By the time our 7 weeks on Gili T finally came to an end we were more than ready for a change of scene, so we were happy to get back on the road. After an unnecessarily long boat ride and drive across Bali, we'd planned it so we only had to stay one night in this part of the country. We were staying right by the airport so we could walk there in the morning, but we did treat ourselves that night to an all-you-can-eat BBQ feast at the Sky Garden in Kuta. We wanted to avoid that area at all costs, but for only $5 to stuff your face with delicious meaty goodness, who could resist?
Luckily we landed in Bangkok at a reasonable time, because the bus took 3 hours to get into Khao San Road due to ridiculously heavy traffic. But we only had to pay less than $1 each so it was worth it to avoid paying the over-priced taxis. With just a few days in the capital to have a look around and show John some of the sights, and apply for our Myanmar (formerly called Burma) visas, we had no time to waste. Aside from beating the feet, we made good use of the cheap public buses and river boats to get around the city.
The two main tourist sights we hit up were Wat Pho (Temple of the Reclining Buddha) and Golden Mount. Wat Pho is understandably popular because of the massive golden reclining Buddha statue which is 43m long and pimped out with inlaid mother of pearl on the soles of the statue's feet. It is pretty impressive.
Next up, for a bit more gold action, we climbed to the top of Golden Mount, which is part of Wat Saket temple. The easy walk up the 300 steps leads you to the baking hot rooftop terrace, where you can bang a gong or two and check out the 360 degree view of Bangkok. One thing that marks this place as different to others, is that back in the day it was used as a crematorium and the dumping ground for thousands of plague victims. There was a resident swarm of vultures that hung around the temple, so before being cremated, body parts were fed to these hungry carrion-eaters first. And that explains the weird and slightly creepy 'scene' that's been created to depict this very process at the bottom of the temple.
Aside from general wandering around and eating our fill of tasty Thai food, we also had to take care of some business in Bangkok - applying for our visas to Myanmar (formerly known as Burma). As with most visa applications there's a lot of fucking around and endless waiting, and this was no different. It could have been much worse though, so after handing in our applications and paying, we had to wait the whole weekend until we could get them back on a Monday afternoon. They never actually guarantee you'll get it when they take your money, but we've never been denied. Touch wood! So after a weekend of drinking cold Chang beers and cruising around town, we returned to collect our visas, loaded up with our backpacks and ready to head straight to the bus station. And so it was with visas in hand that we headed off to cross into a country we knew fuck all about.
While Myanmar isn't exactly off the beaten path, it's definitely the new kid on the block in Southeast Asia for tourism. So much so, that up until recently the only way in/out of the country was to fly. However, in December 2013 the land borders with Thailand opened up so we decided to take advantage of this new way in. We had planned on crossing over via the northern border close to Chiang Mai, but once you're in that part of Myanmar you can only travel a very small distance because that region is still closed off to tourists. So we chose to enter from Mae Sot (the Thailand side) which was an overnight bus from Bangkok. We arrived at about 4am though, so we had to try and get some sleep on hard wooden benches in the bus station until we could get a tuk tuk to the border at about 7:30/8am.
The border crossing and immigration process was a piece of piss, and the immigration officer even asked me if I'd had breakfast yet. Not sure where he was going with that, but it's better than being bribed like at other borders! Once in Myanmar we walked to the 'bus station' to get a local bus across country. We had planned on going to a place about halfway to Yangon to see the Golden Rock (a big golden rock perched precariously on the edge of a cliff), but despite it being halfway to Yangon they still wanted to charge the same price. So we said screw that and went all the way to Yangon instead. The first 50 or so kilometres of the road is so bad that it flows in one direction only on alternating days. So you have to time your border crossing right to get the traffic going in the right direction. The trip all the way to Yangon ended up taking 13 hours, meaning we didn't arrive until nearly midnight. We had planned on taking the same route out of the country, but none of us were keen to repeat the experience so the next day we booked flights out instead.
