After arriving into Mandalay airport, we hopped straight in a taxi to the mountain town of Pyin Oo Lwin. A charming town, and a great introduction to the Burmese culture. All in a beautiful setting with a chance to explore stunning waterfalls and forested hills.
Day 72 – Moving on to Myanmar
Not the most exciting of days. After boarding and eating our plane dinner we tried to settle down to sleep. It was about 3am by this point so the kids were beat!
Possibly my best plane sleep ever. May have clocked about 3-4 hours. Not much but hopefully enough to keep me going until some time tonight – think we’ll all be getting an early night as we’re effectively going back in time 5 hours.
So this will be country four, and another set of flights that don’t take us home. Chris and I are pretty excited to get into some ‘proper travelling’ as NZ and Aus have been a bit too easy with our own transport and no language barrier. The cultures are also very similar. Now things are going to get interesting. I’m definitely a little daunted by Myanmar, it’s not so easy to plan things there as less information is available online. And everything will be properly different. We have done places in Europe before, but the vast majority speak some English, and in Costa Rica we spoke enough Spanish to get by. Even the alphabet is different so we can’t even try to speak it!
Rather sadly, Aiden has said again that he’d rather be going home than onwards. Although when pressed he can’t really come up with a good reason. He misses his Zomlings, was one he listed, and being able to change what he plays with from writing, to toys. When I said that he can do the same here, he thought about it and then agreed. So we couldn’t really get to the bottom of it. Generally he seems happy during the day, enjoying the walks and exploring so hopefully he’s doing the child thing of only remembering the last 5 minutes and assuming that’s how he’s always felt. We’re hoping that New Zealand and Australia have been so similar to home that he’s constantly reminded of the things he’s left behind, and of our old life. We hope that in Myanmar and Asia things will be so different that he’ll get more caught up in the exploration and not be reminded of home as much. Fingers crossed as I don’t want to go home yet!
After a smooth landing we were ushered to a shorter passport queue for Diplomats! Our bags emerged and we headed into the airport with three missions, to get some cash, buy a sim card and find a taxi to Pyin Oo Lwin.
The sim card was easy, there were three stalls, one for each of the major phone networks in Myanmar. MDG is run by the government so we boycotted that one. Of the other two the prices were similar, one is supposed to have better coverage and the other faster internet. We went with the one closest to us, but needed cash first to pay for it. Here’s where it got a bit trickier. We knew that you couldn’t get kyat anywhere outside of Myanmar so no option to buy before you go. We headed to one of the many exchange offices, but they require cash to change, Singapore dollars, USD and kyat can be interchanged here. Our plan to buy the currency with our debit card failed.
This left us doing what many others were, raiding the cash machines. We can only get a certain amount of cash out on our foreign currency cards, so had to also use the debit cards, each £150 transaction incurring a transaction fee and then fees from our bank at home ☹. Ah well. We were then able to change some for USD, as the online guidance is that you should expect to pay for tours and hotels in crisp USD notes. As one pound is 2000 kyat the £600 we took out the machines amounted to 1,200,000 kyat!
We took quite a while sorting all this out and the airport was empty by the time we were done. Most the travellers we’d spoken to were heading into Mandalay, so only needed a little bit to get them through the evening.
Next stop a taxi. Unsure how much this should cost really, we asked a couple and went with the cheapest price 45,000 kyat (around £22). Not too bad for a one and a half hour trip.
We left in the daylight, but as it was now 5pm so we only had about 30 minutes of light left and most the journey would be in the dark – we should have gotten a move on!
The driver seemed to speak no English, and we headed out into the roads with much excitement. The roads are crazy, most people drive a scooter, and most scooters have more than one person on. Many are carrying goods too, with all sorts of things strapped on the back. The road was initially wide, with not much traffic, but as we skirted Mandalay itself we hit a lot more traffic.
There are definitely rules, but they mostly seem to be that you drive how you like, and let people know that you’re there, or that you’re coming past by beeping. Overtaking on the other side of the road, around bends when you can’t see what’s coming seems to be standard. And no-one wears seatbelts. Most the people on scooters were not wearing helmets either.
