Around Mandalay and Hpa-An (Our Last Week in Myanmar)

We enjoyed Mandalay a lot more than the Lonely Planet would have had us believe. Sure, it's a bit ugly and not exactly what we had pictured, but the downtown core was a pleasant alternative to some of the other popular tourist destinations in the country. The reality is that we probably liked the city so much because of the Indian food stand that set up right in front of our hotel every night and the ice cream parlour a few blocks further down.   Our favourite dinner spot, across the street from the ET Hotel in Mandalay

Despite multiple touts hanging around our hotel ready to take us on a motorbike tour around Mandalay, we opted to do the 60km loop on our own. This involved a fair bit of city riding, navigating crazy four-way intersections with no traffic lights, and an equal amount of ugly highway riding. The rest of our day, thankfully, was spent on the quiet countryside visiting two of Myanmar's former capital cities: Inwa and Amarapura.

We started the day in Mandalay, stopping at a gold-pounding workshop where we watched the traditional gold-leaf making process. Young sweaty men hammer away at sheets of gold, their shifts timed with coconut shell water-clocks (when the shell fills with water and sinks it marks the end of a shift). Women sit in a nearby room counting and packaging the sheets of gold leaf for distribution.   Gold pounders hard at work

  The finished product, sheets of gold leaf, are counted out and packaged for distribution to temples around the country

We then rode over to the Mahamuni Buddha Temple nearby (where much of the gold-leaf appears to be consumed). Over the years, male devotees have applied a layer of gold-leaf over 15cm thick to the Buddha image. Women can watch the gold-leaf application from an adjoining hall. We weren't motivated enough to wake up for the 4:30a.m. daily tooth-brushing and face washing ritual of the Buddha image.   Men applying gold leaf to the Mahamuni Buddha (note the bumpy areas where gold leaf is applied)

In the afternoon we made our way to Inwa, taking a small ferry across the Myitnge River. With no guidebook, we didn't know what we were supposed to see, so we started by following the horse-drawn carriages that whisk tourists from sight to sight. We abandoned this plan after riding to Inwa's most famous teak monastery in a cloud of dust and arriving with a huge group of tourists and touts. We set off on our own and enjoyed the car-free dirt roads, coming across a few crumbling pagodas and small teak monasteries before ending up at the impressive Maha Augmye Bonzan Monastery, constructed in untraditional brick and stucco (also known as the Brick Monastery).   Inwa is virtually car-free

  Maha Aungmye Bonzan Monastery (Brick Monastery) at Inwa

We ended the day in Amarapura, site of the U-Bein Bridge, the longest teak bridge in the world at 1.2 kilometers. It is immensely popular with tourists and is at its most busy at dusk. We still thought it was wonderful.   Our bicycles under the U-Bein Bridge, Amarapura

Still hoping to cycle across Kayin State back into Thailand, we only stayed in Mandalay two nights before catching our third overnight bus, this one to Hpa-An. We had originally planned to partially cycle there from a city about 200km away, but with less than a week left on our visas we decided we were being too ambitious.

When we arrived in Hpa-An we found that the blue skies of a few weeks earlier had been replaced with a thick smog from the burning of surrounding fields. The area was not exactly at its best for visiting nor were the conditions ideal for cycling. Despite our disappointment with the weather, we cycled a 75km loop around the countryside after which we concluded we would be taking a bus over the mountain to Thailand.   On the way to Saddar Cave, outside Hpa-An

We started the day by riding to Saddar Cave. It took us 40km to get there, even though it's only 20km away, so I was grumpy. I was in a better mood once we got un-lost. The cave is immense and we had been warned of total darkness and floors covered in bat poop. Apparently it's seen an upgrade since the last guidebook write-up and there is now a string of light bulbs lining the several kilometre long path through the cave. It is slippery and shoes are prohibited but the cause of the slipperyness seemed to be condensation and not bat poop, so we were relieved. We didn't make it all the way to the end, we were pretty caved-out after about half an hour of slowly scrambling our way through.   Light shining in through the entrance of Saddar Cave

We spent the afternoon riding through small villages which would have been even more picturesque had the surrounding karst scenery not been obscured with smog. We stopped at the kitschy but fun Kawt-Ka-Thaung Cave amidst a sort of “Buddha theme park” complex, complete with statues, a swimming hole, restaurants and a maze. The highlight of the day was stumbling upon a rowdy procession making their way to a village temple. It was hard to miss, you could hear the music from miles away and traffic was backed up along the highway. We joined the crowd of onlookers as groups of costumed,skinnyjeans-clad young men, danced their way to the temple accompanied by trucks blaring techno music from their piles of speakers.
We were lucky to meet another traveller in Hpa-An who agreed to share a taxi with us to the Thai border. He had local contacts and organized everything, including finding a taxi with a roof rack. All we had to do was show up at his hotel on the morning of departure. The ride was slightly more comfortable than when we came in by bus, but it was still slow and the road incredibly busy. Amazingly we crossed three cyclists making their way over the mountain, against the one-way traffic. Tougher than us.