Since gaining independence in 1948 Myanmar has had a pretty volatile time, with a lot of the ethnic groups being involved in one of the world's longest-running unresolved civil wars. This probably explains why a lot of the country (mainly in the north and far east) is out of bounds for tourists. There is also a lot of conflict between religious groups in certain areas, so it seems that civil unrest is unlikely to be completely eradicated. The country was run by a military dictatorship, but this was apparently officially dissolved in 2011. To what extent this is true is a bit unclear though, as a few locals we talked to said the military still maintains control over the government and most of the economy. With the release of the human rights activist Aung San Suu Kyi and an upcoming election they are hopeful for positive change, but only time will tell.
Yangon (formerly Rangoon), was the capital of Myanmar until 2005. It's still the largest city in the country at over 5 million people, and it has so many different cultural influences that it's a bit of a schizophrenic city in that it doesn't really seem to know who/what it is. But this mixture of British, Burmese, Chinese and Indian influences does make it an interesting city to roam around, seeing all these cultures living and working side by side. One other little anomaly that takes a while to notice, is that there are no motorbikes in this city, which is very strange for Asia. There are several rumours why they were banned, varying in degrees of absurdity - one of them is that a person on a motorbike made a threatening gesture to a military general; another, that some of 'the authorities' got nervous about the possibility of an attack on one of their cars by a nimble motorcyclist. Whatever the reason, motorbikes are now illegal. Here's another interesting, and very bizarre, fact for you: one day in 1970 the leader, a General, decided that effective immediately, the entire country would drive on the opposite side of the road. Fuck the nightmare that would cause in logistics, it's happening people. Again, there are a couple of theories floating about as to why. One is that the General had a dream that the country should switch sides; another is that his decision was made on the advice of a wizard. Either way, this General was obviously slightly unhinged and had way too much power, as it now means that when you get off a bus you step directly into the flow of oncoming traffic. Not what I would call a well thought out decision. But I digress. There are a few touristy things to do in Yangon, but of course they all come at a cost. We went for a walk to a big park with a lake in it, but even they wanted to charge us $3 to enter. For a public park! Get fucked. We were happy to spend a day wandering around and eating some pretty good street food, but overall we weren't interested in spending much time at all in Yangon. So we very quickly got on a bus out of there.
Our second stop was Bagan, which is home to the largest and densest concentration of Buddhist temples, pagodas, stupas and ruins in the world. Now that's something to write home about. Upon entering the town all tourists have to stop at a checkpoint and pay US$10 each, a fee for the Bagan Archaeological Zone. One guy on our tuk tuk must have been given a ticket by someone who'd already been to Bagan, but the official wasn't having a bar of it and the guy ended up paying anyway. Worth a shot. Because we'd arrived ridiculously early again, once we'd found a guesthouse and gotten ourselves sorted we rented bicycles and headed out to check out some of these ancient structures. There are about 3,000 in total so we didn't have a shit-show in hell of seeing even a fraction of them, but after just 2 or 3 hours of riding around in the dusty heat, we were already pretty templed out. Believe me, it doesn't take long. There are some pretty impressive ones which stand out from the others for one reason or another (a bit of gold here, a really tall spire there), and the general landscape viewed from the top of some is quite spectacular - temples and pagodas sticking up and dotted everywhere as far as the eye can see. I have no idea why so many were built in one place, but it's very unique.
In one of those strange coincidences, we'd recently been talking about how we'd made it over 2.5 years without getting food poisoning. Maybe we jinxed ourselves, but that lucky streak came to an end in Bagan. An hour or two after we got back to our room one night, I started feeling sick and was promptly cascading at both ends. Too much information? Sorry. After a few rounds of spewing I just felt like shit and kept having to go to the toilet, but Kurt seemed to be OK – he just complained of feeling really full. But then at about 6am it was his turn. Luckily for him he just needed one big upchuck, but then for the rest of the day we felt like absolute dogs bollocks. And when Kurt went to check on John we found he’d met the same fate – his sudden and violent chundering came on at about midnight, so he was also happy to spend the day in bed and in close proximity to the toilet. Obviously there was no temple sightseeing that day.