The roadsides were lined with small stalls, bamboo and wood shacks, covered in tarpaulin or corrugated iron. Plastic chairs and tables, all looking like they were bought from the same place and had a large portion of pink, were there for you to eat at.
Many of the stalls seem to sell the same things, so none of them were very busy; most seemed to have one guest, or perhaps that was the owner…? There were a lot of scooters and people around though. I think many of these places doubled as their little home on the side of the road.
It quickly got dark, so we couldn’t see much more, but were impressed with the roads. It’s pretty much a dual carriageway the whole way, making overtaking the many scooters pretty easy! There’s often a central reservation too, although this creates issues when the scooters can’t cross so they come down the road into the oncoming traffic until there’s a crossing point!
After an entertaining drive, we arrived in Pyin Oo Lwin, which was much bigger than I’d expected. Definitely a town rather than a village! It was mainly based along one main road, which is what our hotel was on. The Tha Har Da Zar Hotel. Here we got our first taste of the Myanmar hospitality. A couple of Burmese staff, came out to get all of our bags, insisting on carrying them into the hotel. Chris felt bad letting the tiny Burmese lady take one of the massive rucksacks!
We were pretty tired by now, as it was very late NZ time, but unfortunately our booking from Hotels.com hadn’t come through. They had rooms so we had somewhere to stay, but disagreed that we’d already paid. All rather hard to communicate in her limited English and our non existent Burmese ☹. We paid again and decided to take it up with Hotels.com. Bed time!
Day 73 – The Botanic Gardens of Pyin Oo Lwin
We awoke and breakfasted in the lobby of the hotel, there is no restaurant. There aren’t many guests here! The breakfast was pretty good though, with samosas, steamed buns of pork and fig?, rice, pappy white bread, jam, some sort of butter thing, and scrambled eggs. Coupled with watermelon, banana, a very sweet coffee and fruit juice. Quite a banquet really! It was a little odd to eat it sat around the coffee tables with the reception lady watching – she loves Aiden!
We decided to wander to the train station and investigate getting tickets for our train ride to Hsipaw in a couple of days. It’s important to book a seat so you can sit on the better side of the train for the bend on the viaduct apparently! We wandered the 1.5km through the town to the station getting a lot of stares, and then an older gentleman came up to us, grabbed Aiden and planted a kiss on his cheek. He waved and left smiling! We were left pretty shell-shocked – especially Aiden! I mean, that is not something you do in England – you wouldn’t even touch another person’s child, let alone kiss them!
We carried on, but Aiden was knobbled with another kiss from yet another man before too long. He didn’t like the attention at all at first.
Unfortunately, the train station ticket office only opens for ticket sales for a couple of hours in the afternoon and in the morning i.e. just before the train in each direction goes each day. Ah well!
Pyin Oo Lwin is very much an old colonial town, and was where the British used to come to holiday as it’s much cooler in these mountains and only a few hours from Mandalay. It is also the ‘city of flowers’. This means there are still lots of colonial style buildings, some big houses, many flower nurseries and stalls and the National Kandawgyi Botanic Gardens. We decided to head to the gardens so hopped in one of the old painted horse carriages which are very common in the town. The horse didn’t look particularly skinny or mistreated so it seemed ok to use, and Evie is always on at me to take her for a ride in a horse carriage – finally her chance! It was just starting to rain too so the roof of the carriage was much appreciated 😊.
The gardens are a little odd as you are dropped off on a road corner and buy a ticket at a booth there. Then its at least half a km up a road before you get to any of the buildings or see someone in the gardens. Plus the first few things, like the pool and playground, were missing, presumably being redone? The flowerbeds leading up were lined with flowers though and the initial lake with its small gold pagoda was nice and photogenic.
By now it was lunchtime so we had our first Burmese restaurant experience and food in the gardens café. We were pretty much the only guests! We started with drinks and tried Dragonfruit. Wow what a colour! Prett tasty too 🙂
After sampling some Burmese foods, which were pretty good, we wandered round to look at some of the gardens, past the pertrified wood display and to the board walk. Here Aiden spotted some gibbons in the trees which was pretty amazing as they were being totally silent.