Back in Thailand we headed straight for the border market to our friend Yun's stall where we found his wife closing up for the day. We hadn't had access to internet for days, so we hadn't been able to warn anyone of our arrival. Despite our surprise appearance, we were once again warmly welcomed to her family's home in Mae Sot. Everyone was happy to hear of our adventures in Myanmar and we were equally happy to be back.

Stats for Mandalay and Hpa-An:

Days of cycling: 2
Days of rest: 3
Kilometres cycled: 132
Metres climbed: 638
Cycle-tourists crossed on the road: 5

Partially sponsored by Mountain Equipment Coop Expedition Support

Escaping Inle Lake

The main tourist hub for Inle Lake is the town of Nyaung Shwe, connected to the lake by a river channel a few kilometres long. That's where we stayed, joining the hundreds of other visitors that were already packed into the little town. We settled into the Gypsy Inn, a friendly and budget guesthouse right next to the main boat pier after visiting several places whose rates did not match the quality of their rooms

It was hard for us to get into the Inle Lake experience. Most of the lake's attractions cannot be visited independently and require transportation by boat. Boat rental is inexpensive but tours consist mainly of visits to souvenir shops disguised as tourist attractions. With no obvious alternatives we hired a boat for a day tour. We did our best to enjoy the sights that really were incredible, and disregard those that weren't so. Most of the sights were a weird artificial recreation of traditional industries but a few seemingly more genuine aspects of lake life were the highlights of our tour. We've listed them below:

Early Morning on the Lake
Riding along on the open lake at sunrise is probably the only thing that we would suggest not to miss at Inle Lake.

Nampan Village Market
Requesting that our tour start an hour earlier than suggested, we arrived at the bustling market before the tourist masses. We've seen lots of markets, but this one was particularly good, especially all the tasty snacks!

  Adorable fish seller at the Nampan market

Tour of a Blacksmith Shop
This would have been a standard tourist trap, but the blacksmith lit up when Yann asked to see the machinery used to make boat parts. He brought us to a messy, metal scrap covered workshop, away from the souvenir shop. One single machine tool incredibly serves the entire lake. The blacksmith rather cheerfully complained of its age and inefficiency.

  A forging demonstration for tourists

Tea at our Boatdriver's Home
Meeting our boat driver's father and son and seeing their family home in a traditional floating village was an unexpected treat. When his son spotted us arriving, he sped over in his teak canoe, showing off his skills at the unbelievable one-leg paddling.   Our Inle Lake boatdriver

 Our boatdriver's son and father seeing us off

The Fishermen of Inle Lake
The tour started with a photo session by two enterprising locals dressed in matching orange wide-leg fisherman's pants using traditional basket nets. Tourist boats lined up for their turn to photograph them in their coordinated routine. That was not a highlight. But watching the real fishermen in the distance, balancing on one leg as they cast their nylon nets, was pretty awesome.
In contrast to Inle Lake, our next few days of riding across the Shan Plateau were the least-touristy of our trip through the country. We rode first to Pindaya, famous for its huge cave temples, filled with thousands of golden Buddhas. The town itself is centred on a pretty lake and didn't seem to have as many visitors as we felt it deserved.   Inside the Pindaya cave temples

From Pindaya, we made our way towards the small town of Ywangan and met no more tourists until Mandalay. The road didn't even appear on our GPS. We were alone, riding across the fertile plateau, through a colourful patchworks of various crops. It was cabbage harvest season and we passed dozens of oxcarts, piled with perfectly balanced rows of cabbages. Villagers waved from the fields as we rode by. It was so lovely that we could easily overlook the brutal road conditions that kept our average speed hovering around 10km/hr.   The fertile Shan Plateau between Pindaya and Ywangan

  From the fields, to the oxcarts, to the trucks

We had delicious meals at small roadside eateries, usually stopping for a snack anytime we spotted the golden pieces of deep-fried Shan tofu. Made with yellow split peas the local tofu is light, flaky and delicious and very much unlike soy-based tofu.   A tray of Shan tofu setting in a village home/restaurant

We tackled the epic descent down from the Shan Hills to the plains of Central Myanmar with mixed emotions. Happy for a 1100m descent but sad to be leaving the cool climate and peaceful riding of the Shan Plateau. We didn't have to peddle but the road was so steep and in such terrible condition that we barely averaged 15km/hr. Not quite the reward that we were hoping for after the work it took us to get up!