The following day we'd planned on checking out some more temples and then getting a night bus to Inle Lake. However, these plans were thwarted when we were told there were no more seats available, so we had to make a quick decision and change our route. We ended up getting a minivan to Mandalay instead, and as that left in an hour we had no more time to go templing (yes, I may have just created a verb there). In the end we had significantly less time than we intended to see this temple strewn area, but it wasn't the end of the world. I was fairly confident it wouldn't be the last chance to see temples in Asia.
Mandalay ended up being just a stopover where we did basically nothing. Not that there's nothing to see in this city, it's just that as per usual it all cost too much. Well, more than we were willing to pay anyway. But we were more than happy to spend two nights there as we were staying at a great hostel that had been recommended to us. With a welcome drink and fresh watermelon dished out on arrival, icy cold air con, an awesome breakfast, lovely staff and the friendliest and most motherly host you could ask for, we were happy to just hang around 'home' and use the wifi, venturing out for food and beer. So if you ever find yourself in Mandalay, stay at Yoe Yoe Lay Guesthouse.
While walking along the road back to the guesthouse one day, a local guy rode up beside us and was keen to practice his English. He was a retired English professor and asked us to have a tea and a chat. We were all wary of a scam and just figured he'd get us to pay for the tea so he'd get a free drink. As long as it wasn't $500 tea like the infamous Beijing tea scam. In the end we had a (reasonably priced) tea and talked to him for about 45mins and he told us some interesting stuff about the country. Like that only three days before we arrived the whole city was under curfew because of fighting between the Muslims and the government. Apart from that he seemed to be keen to just show off his English skills, so we were thankful to get out of it for the price of a tea.
From Mandalay we got an early morning bus up into the hills to a small town called Hsipaw (pronounced see-paw). The big drawcard for tourists here is hiking into the hills to local villages for up to three days. We only had a day and a half in Hsipaw though, so we grabbed a map from the guesthouse and went for a walk out through the rice fields to a nearby waterfall, and back around the town. After sweating our asses of in the scorching sun for several hours, we were lucky enough to finish just as the rain started. Hsipaw town itself is pretty small, but we still managed to find some tasty local Shan noodles, enormous and juicy pineapples and even some really good steamed buns. If there's good cheap food around, we'll find it.
We'd originally planned to get the train from Mandalay to Hsipaw as it's supposed to be the most scenic ride in the country, but on hearing that it took upwards of 12 hours (versus about 7 in a bus) we decided to alter that a bit. Our revised plan was to take the train from Hsipaw to Pyin Oo Lwin (unbelievably, that is a proper place name), which was a shorter journey. When we bought the tickets we decided to splash out on first class tickets, which set us back a whopping $2.75 each. Obviously you can't expect too much for a price like that, but the seats were fairly big and comfortable-ish and there was loads of legroom (very rare in Asia). So, not knowing exactly how long this notoriously late and slow-running train would take, we settled in for a potentially long ride.
It started off very slowly, but as soon as the train picked up any speed it was abso-fucking-lutely insane - it was more like being on a rollercoaster or a boat in raging seas the way we were rocking and rolling about. I don't know how long those tracks will last, but it was mental. Apart from that, the scenery really was stunning, and everyone was up and about taking photos as we crossed over the Goktiek Viaduct. The view to the gorge about 300m below and the surrounding valley was gorgeous, but I didn't realise quite how precarious our trail was until Kurt suggested I look out the window - the train tracks were literally inches from nothingness. Not anything even remotely resembling guard rails or whatever normally surrounds such precarious tracks. Just a free fall to the gully below. Thankfully we were almost across at this point, because it's not the sort of detail you really want to know about in advance. In the end the train was almost, miraculously, on time. It still took about 8 hours, but it was a very scenic route and nice for a change. The same couldn't be said for Pyin Oo Lwin. Being a hill station, which the British set up back in the day as a place to escape the heat of the lower lying areas, one might expect a lush, attractive town. Not so. It seemed to be more of a shithole, so after one night we were out of there.