There are also some Takin here (not wild), which are a rare goat from mountainous areas up North.
We travelled through the wandering bamboo and then tried both the treetop walkway, which is rotted beyond use and closed, and the aviary, which seemed to be closed for no apparent reason, much to the kids disappointment.
Luckily the butterfly displays were still open as these were really impressive – there are over 1000 species of butterfly in Myanmar and there are many of them arranged in displays here, along with other insects. The kids really enjoyed this. It also helped explain why pretty much everything we’d seen that flew was a butterfly and not a bird.
Outside the butterfly displays there are a load of orchid plants, some with their brilliant blooms in full display.
Our one remaining stop was the lookout tower, which was a bit of a walk up a hill and then a climb up quite a few steps in the heat. It was worth it though for some lovely views over the gardens, town and surrounding hills.
When we left the gardens, other carriages were waiting to take people home, so we got a lift again.
Feeling lazy by the time we got back, and still tired from the previous day’s travelling, we opted to eat in the hotel at the coffee tables again.
Day 74 – Dat Taw Gyaint falls in Anisakan
After another yummy breakfast (the same as yesterday) we asked for the hotel to arrange a driver for us to take us to the waterfalls at Anisakan (and wait for us before coming back). We could have been taken there and then arranged a taxi when we got out for less I’m sure but we took the simple option. Easy to do when you’re traveling a poor country and everything’s relatively cheap!
He arrived within 10 minutes with the price pre agreed with the hotel. A 15 minute drive back towards Mandalay and then down a dirt road brought us to a large stupa, some stalls besides the road and a track heading down, which our driver pointed at.
I’d read the reviews of these falls in the morning and was a little worried about the hassle that many reviewers said you get from the locals trying to get money from you as a guide or with lifts on their mopeds. So we walked past the locals sitting just down the path at pace and without engaging. Two young women got up and followed us anyway. One had a basket on her back, so I wondered whether she planned to follow us and try to sell us water etc if we needed it, but the other had nothing. When we stopped a few hundred metres down the path, they did too. Presumably they were hoping to accompany us down and then ask for payment for their guide services? They hadn’t tried to talk to us at this point… or perhaps they were waiting for the turn off to the other falls and would then offer to guide us? Either way, we didn’t want a guide, and not knowing whether they were going to lead to an uncomfortable situation later I told them we didn’t need a guide and they turned back. Phew!
We carried on down the bends in the track until we were passed by a couple of guys on mopeds, they offered us a lift to the bottom for free (presumably hoping we’d then pay for a lift up later), but we like to walk so said no.
It was pretty hot though, the rain that had been forecast was nowhere in sight and the sun was shining, so we stopped for a break.
Soon after, another moped came up behind us and the Dutch lady who we’d met and chatted to at breakfast, whose name was Linda, hopped off to carry on the walk with us (she’d also been offered a free lift). The path carried on down, with the steep descent taking us about 30 minutes including breaks. The falls were great though, tall and with a lovely refreshing spray.
At this point we got very lucky, at the top of the falls there were some people. How had they gotten up there?? Linda (our Dutch friend) had Maps.me available offline so she could see that there is actually a loop walk to these falls, and the path up to the top came off ours close by. We couldn’t see it from where we were, but as we headed out there was a small dirt trail winding up to the left. A couple of locals saw us heading up there and came to talk to us. They offered to guide us up to the falls, but after establishing that this was the path, we were happier to go on our way without.
It was a steep trail up, and the forest mud was pretty slippery, we were glad it hadn’t rained yet or these would become pretty impassable. There was a fair amount of use of hands on rocks and trees as we went up, and some bum sliding for the kids when the trail headed down. The kids did great, and Linda was surprised at our pace! After about 10 minutes we emerged at the top of the falls, where we discovered that to stand at the top of the falls like the others had done required wading into some pretty fast flowing, dirty water. We decided against it, and could see a second set of falls further up the river so headed further up the trails, where we met some geologists at the next falls.
