Discovering Northwest Myanmar 4: Gangaw to Hakha

Leaving one of the few guesthouses

Sunrise in Gangaw

in Gangaw, I was ready from some real mountain roads. Long, straight, smooth roads with gorgeous scenery around have their place. They can be enjoyable. But what every motorcycle tourist likes are windy roads – roads where you lean into your turn and accelerate out of it. Not to mention that the topographical attractions of mountains are nicer to look at. 

After a ways of brown, scrubby hills, the road definitely turned up an incline. Finally heading into Chin State. Chin is one of the smallest and least populous areas of the country of Myanmar. Their people are known for being strongly Christian, excellent hunters and a bit outside of more mainstream Burmese existence. 

Hakha... that way.

I’d been there before. On my last long motorbike tour, I visited Kampletlet an Mindat in southern Chin, but got turned back on my little scooter by the road conditions. Not this time. 

Eventually, I found myself at thousands of feet of elevation, riding down some gorgeous roads. As I’m a bit afraid of heights, what was somewhat disconcerting was the mile after mile of driving along roads where on one side, there’s a wall of rock, and on the other, there’s no guardrail and a steep drop of hundreds and hundreds of feet. 

Rolling into beautiful, Hakha, I was impressed by the view overlooking the city.  Hakha may not be around much longer in its current form.

There are plans to move the entire city due to constant danger of landslides during the rainy season. Just a few years ago, one third of the town was wiped away due to massive landslides. All the roads were blocked and Hakha was cut off. It’s hard to see signs of that damage today, but I’m no expert at spotting it.

Hakha has an “Old-West” feel to it. The buildings are all made of wood and strung together haphazardly.

The people are nice though. I didn’t have a meal in Hakha without at least one person sitting down next to me, asking me to join them

Enjoy the video.

Technical note: the problem with the 4:3 video format cropped up again. This time, I figured out what caused it, so this will be the last we'll see of it.  Note also there's "bonus material" at the end of the musical part. Continuing the bluegrass music theme.

Sampling some Chin Wine.