After 3 hours sitting in the back of a shared taxi (a little pickup truck with wooden benches on either side) crammed in with locals, we headed back to Yoe Yoe Lay in Mandalay. Mama (as everyone called the lovely owner) had said we were more than welcome to take showers and relax there for the day until our bus left for Inle Lake that night. They even booked our bus tickets for us. Now that's what I call service. Our overnight bus turned out to be pretty lush too - air con, big, comfy seats with pillow and blanket and even water and a snack. The level of service can be quite surprising on some long-distance buses in Asia.
Once again (I don't know why they time buses like this in Myanmar) we arrived in Inle Lake at about 4:30am. Well, when I say arrived, I mean we were dropped off on the side of the road about 10km from where we wanted to be. Most bus stations or drop-off points in Asia are miles from the centre of town - a very well-planned tactic to get more money off tourists who then need further transport into the centre. As usual, the tuk tuk drivers all tell you the flat price into town is x amount. We always refuse as we know they're bullshitting us, and we always end up getting it for cheaper, sometimes for a fuck of a lot less. One bonus about being up so early is that we got to see the sunrise on our ride into Nyaungshwe, the village at the north end of Inle Lake. However, we did have to pay yet another fee to enter the lake area, this time US$10 per person.
Inle Lake is the second largest lake in the country and is quite a beautiful area, so it's obvious why it's a tourist hot-spot. We made the most of good weather one day to hire bikes and ride out to a nearby winery, which had stunning views of the lake and green hills surrounding it. Not a bad spot to sit and taste four of the local wines. To be honest, only one or two were actually any good, but that's just details. After a downhill cruise we headed out around the other side of the lake to find a hot spring that a girl at our hotel told us was free. It took us about an hour to ride there and was quite a pleasant ride, but when we pulled up at the only hot spring we'd come across, it definitely did not look free. And of course it wasn't. Try US$10 instead. I think by now you know what our response to that was. Back to town it is.
Of course the other main tourist activity is to go for a boat ride on the lake, cruising through local villages and stopping at various shops to witness the production process of various trades, but most importantly, the finished product they want you to buy. We saw silver jewellery making, boat building, a blacksmith's, cigarette making, silk and lotus cotton weaving....and a temple of course. We were lucky enough to get a boat for just the three of us, so we dictated how fast things went. And because we're such efficient sightseers, we shaved at least two hours off the normal trip time. We're that good. So much so, that we just avoided the massive downpour that lasted a good hour. Then it was our final overnight bus back to Mandalay for one night before our flight to Bangkok.
Myanmar is an interesting country, but perhaps because we only had two weeks there, we weren't hugely impressed. Because the military controlled government still restricts tourist access so much, there's really only one well-travelled route that's open to foreigners. You therefore don't get to see the 'real' Myanmar. Also, cost plays a big part, and while local food is ridiculously cheap and transport isn't too bad, the high price of accommodation fucks things up a bit. Nearly all of our rooms were US$20 per night (a single for John was usually $15-$20) and even dorms were US$10-US$16. This is because locals who open tourist guesthouses/hotels have to pay the government for the privilege, and the corrupt fuckers don't want useless local currency. But in saying that, there are some beautiful places, and the Burmese are quite possibly the friendliest people in Asia, perhaps because they're not jaded yet like other countries with a huge tourist trade. It's definitely worth a look, especially if you don't have to rush it, but it will be interesting to see how much this country changes in the future. Maybe we'll be back one day.
