supplies to children from the Belmond-supported village. 

The Road to Mandalay is too deep to moor on the banks of the Ayeyarwaddy in Bagan, so guests are ferried to and from the ship by a small fleet of colourful wooden boats. 

Schoolchildren at a Belmond-supported village perform their daily exercises. 

One of the 4 modes of transport used during the Belmond Rally.

Belmond Bellini club members chat next to a bronze statue of General Aung San, father both of Aung San Suu Kyi and modern Myanmar. 

Burmese villagers enjoying watching Belmond Bellini Club members spilling copious amounts of water over themselves in the water-carrying challenge. 

Doctor Hla Tun giving a speech to Bellini Club members at the free Belmond clinic in Bagan.

The final performance at the Sharky's farewell dinner, the elephant dance.

The happy conclusion of the Sharky's farewell dinner.