After one week of relaxing in Thailand we were ready for a new adventure: Myanmar. We heard beautiful stories about this country so we were really excited. We explored Myanmar for 12 days and started our journey in former capital Yangon. We slept in the middle of Chinatown, which was very busy and caused a little cultureshock. We visited the big Shwedagon Pagoda, which was so charming. When we walked around, being almost the only westerntourists, locals kept looking at us and asked for pictures. So funny! We strolled around the city and had dinner at a special place: Linkage. This little restaurant helps homeless children. They keep them off the streets and give them training to become a shelter and chefkok. The next day we went to different markets and prepared to take the night bus to Bagan. But suddenly Rick became really sick, so we had to stay 2 more nights in Yangon until he was feeling better. Magical Bagan was the next destination where we wanted to go. We took the nightbus and arrived in Bagan around 4a.m. Thereafter, we went straight for the famous highlights: watching the sunrise and balloons from a temple. This was so beautiful. We climbed at the temple and waited for the sunrise. The view is extraordinary, to see all the temples, the balloons and de sun! We rented a scooter to discover all the temples and drove around. Ofcourse we had to see also the sunset at one of the pagoda’s. This was less special because we choose to do this from the most famous temple, but sadly this was way too crowdy! Next day we watched again a sunrise, whilst we were driving to one of the temples, a local came to us and said: ‘come with me best sunrise promise’. We had nothing to fear and went with him and watched the sunrise with 4 more people on the pagoda! Fantastic.
It’s well-known to take the route from Bagan to Mandalay to Inle Lake and Kalaw. So we visited Mandalay for one day and drove with the motorbike upon the mountainhill pagoda. What we saw here was so funny. Since the hill was so high, escalators were built to go up. However, all locals and even the monks were scared to go on these escalators. They were laughing and making fun of each other. When finally one monk stepped on the escalator, he screamed and yelled. Hahaha. We did a highlight tour by motorbike and went all the way tot he white pagado across the bridge, which was a 2 hours drive. We watched again the sunset, this time at Ubain bridge on a woodenboat with own skipper. We went to bed pretty early because the next day we had a journey planned.
Actually, we heard that it’s very nice to go to Pyn Oo Lwin (the flower village of Myanmar) and thereafter you can take a scary train to Hsipaw (a village only opened for tourists since 2012) . In Pyn Oo Lwin, we went to the famous flower festival and explored a waterfall by foot! The train a.k.a. ‘steelbuffalo’ (because of its 18 km per hour) to Hsipaw was the best thing we did in Myanmar. We drove through little villages and saw amazing landscapes. We even crossed the Goteikviaduct which is a very high viaduct with small rails and was made in 1900. I can tell you: since the day that viaduct was built, it never have had any maintenance. However, the view from the viadact was amazing and was totally worth it. When we arrived in the little town of Hspiaw, we decided to do a one day hike. We walked with a guide many kilometers upon the mountains and saw different landscapes. We had coffee and lunch with the locals in a little village which was so good. We had to go back earlier because our bus was going to our last destination: Inle Lake. This lake is really big and famous of its villages upon the water. When we arrived there, we did a boattour and saw little children going to school by wooden boats! Even the supermarkets and local markets were floating.
We really loved Myanmar because there are not so many tourists and the local people are so kind. Our next adventure after discovered Myanmar is: Cambodia!
Love,
Rieke