Luckily we landed in Bangkok at a reasonable time, because the bus took 3 hours to get into Khao San Road due to ridiculously heavy traffic. But we only had to pay less than $1 each so it was worth it to avoid paying the over-priced taxis. With just a few days in the capital to have a look around and show John some of the sights, and apply for our Myanmar (formerly called Burma) visas, we had no time to waste. Aside from beating the feet, we made good use of the cheap public buses and river boats to get around the city.
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| A great way to get around Bangkok |
The two main tourist sights we hit up were Wat Pho (Temple of the Reclining Buddha) and Golden Mount. Wat Pho is understandably popular because of the massive golden reclining Buddha statue which is 43m long and pimped out with inlaid mother of pearl on the soles of the statue's feet. It is pretty impressive.
Next up, for a bit more gold action, we climbed to the top of Golden Mount, which is part of Wat Saket temple. The easy walk up the 300 steps leads you to the baking hot rooftop terrace, where you can bang a gong or two and check out the 360 degree view of Bangkok. One thing that marks this place as different to others, is that back in the day it was used as a crematorium and the dumping ground for thousands of plague victims. There was a resident swarm of vultures that hung around the temple, so before being cremated, body parts were fed to these hungry carrion-eaters first. And that explains the weird and slightly creepy 'scene' that's been created to depict this very process at the bottom of the temple.
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| View of Bangkok from the top of Golden Mount |
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| The macabre scene at the bottom of Golden Mount |
Aside from general wandering around and eating our fill of tasty Thai food, we also had to take care of some business in Bangkok - applying for our visas to Myanmar (formerly known as Burma). As with most visa applications there's a lot of fucking around and endless waiting, and this was no different. It could have been much worse though, so after handing in our applications and paying, we had to wait the whole weekend until we could get them back on a Monday afternoon. They never actually guarantee you'll get it when they take your money, but we've never been denied. Touch wood! So after a weekend of drinking cold Chang beers and cruising around town, we returned to collect our visas, loaded up with our backpacks and ready to head straight to the bus station. And so it was with visas in hand that we headed off to cross into a country we knew fuck all about.
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| Mmm...meat on a stick |
While Myanmar isn't exactly off the beaten path, it's definitely the new kid on the block in Southeast Asia for tourism. So much so, that up until recently the only way in/out of the country was to fly. However, in December 2013 the land borders with Thailand opened up so we decided to take advantage of this new way in. We had planned on crossing over via the northern border close to Chiang Mai, but once you're in that part of Myanmar you can only travel a very small distance because that region is still closed off to tourists. So we chose to enter from Mae Sot (the Thailand side) which was an overnight bus from Bangkok. We arrived at about 4am though, so we had to try and get some sleep on hard wooden benches in the bus station until we could get a tuk tuk to the border at about 7:30/8am.
The border crossing and immigration process was a piece of piss, and the immigration officer even asked me if I'd had breakfast yet. Not sure where he was going with that, but it's better than being bribed like at other borders! Once in Myanmar we walked to the 'bus station' to get a local bus across country. We had planned on going to a place about halfway to Yangon to see the Golden Rock (a big golden rock perched precariously on the edge of a cliff), but despite it being halfway to Yangon they still wanted to charge the same price. So we said screw that and went all the way to Yangon instead. The first 50 or so kilometres of the road is so bad that it flows in one direction only on alternating days. So you have to time your border crossing right to get the traffic going in the right direction. The trip all the way to Yangon ended up taking 13 hours, meaning we didn't arrive until nearly midnight. We had planned on taking the same route out of the country, but none of us were keen to repeat the experience so the next day we booked flights out instead.
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| Walking over the Friendship Bridge between Thailand and Myanmar |
Since gaining independence in 1948 Myanmar has had a pretty volatile time, with a lot of the ethnic groups being involved in one of the world's longest-running unresolved civil wars. This probably explains why a lot of the country (mainly in the north and far east) is out of bounds for tourists. There is also a lot of conflict between religious groups in certain areas, so it seems that civil unrest is unlikely to be completely eradicated. The country was run by a military dictatorship, but this was apparently officially dissolved in 2011. To what extent this is true is a bit unclear though, as a few locals we talked to said the military still maintains control over the government and most of the economy. With the release of the human rights activist Aung San Suu Kyi and an upcoming election they are hopeful for positive change, but only time will tell.
