YANGON, March 11 (Xinhua) -- Horse-drawn carriages, which have been used as low-cost transport means over the past century in Myanmar's second largest city of Mandalay, is facing elimination, Myanmar Digital News reported Sunday.
Fare for the horse-drawn carriages is the cheapest for getting around Mandalay, however, in the coming years, such carriages will slowly disappear, drivers from the horse-drawn carriage station were quoted as saying.
Until now, people from Moekaung Market, Seinpan Ward and Ayartun Ward used these carts, so do visitors from nearby Sagaing region's Shwebo, Monywa, Chaung U, Ye U and Tentse towns travelling to western wards in Mandalay, the drivers said.
Over the past two decades, Mandalay residents mostly travel around by bicycles, motorbikes, trishaws, thus replacing horse-drawn carriages. However, the Inwa region, which foreigners mostly visit, still has hundreds of such horse-drawn carriages, the drivers added.
According to statistics, tourist arrivals in Mandalay increased by about 100,000 or 26 percent correspondingly, hitting 483,784 in 2017.
In 2016, 385,031 tourists visited the last royal capital, a year-on-year rise from 160,795 in 2012.
The majority of the visitors came from China, followed by France, Germany, Thailand and Britain.