The bumpy road…
Stepping out of the hotel. The fact it was February, yet was still 30 degrees out was like sticking a magnet next to my canadian mind of a compass.
The bus arrived an hour late relieving my anxiety. I squished into one of the seats and settled in for the 4 hour ride.
I’m not sure what I expected, but the ride there was more akin to throwing a brick in a running washing machine and trying to sit/ride/survive on it for four hours, between that and the constant dodging of motorcycles and pulling through checkpoints onto one lane bridges. shared by both the oncoming traffic and train tracks, it was one of the more interesting rides I’d taken anywhere. Stopping half way, our driver picked up a pair of hitchhikers. One ended up sitting in the middle of the aisle on a plastic stool for the remainder of the trip.
With all that said, the ride gave a view of rural Myanmar I hadn’t had a chance to see yet. Although it was just a snapshot as we sped past it all, the scenery along the way made the ride enjoyable. With the last hour or so we came up on the main highway, the road finally smoothed out, it was straight shot to Mandalay.
Take a left at the Cow
Pulling into town, I was the first drop off. Walking up the road with a pack on my back and a pack on my front, I was aching from the 4 hour cramped ride. A lady crouching in front of me stood up with a stack of bricks on her head. I decided to stop internally complaining.
A little further up the road I find my hostel between a bike shop and a cow eating out of a garbage bin. Although it was barely $10 USD a night, the reviews were great, and I figured at worst I’d get a good story out of it. Myanmar had only still opened to foreigners in the recent years, and so finding hostels and guesthouses that were on par with the rest of South East Asia in terms of price was tough. In the end, am I glad I went with my gut here.
I get checked in, the owner offers to order delivery pizza for me and a few of the other guests. We all jump in, and get talking. A french traveler, an economics student from Pakistan and a backpacker from Columbia; It dawns on most of us that we’re only there for that night and the following day until almost all of us are leaving on night buses. We get talking and decide to hire a taxi for the night to take us around town to make the most of the time we had.
The hostel owner sorts out a taxi for us, barely 15 dollars we had a personal driver who became a tour guide as well. The first stop Kuthodaw Pagoda, followed by heading up Mandalay Hill to watch the sunset.
That night we went back, settling in with a few beers and some Chinese/Burmese food from a restaurant down the street. We get talking with the owner trying to work out what to see and do for the next day, she calls the same taxi driver and hires him for the full day for 40 USD. Split 4 ways, it’s pretty good for a full day hired driver who doubles as a tour guide.
The next morning, I was up with the sun from the sound of chanting coming through the particle board walls. Pulling my self out of bed, I come down to see breakfast already laid out and my companions for the day sat out sipping coffee and tea, our taxi driver arrives mid way through, and we’re off before half the hostel had even opened their eyes.
The first stop was the Royal Palace.
The grounds them selves are rather large, with a number of buildings that show both the Burmese influence as well as the British influence.
Not long after, we headed off to watch the monks line up to recieve their lunch.
This is what you’d generally consider a mistake. This felt like a bit of a human zoo, with the monks lined up, and then rows or tourists snapping off their camera’s. We took a few picture, making sure the flash was off and we weren’t 6 inches from their faces.. but we didn’t stay long near where they were lining up and instead decided to explore around the monastery.
Walking through one of the back roads I kept seeing kids chase after the Monks begging for food money. At one point seeing a young boy ask another young monk the same age for some of the food he had with him.
Seeing the crowds at the Monastery, It was definitely a sign of how much tourism is flocking to Myanmar now, but being able to get away from the crowd of people allowed us to see a lot more of what went on in the monastery, if only for a brief moment.
All four of us felt the same level of uncomfortableness and decided to cut this stop short. We all piled back into the taxi. It was a long drive to almost the edge of town.
Thirty minutes goes by, our driver stops the car at the edge of an embankment heading down to the river:
“This is as far as I go, You need to hire a boat and then a horse carriage on the other side of the river which will take you the rest of the way”.
We all get the same look of confusion and bewilderment, all looking at each other for reassurance that we all heard him correctly. “You’ll understand and figure it out when you get there” he reassured us. Both hesitantly and curiously we walked down to the docks where a line of people were all waiting for rides across the small channel.
Getting to the far side, there’s no mistaking the smell of horse dung. That was the direction we had to go. We hired a horse carriage to take us around to the different temples and pagoda’s around the island.
At this point, it was high noon, it was hot, and we were tired. We grabbed lunch in a small restaurant on the returning side of the river. After this, we stopped off at another temple before heading to our final stop. U Bein Bridge.
U Bein Bridge
The UBein Bridge is a teakwood bridge built in 1850 that spans 1.2 km across Taungthaman Lake. It’s raised over the ground with no guard rails for much of it, so it’s up to you to not fall the 20 some off feet down. Walking across it, you definitely feel you need to watch where you stop and that you need to have solid footing the entire way. The bridge swayed a fair bitas we walked the kilometer across.
Walking across the length of the bridge and having passed on the fried rodent stand midway across, we grabbed an omelette that was being cooked by a mother on the far side. Waiting for our turn, we watched as the mother would cook, and then her barely-old-enough-to-walk son would stumble over with the finished omelette to who ever ordered and would hand it to them. I just remember taking a bite of a friends and being shocked that despite not seeing any spice in it, it immediately set my tongue on fire.
By now, we’d lost one man as he had to catch his bus. And at this point we had to hurry back too to our hostel. The owner let us take a shower and get sorted before leaving, managing to get one more shower in before hiking for 3 days through the mountains. The Colombian guy and I ordered each a pizza before heading off to the bus terminal; He was headed to Yangon, I was headed to Kalaw.
Our “taxi” finally arrived, A pickup truck with a cage around the back. We piled in a headed off to the bus terminal. The air was rushing past, the sun long gone by this point. Bikes blasting past doing wheelies around us.
We finally arrived at the terminal. The Colombian guy was dropped off first, we shook hands, making half fluid plans that maybe we’ll cross paths in Chiang Mai in a weeks time. The truck pulls up to the far side of the parking lot (read: large dirt patch). It was 9:30 pm. I jump out of the back, grabbing my pack. Rounding the corner, half a dozen stay dogs are all attacking each other over some meat. I kind of just shrug it off at this point.
I get checked in, load onto the bus, which was nicer than anything I’d ever seen. Individual air-con, Android Tablets with a full set of movies and shows to watch. Pillows, blankets. It was jarring almost as to how contrasting it was to the particle board hostel with a cow eating out of it’s garbage.
The doors close, I watch the first 20 minutes of some x-men movie before drifting off to sleep. I had 8 hours until I was needing to be awake.
Or at least I thought…
As always, you can find the rest of the pictures over at 
.