Yangon (formerly Rangoon), was the capital of Myanmar until 2005. It's still the largest city in the country at over 5 million people, and it has so many different cultural influences that it's a bit of a schizophrenic city in that it doesn't really seem to know who/what it is. But this mixture of British, Burmese, Chinese and Indian influences does make it an interesting city to roam around, seeing all these cultures living and working side by side. One other little anomaly that takes a while to notice, is that there are no motorbikes in this city, which is very strange for Asia. There are several rumours why they were banned, varying in degrees of absurdity - one of them is that a person on a motorbike made a threatening gesture to a military general; another, that some of 'the authorities' got nervous about the possibility of an attack on one of their cars by a nimble motorcyclist. Whatever the reason, motorbikes are now illegal. Here's another interesting, and very bizarre, fact for you: one day in 1970 the leader, a General, decided that effective immediately, the entire country would drive on the opposite side of the road. Fuck the nightmare that would cause in logistics, it's happening people. Again, there are a couple of theories floating about as to why. One is that the General had a dream that the country should switch sides; another is that his decision was made on the advice of a wizard. Either way, this General was obviously slightly unhinged and had way too much power, as it now means that when you get off a bus you step directly into the flow of oncoming traffic. Not what I would call a well thought out decision. But I digress. There are a few touristy things to do in Yangon, but of course they all come at a cost. We went for a walk to a big park with a lake in it, but even they wanted to charge us $3 to enter. For a public park! Get fucked. We were happy to spend a day wandering around and eating some pretty good street food, but overall we weren't interested in spending much time at all in Yangon. So we very quickly got on a bus out of there.
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| Fried pork and chicken rolls |
Our second stop was Bagan, which is home to the largest and densest concentration of Buddhist temples, pagodas, stupas and ruins in the world. Now that's something to write home about. Upon entering the town all tourists have to stop at a checkpoint and pay US$10 each, a fee for the Bagan Archaeological Zone. One guy on our tuk tuk must have been given a ticket by someone who'd already been to Bagan, but the official wasn't having a bar of it and the guy ended up paying anyway. Worth a shot. Because we'd arrived ridiculously early again, once we'd found a guesthouse and gotten ourselves sorted we rented bicycles and headed out to check out some of these ancient structures. There are about 3,000 in total so we didn't have a shit-show in hell of seeing even a fraction of them, but after just 2 or 3 hours of riding around in the dusty heat, we were already pretty templed out. Believe me, it doesn't take long. There are some pretty impressive ones which stand out from the others for one reason or another (a bit of gold here, a really tall spire there), and the general landscape viewed from the top of some is quite spectacular - temples and pagodas sticking up and dotted everywhere as far as the eye can see. I have no idea why so many were built in one place, but it's very unique.
In one of those strange coincidences, we'd recently been talking about how we'd made it over 2.5 years without getting food poisoning. Maybe we jinxed ourselves, but that lucky streak came to an end in Bagan. An hour or two after we got back to our room one night, I started feeling sick and was promptly cascading at both ends. Too much information? Sorry. After a few rounds of spewing I just felt like shit and kept having to go to the toilet, but Kurt seemed to be OK – he just complained of feeling really full. But then at about 6am it was his turn. Luckily for him he just needed one big upchuck, but then for the rest of the day we felt like absolute dogs bollocks. And when Kurt went to check on John we found he’d met the same fate – his sudden and violent chundering came on at about midnight, so he was also happy to spend the day in bed and in close proximity to the toilet. Obviously there was no temple sightseeing that day.