  Making our way down from the Shan Hills

We could feel the temperature increasing with every metre dropped and we were so grateful that we were not riding in the opposite direction! We finished the last 20km of the day on the blissfully smooth pavement of the Yangon-Mandalay highway and continued the next day along the same road to Mandalay. As it was the best road surface in the country we made sure to enjoy it.


Stats for Nyaung Shwe (Inle Lake) to Mandalay:

Days of cycling: 4
Days of rest: 2
Kilometres cycled: 283
Metres climbed: 2763
Cycle-tourists crossed on the road: 1 organized tour

Partially sponsored by Mountain Equipment Coop Expedition Support

Up to the Shan Highlands

From Bagan, our first destination was Mount Popa, a sacred volcano jutting out from a range of low-lying mountains nearby. Most tourists visit as a day-trip from Bagan, so accommodation is scarce. Sweaty cyclists pulling in to Popa in the late afternoon are easy prey for high room prices. Thirty dollars got us the cheapest room in town, with cold water showers and a rotting piece of foam on a bedframe with most of its slats missing or broken.

Even though we were tired, we dragged ourselves to the top of the mountain, an additional 5km and 777-step climb away from our hotel. A stairway lined with shrines and temples dedicated to both Buddhist and nat (spirit) worship leads to a monastery at the summit. The stairs are covered with a rickety tin roof that echoed with the sound of the hundreds of bouncing resident monkeys as we made our way up. The tiled stairs are completely covered with monkey excrement and as with all sacred sites in the country, pilgrims must go barefoot. Neither of us were particularly enthusiastic about trudging through monkey urine, but we made our way to the top, facing dozens of mean monkeys who blocked the narrowest parts of the path. The highlight of the visit was Yann getting hissed at when he tried to shoo them away with a squirt from his water bottle. It was an experience, albeit not a very pleasant one.   A Mount Popa temple monkey, ready to pounce at the first sign of food

The next part of our route to Inle Lake wasn't broken up as optimally as we would have liked. Because foreigners are only permitted to stay in government-sanctioned establishments and camping is prohibited, we had few options for overnight stays. We spent our next night in the town of Thazi, 137km from Mount Popa. It was the closest we could get to the base of the Shan Hills and it was a long day of riding to get there. Our next stop was a daunting 1200 metres up and 95km away.

Thazi is tiny but has two guesthouses due to its strategic location at the intersection of the Yangon-Mandalay highway and the rail line to Inle Lake. Especially in contrast to our Popa hotel, our guesthouse in Thazi, aptly named "Wonderful Guesthouse" was welcoming and great value. The owner proudly showed us her collection of stickers and cards from other cycle-tourists to which we added our own. She even had pre-prepared hand-drawn maps with the distances between the villages and sources of food and water for the next day's climb. We got the impression that mostly cyclists stay in Thazi.

Following the advice of our guesthouse owner, we left Thazi at sunrise, hoping that we would make it to Kalaw, our destination, before sunset. We did, but just barely, using up all eleven hours of winter daylight.   Sunrise breakfast in the town of Thazi

  Leaving Thazi at day break in order to make it to Kalaw before dark

It was a very tough day. We didn't start the big climb until 65km into the ride, at the hottest time of day. Psychologically it was difficult because we could see how fast we were going (not fast) and we could see that if we didn't keep up a steady pace we would be riding into the night. We rode mostly in silence, with few breaks. Although there were some great views of the Shan Hills along the ride, we were so focused on the climb that we rarely stopped to take them in. We were hungry, sore and really really happy when we pulled into town. The relief that you feel after finishing a day like this one almost makes the pain worthwhile.

We stayed in Kalaw, a former British hill station, for an extra day to rest our legs and take advantage of the cool weather. It was a nice place to relax, scenic with a few decent food options. It was also small and there were few things to do, so we didn't feel guilty about doing nothing.   Downtown Kalaw by day

  Downtown Kalaw by night, note the absence of street lights

By chance, our last morning in Kalaw coincided with the rotating-market day. The town centre was completely transformed, streets bursting with vendors from neighbouring villages. We happily wandered around for an hour or so, before starting our downhill ride to Inle Lake, leaving as the market was getting busy enough that we were getting in the way (and right when the tour buses rolled in).

