Mandalay is a large city in Myanmar (the country many older English speakers still call Burma). It sits inland, on the Irrawaddy River, and was once a royal capital. In the US and UK the name is famous less from travel than from an old poem and song — The Road to Mandalay — and an old film with the same name, so it can sound romantic and far away even to people who have never been there. In the news and in travel writing it is simply the city.