The following day we'd planned on checking out some more temples and then getting a night bus to Inle Lake. However, these plans were thwarted when we were told there were no more seats available, so we had to make a quick decision and change our route. We ended up getting a minivan to Mandalay instead, and as that left in an hour we had no more time to go templing (yes, I may have just created a verb there). In the end we had significantly less time than we intended to see this temple strewn area, but it wasn't the end of the world. I was fairly confident it wouldn't be the last chance to see temples in Asia.
Mandalay ended up being just a stopover where we did basically nothing. Not that there's nothing to see in this city, it's just that as per usual it all cost too much. Well, more than we were willing to pay anyway. But we were more than happy to spend two nights there as we were staying at a great hostel that had been recommended to us. With a welcome drink and fresh watermelon dished out on arrival, icy cold air con, an awesome breakfast, lovely staff and the friendliest and most motherly host you could ask for, we were happy to just hang around 'home' and use the wifi, venturing out for food and beer. So if you ever find yourself in Mandalay, stay at Yoe Yoe Lay Guesthouse.
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| Anorexic Buddha statue in Mandalay |
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| Kurt making friends at Yoe Yoe Lay Guesthouse |
While walking along the road back to the guesthouse one day, a local guy rode up beside us and was keen to practice his English. He was a retired English professor and asked us to have a tea and a chat. We were all wary of a scam and just figured he'd get us to pay for the tea so he'd get a free drink. As long as it wasn't $500 tea like the infamous Beijing tea scam. In the end we had a (reasonably priced) tea and talked to him for about 45mins and he told us some interesting stuff about the country. Like that only three days before we arrived the whole city was under curfew because of fighting between the Muslims and the government. Apart from that he seemed to be keen to just show off his English skills, so we were thankful to get out of it for the price of a tea.
From Mandalay we got an early morning bus up into the hills to a small town called Hsipaw (pronounced see-paw). The big drawcard for tourists here is hiking into the hills to local villages for up to three days. We only had a day and a half in Hsipaw though, so we grabbed a map from the guesthouse and went for a walk out through the rice fields to a nearby waterfall, and back around the town. After sweating our asses of in the scorching sun for several hours, we were lucky enough to finish just as the rain started. Hsipaw town itself is pretty small, but we still managed to find some tasty local Shan noodles, enormous and juicy pineapples and even some really good steamed buns. If there's good cheap food around, we'll find it.
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| Walking through rice fields to the waterfall |
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| Local market |
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| Shan noodles |
We'd originally planned to get the train from Mandalay to Hsipaw as it's supposed to be the most scenic ride in the country, but on hearing that it took upwards of 12 hours (versus about 7 in a bus) we decided to alter that a bit. Our revised plan was to take the train from Hsipaw to Pyin Oo Lwin (unbelievably, that is a proper place name), which was a shorter journey. When we bought the tickets we decided to splash out on first class tickets, which set us back a whopping $2.75 each. Obviously you can't expect too much for a price like that, but the seats were fairly big and comfortable-ish and there was loads of legroom (very rare in Asia). So, not knowing exactly how long this notoriously late and slow-running train would take, we settled in for a potentially long ride.
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| Hsipaw train station |
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| Relaxing in first class comfort |
It started off very slowly, but as soon as the train picked up any speed it was abso-fucking-lutely insane - it was more like being on a rollercoaster or a boat in raging seas the way we were rocking and rolling about. I don't know how long those tracks will last, but it was mental. Apart from that, the scenery really was stunning, and everyone was up and about taking photos as we crossed over the Goktiek Viaduct. The view to the gorge about 300m below and the surrounding valley was gorgeous, but I didn't realise quite how precarious our trail was until Kurt suggested I look out the window - the train tracks were literally inches from nothingness. Not anything even remotely resembling guard rails or whatever normally surrounds such precarious tracks. Just a free fall to the gully below. Thankfully we were almost across at this point, because it's not the sort of detail you really want to know about in advance. In the end the train was almost, miraculously, on time. It still took about 8 hours, but it was a very scenic route and nice for a change. The same couldn't be said for Pyin Oo Lwin. Being a hill station, which the British set up back in the day as a place to escape the heat of the lower lying areas, one might expect a lush, attractive town. Not so. It seemed to be more of a shithole, so after one night we were out of there.