  Peeling garlic, market day, Kalaw

  Market day, Kalaw


Stats for Nyaung U (Bagan) to Nyaung Shwe (Inle Lake):

Days of cycling: 4
Days of rest: 1
Kilometres cycled: 357
Metres climbed: 3424
Cycle-tourists crossed on the road: 1 independent + 1 organized tour

Partially sponsored by Mountain Equipment Coop Expedition Support

Exploring the Temples of Bagan

  5:00am arrival in Mandalay, getting ready to start riding

We began our cycling in Myanmar with two days of riding across the country's central plains. After a small section of highway leaving the Mandalay bus station (where we'd just arrived after an overnight bus ride from Yangon), we were soon following rural roads where the little traffic was mostly made up of motorcycles.   Traffic jam between Mandalay and Myingyan

The paved roads were in deceptively bad condition, extremely uneven and despite largely flat terrain and no wind, we struggled to maintain a decent pace. With the rainy season passed, we were grateful for the little villages where banyan trees lined the road and provided respite from the otherwise shadeless, hot, and dusty setting.   Riding across one of several sections of road covered in sand

The food options were pretty limited on this stretch of road, but the roadside meals that we tracked down were cheap and delicious, our favourite being the coconut donuts fresh out of the fryer.

Truthfully, the most pleasant part of the riding, by far, was interacting with locals. We were constantly met with smiles and mengalabars (hellos), children would run to the road where they would line up to greet us. We broke up the ride with an overnight in Myingyan, a non-descript town where only cyclists would have any reason to stay. We were definitely the only foreign tourists in town.   Breakfast at a Myingyan teashop

In contrast, when we arrived in Bagan we found it to be completely crawling with tourists. Thankfully there are thousands of temples dotting the Bagan Plains so there is plenty of opportunity for quiet exploration. We spent several afternoons on the narrow sandy trails, far more suited to oxcart travel than anything else (including bicycles).   Cycling past Thambula Paya, South Plain

  Peanut harvesting, South Plain

Any of the temples accessible by tour bus were overrun, with both tourists and souvenir hawkers (and tour buses did not hesitate to ride on the tiniest of roads). The sunset viewing spots were particularly terrible and after various attempts at finding a “spectacular view” we realised that it was much more pleasant to avoid any of the places recommended in the guidebooks.   Tourists waiting for the sunset at the famous Shwesandan Temple

  We watched the sunset standing in a field instead

It was so hot during the day that we did our touring in the early mornings and the late afternoons with a nice long break in between. We were enjoying our daily routine until our third night when Yann was up all night with a nice case of food poisoning (punishment for eating Chinese food at an Italian restaurant in Myanmar).   Lesson learned: stick to local delicacies

We extended our stay in Bagan by a day as Yann was unfit for temple viewing, let alone cycling. While Yann slept for two days I set out by myself, still hoping but failing to visit everything on my list. Yann's list was significantly shorter, so other than feeling like shit, he wasn't too disappointed.


Stats for Mandalay to Bagan:

Days of cycling: 2 (+ 3 days of temple riding)
Days of rest: 2 (sick days for Yann)
Kilometres cycled: 252
Metres climbed: 1011

Partially sponsored by Mountain Equipment Coop Expedition Support

Detour to Yangon

Despite a 5a.m. wake-up, we pulled out of our host Yun's place a little bit later than we'd hoped. He kindly accompanied us to the border to send us off and watched our bikes and bags as we attempted in vain to figure out how to secure a re-entry permit on our single-entry Thai visa.

  About to enter Myanmar via the Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge at Mae Sot (photo by Yun)

As Canadians entering Thailand via a land border we would only be granted a 14-day visa on arrival, definitely not enough time for us to cycle to Malaysia. We were trying to avoid having to apply for a new visa and it seemed like it was a pretty straightforward procedure for us to get a permit that would allow us to re-enter the country on our current 60-day visa. We showed up at the Thai Immigration at Mae Sot with our duly completed forms (downloaded from the Immigration Bureau of Thailand website).

It became clear pretty quickly that nobody knew what to do with our forms. Despite what we thought was a pretty obvious heading, written in both Thai and English, “Application permit for re-entry into the Kingdom”. After being shuffled from window to the next, someone grudgingly filled out forms for us (20 baht/each). They turned out to be vehicle permits, which we're pretty sure we didn't need. Our completely ignored re-entry application forms were shoved back through the window at us, along with the vehicle permits. The confused immigration officers responded to our enquiries by repeating that we would get 14-day visas upon returning to Thailand, so we didn't have to worry. So we exited Thailand without the re-entry permit that we needed and concluded that we'd have to make our way to the Thai consulate in Yangon and apply for a new visa.