After they took a photo of us they offered to take us to see the ‘fast flow’, but we decided to stick to the main path, the route up looked particularly slippery and not so good for the kids. We laughed when we took the next left turn and found the men again. Our path may have been longer but I think it was easier. Maybe!
We were lucky again here, as the path we were heading down petered out around where they were, grouped with their colleagues and some tools. They offered again to take us to the fast flow, and Aiden was feeling adventurous at this point and shot off after them down what was definitely NOT a path!
They were doing some surveying of the area so they could build some extra paths (we think) so had trampled a sort of path to the edge of the river. From here they waded in and lifted the kids over onto a rock in the river where the massive falls was visible. We took off our shoes and waded across too, beautiful cool water on the feet, and a stunning waterfall 😊
These guys spoke some English so we chatted about what they were doing for a bit and then carried on up the path, following one more left turn which gave us more views of those fabulous falls. I went to leave and had to go back for another look at these stunning falls – one of my favourites ever??
As we continued, we came a cross 3 or 4 other groups of people coming down this way, each group with a couple of guides. Coming down this way would be hard – down is always harder than up on slippery slopes. We were very pleased we’d done it this way round as we hardly noticed the climb back up as we were too busy trying not to fall back down!
Finally we arrived back on the main track for the last few turns back up to the top, where we said goodbye to Linda, who was catching the train that afternoon, and renegotiated with our driver (with the help of a local who spoke pretty good English, our driver spoke none!) to go to a restaurant called The View before we went home. We forgot to haggle his additional price for the extra drive. Next time.
Another 10 minutes up the road, this restaurant is sited at the top of the hill on the other side of the valley to where we walked and has great views down to all the waterfalls.
When walking we first arrived at the falls to the right (you can just see the brown dirt path zigzagging down the hill on the right). We then worked our way back up the hill through the forest to the second falls, and then to the side of the third, before heading back up to the golden stupa where we started.
We chose to eat at the restaurant, and get a cold drink, as we were hot and sweaty after climbing the hill in the muggy heat. Good timing, as some of the rain which had been forecast fell whilst we were eating, sheltered by the veranda. Not a bad lunchtime view…
We were a little put out to have to pay an entrance fee to The View, as we initially thought it was just a restaurant with a good view, but having wandered through the gardens to the viewpoint and seen just how well you can see the falls from here, we no longer begrudge them. Plenty of people do not eat here and just come for the view.
Even here, the kids could not escape attention and we had one of the many selfie requests from this lady!
The kids had been so good climbing up the hill that we treated them to a burger, rather than the local cuisine. At least here it wasn’t more expensive to eat from the Western menu. By now it was 3pm and we’d had our driver for over 5 hours, plus we needed to be at the station to book tickets for our onwards journey at 4pm, so we got back in and headed back.
All the way home we felt like celebrities, with people waving at us as we drove past with the windows down. We took a few shots on the way back, everything is different. The streets are filled with people on scooters, overloaded wagons with people on them, and there are trucks whose engines seem to be on the outside…
The houses vary massively from large, colonial style mansions, to corrugated huts, or houses with woven walls.
Once back in the hotel, we chilled for a bit before heading into the lobby, where the owner had suggested that she would be giving us free dinner that evening. When she said this in the morning she’d pointed at the cheapest things on the menu, the fried rices and noodles. When we sat down, however, we were treated to prawn crackers, a soup, rice each and four other dishes, the only one I recognised was the sweet and sour! She was also keen for some photos of the kids.
They’re getting used to this now. Yesterday Aiden was quite uncomfortable with the attention, but today he’s smiling at the lady (rather than hiding) and doesn’t seem as miserable after.
We couldn’t manage to eat all our dinner, for people who are usually really hungry and eat lots we’ve really lost our appetites the last couple of days. Perhaps it’s a bit of jet lag? Or the heat (although it’s not very hot in the hotel)? Not too much of an issue I guess and at least it’s saving us money!
Bring on the train tomorrow 🙂
Continue with us to Hsipaw on the train (coming soon). or head back to New Zealand and the Northlands.