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| View crossing over the viaduct |
After 3 hours sitting in the back of a shared taxi (a little pickup truck with wooden benches on either side) crammed in with locals, we headed back to Yoe Yoe Lay in Mandalay. Mama (as everyone called the lovely owner) had said we were more than welcome to take showers and relax there for the day until our bus left for Inle Lake that night. They even booked our bus tickets for us. Now that's what I call service. Our overnight bus turned out to be pretty lush too - air con, big, comfy seats with pillow and blanket and even water and a snack. The level of service can be quite surprising on some long-distance buses in Asia.
Once again (I don't know why they time buses like this in Myanmar) we arrived in Inle Lake at about 4:30am. Well, when I say arrived, I mean we were dropped off on the side of the road about 10km from where we wanted to be. Most bus stations or drop-off points in Asia are miles from the centre of town - a very well-planned tactic to get more money off tourists who then need further transport into the centre. As usual, the tuk tuk drivers all tell you the flat price into town is x amount. We always refuse as we know they're bullshitting us, and we always end up getting it for cheaper, sometimes for a fuck of a lot less. One bonus about being up so early is that we got to see the sunrise on our ride into Nyaungshwe, the village at the north end of Inle Lake. However, we did have to pay yet another fee to enter the lake area, this time US$10 per person.
Inle Lake is the second largest lake in the country and is quite a beautiful area, so it's obvious why it's a tourist hot-spot. We made the most of good weather one day to hire bikes and ride out to a nearby winery, which had stunning views of the lake and green hills surrounding it. Not a bad spot to sit and taste four of the local wines. To be honest, only one or two were actually any good, but that's just details. After a downhill cruise we headed out around the other side of the lake to find a hot spring that a girl at our hotel told us was free. It took us about an hour to ride there and was quite a pleasant ride, but when we pulled up at the only hot spring we'd come across, it definitely did not look free. And of course it wasn't. Try US$10 instead. I think by now you know what our response to that was. Back to town it is.
Of course the other main tourist activity is to go for a boat ride on the lake, cruising through local villages and stopping at various shops to witness the production process of various trades, but most importantly, the finished product they want you to buy. We saw silver jewellery making, boat building, a blacksmith's, cigarette making, silk and lotus cotton weaving....and a temple of course. We were lucky enough to get a boat for just the three of us, so we dictated how fast things went. And because we're such efficient sightseers, we shaved at least two hours off the normal trip time. We're that good. So much so, that we just avoided the massive downpour that lasted a good hour. Then it was our final overnight bus back to Mandalay for one night before our flight to Bangkok.
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| The long-necked women (and girls) |
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| Local fisherman |
Myanmar is an interesting country, but perhaps because we only had two weeks there, we weren't hugely impressed. Because the military controlled government still restricts tourist access so much, there's really only one well-travelled route that's open to foreigners. You therefore don't get to see the 'real' Myanmar. Also, cost plays a big part, and while local food is ridiculously cheap and transport isn't too bad, the high price of accommodation fucks things up a bit. Nearly all of our rooms were US$20 per night (a single for John was usually $15-$20) and even dorms were US$10-US$16. This is because locals who open tourist guesthouses/hotels have to pay the government for the privilege, and the corrupt fuckers don't want useless local currency. But in saying that, there are some beautiful places, and the Burmese are quite possibly the friendliest people in Asia, perhaps because they're not jaded yet like other countries with a huge tourist trade. It's definitely worth a look, especially if you don't have to rush it, but it will be interesting to see how much this country changes in the future. Maybe we'll be back one day.
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