Going to Yangon had not been part of our original plan, so we had to regroup and figure out what we would be doing in the country. By the time we actually entered the border town of Myawaddy it was late morning, quashing our half-hearted hopes of cycling over the mountains of Kayin State to it's capital Hpa-An 150km away. It was a two day ride that we had thought we might be able to manage in one day with an early enough start and an after-dark finish. We decided to take a bus, at least part of the way.   Loading our bicycles on to the bus at the Myawaddy bus terminal

By the time our bus cleared the mountains, there were about three hours of daylight left and over 100km to Hpa-an. The mountain road was a one-lane, pothole ridden disaster with switchbacks that often required our bus to make multiple three-point turns to clear. Kind of scary and definitely uncomfortable. There were several checkpoints where copies of our passport were handed out and we were even once photographed. The road has only recently been opened to foreign tourists, with the area under cease-fire after years of devastating civil war.   View from the bus of a traffic jam that took us almost an hour to clear, just outside Hpa-an

  Smiles of Kayin State

We hadn't been told that our bus wasn't actually Hpa-an bound. We were dropped off at an intersection about 10km out of the city. It was nearing dark and as we disembarked we realised that the bus was probably headed to Yangon. Rather than attempting to load our bicycles onto a new bus the next day we decided to continue on. It would be another seven hours before we arrived in Yangon, at 1a.m., at the bus terminal 30km out of the city. We had called a few hotels from a pay phone at our dinner stop but hadn't found any with vacancies. We found a taxi driver willing to drive us around until we found a cheap hotel.

It was almost 3 a.m. by the time we found a room. It was a windowless mildew-box on the fifth floor of a downtown hotel, the last one in the entire place. The last one in Yangon as far as we could tell (although we did reject our taxi driver's first pick that appeared to have several prostitutes waiting in the lobby).

To add to the terribleness of the situation we had picked up a third-wheel at the Yangon bus station. A solo traveller who didn't have a damn clue what was going on. He was in the country attempting to get a long-term Thai visa so that he could continue to live there with his wife. It seemed highly suspicious to us that anyone would marry this guy. We had agreed to let him share our taxi, forcing us to share a single seat in the back, with our bikes and bags piled on top of us, while he sat in the front. And in a moment of even more perplexing sympathy we agreed to let him share our tiny double room. It was, after all, the middle of the night and we didn't have the heart to send him on the continued search for a room (we had tried four hotels before finding this one). We weren't able to get rid of him until three days later, when we basically got on our bikes and rode away. We did however, kick him out of our room after the first night (incredibly, he resisted).   View from the roof of our downtown Yangon hotel

Despite the oppressive humidity and our equally oppressive side-kick, we managed to get out and explore the fantastic bustle of downtown Yangon, get our Thai visas and squeeze in a visit to the Shwedagon Pagoda (the country's holiest Buddhist pilgrimage site). We were pretty mesmerized by Yangon. We stayed in an area with a large concentration of hotels but we found that everything, including the traffic, seemed to be indifferent to the presence of tourists. Although we did get a lot of huge beautiful smiles!   Afternoon commute, downtown Yangon

  Evening at Shwedagon Pagoda

After two days in the city we secured onward bus tickets to Mandalay. It was a pain finding a company that would agree to transport our bicycles for a not outrageous fee. While the seat prices were all in the same standard range, there was some serious price-gouging on the excess baggage fees. We eventually had our hotel staff reserve tickets for us (at the price that we had balked at before trying to negotiate the fees ourselves). We cycled out to the bus station, even though we had read that bicycles and motorcycles were banned from Yangon streets. The downtown riding was perfectly fine, but as we exited the city it became an increasingly hair-raising ride. We ended up on a busy, undivided, highway jockeying for space on the narrow shoulder with hundreds of pedestrians, rickshaws and bicycles in complete darkness.

At the bus station, our "friend" was waiting for us. When we had told him that we were going to Mandalay, he announced that he would be coming with us. The three of us arrived in Mandalay before sunrise after an 8 hour, largely sleepless bus ride. We weren't exactly in cycling condition, but we had already resigned ourselves to the fact that the only way to free ourselves would be to start riding, which is what we did.
Partially sponsored by Mountain Equipment Coop Expedition Support