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Published: February 6th 2012
K - We traveled from Bagan to Kalaw on the worst bus of our trip to date. We are used to uncomfortable chicken busses but they are usually cheap. This bus had cost us $14 each and my seat was collapsing (poor guy behind), there was no suspension to speak of and to top it all it left at 4.30am – and we were stuck on it for nearly 10 hours. One of those days when you question the decision to travel on a budget!
It was worth it though. Kalaw was the start point for a 3-day trek to Lake Inle and it was fantastic. Our group of 3 French people, a Lithuanian, a Swiss and 3 Brits - all of different ages (21-58) - gelled really well and we had a great laugh. The trek days were long but mostly gentle hills or flat and the countryside was beautiful with tiered paddy fields and hills. Farming methods here have not changed for centuries and it was like stepping back in time as we saw people ploughing with oxen, cutting crops with scythes and traveling on carts. Some scenes were straight out of an Asian Constable painting.
The
Here comes trouble!
The kids still love tourists and cameraslocal people were also still fascinated by tourists and often came to have a look at us as we walked past or stopped for a rest. This is always nice as it stops the sense of being a voyeur if they want to have a look at you too!
Our nights were spent at monasteries which were a little different to our expectations. They seem basically to be staffed by 1 or 2 senior monks and several young novices (it is traditional for boys to be a Monk for a year before the age of 10 and again for another year after the age of 20.) Rather than education and prayer, activities appeared to consist of begging for alms, doing chores and playing football (novices) or sitting around being waited on (senior). Prayer in one Monastery consisted of a large loudspeaker being placed at a window facing the nearby village and loud “plinketyy plonk” music being played before some sort of chant (possibly a prayer) was blasted for a couple of minutes, followed by another round of plinkety plonk. This was the same Monastery where we felt a little uncomfortable as we were sleeping in front of Buddah in
the prayer area – a discomfort that passed for me when the head Monk lit up a cigar about 5 feet away from me!
The second monastery we stayed at did not even have any novices – just a senior monk who was apparently assisted now and then by lay monks. We were not sure who waited on him!
Don't get me wrong - we loved the experience but the nights were absolutely freezing, the floors hard and the washing water came from an ice cold pump so we were also all looking forward to our arrival in Inle Lake and a hot shower! Unfortunately on our 2nd night Mark managed to do something to his hip (old mans bones?) and the next day after a miserable hour of limping he joined another of our group who had blisters on the back of motorcycles. Poor things! The rest of us did our final 5 hours on foot before joining them in boats where we made the final journey along the water villages of Lake Inle.
We had fortunately booked a room in advance – very rare for us and no mean feet as communications are very bad
and phone lines often busy. Our fellow trekkers were not so lucky and 2 of them took over 3 hours to find a room. They also had to share so it was lucky we had all got on so well!
The lake is very pretty but the main interest is the shore life that goes on all around it - markets, workshops and of course fishing. Therefore the next day four of my fellow trekkers and I rented a boat for the day and pottered around enjoying the sunshine and watching the world go by. Tourism here is growing but is still low key - so low key that I succumbed to temptation and blew 2 nights accommodation on some scarves at the silk weavers (not as bad as it sounds when we get a room here for $15!). The highlight (or not) however was going to another monastery to watch jumping cats. You heard me – see photo!
On our return to shore we collected Mark who had spent the day resting his hip and retired to a local restaurant for a beer and pizza farewell. After 8 months traveling I just needed a break from rice,
curry or noodles. And very good it was too!
The next day we caught another overnight bus back to Yangon (16 hours) and after a taxi dash across town managed to catch the 6am bus to Ngwe Saung beach. Myanmar has over 2800KM of coastline and to say it is unspoiled is a massive understatement. There is a road to Ngwe Saung (6 hours from Yangon) and it has some resorts so it is relatively developed - in Myanmar terms this meant there were usually about 20 people on a 2 mile long beach.
I say usually because our resort had a group of about 40 Myanmar University students staying there. This was not however annoying as they were very sweet and absolutely thrilled to interact with us. It was their excitement at meeting foreigners literally for the first time that really brought home to us how isolated Myanmar has been. These were children of the elite, educated way beyond your average person, carrying iphones and wearing designer clothes but they were as excited as the people in the hill tribes had been to meet us.
Mark played a few games of beach football with the guys
(there were only 6 girls in the group) and we were then invited to their celebration BBQ where we joined in playing various games of the sort more commonly played at a childs party at home including a wheelbarrow race! We didn't participate in that but entered fully in to the "silent pop group" game and I doubt they will forget Mark's strutting Angus Young (AC/DC) air guitar or my Motorhead headbanging in a hurry!
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