Myanmar Motorcycle Journey 6 - Pinlaung

Christmas 2015 was rare in that it landed on a full moon. Well, at least that's what I thought as I stared into the clear skies of the Shan Hills. Sure looked like a fool moon. I imagine it's hard to pinpoint exactly which day the full moon falls. I mean, at the moment, it's one day here, but on the other side of the planet, it's still yesterday. There's probably some council of astronomers somewhere who make this decision.

The term "towel head" is a racial slur, but not against these
Shan women who literally wear towels on their heads.

So, actually, the full moon was on the 26^th. As full moons are always holidays in Theraveda Buddhism, and the one for this month particularly so, I saw lots of celebrations and ceremonies on the roads of Myanmar as I made my way from Inle Lake to Pinlaung.

At the end of the video for Part 5 of this series, I ended it by showing a remarkable procession playing haunting, mystical music. What was the procession for? You'll see in the video.
The best reason to visit Pinlaung is to go up to Loi Maung Taung Pagoda. The view from up there, wow, even the locals who go there every day to pray are amazed by the vistas. 

Local kids are just as impressed as anyone

Near the top, the road becomes bad, but it so worth it. 

Another thing I did in Pinlaung is gather information. See, one of the scary parts about going there is that there was absolutely no tourist information about the place online whatsoever. No page in any travel guide. No reviews of any sort. My friend had told me there was a hotel, and as you saw, I found it just fine. One thing I am going to do now, however, is to create a Wikitravel (the travelers version of Wikipedia) page for the place. I found out about buses, trips up to the pagodas, I can review two restaurants there and as you'll see late in the video, I stopped at the other hotel in town to inquire about rates. I think of it as doing my good deed for the internet. 

Enjoy the video (have you noticed a theme in regards to the music?)

 

Myanmar Motorcycle Journey 4: Inle Lake

Inle Lake is one of the “Big Three” of places to see if you're a tourist in Myanmar, the other two being Bagan and Mandalay. Up until this week, I had been to none of these places. I'd heard good and bad things about Inle, but one thing for sure that I had determined is that I was not going to have a 'typical' tourist experience there.


About a year ago, I read this article on the internet  . Ooo... It described a place near Inle, accessible only by river that even the locals didn't visit. Filled with ancient pagodas slowly being eaten up by the surrounding jungle. How fascinating! So, my goal early on was to visit Inn Dein, the site of these ruins. Eventually, as my plans included my friend Dean who took a bus from Naypyitaw to meet me there, we decided to see the lake on a beeline to Inn Dein.

As you'll see in the video, Inn Dein was anything but what was described in the article. It wasn't some remote, unvisited, forgotten temple complex. It was filled with tourists! So be it. It was still an incredible experience to see these stupas in their state and imagine what it was like 500 years ago when they were new. Inle Lake and its surroundings had been the center of power for the various tribes of the Shan people. I was in Shan State, and the people there are not Burmese, in that the word “Burmese” derives from the word “Bamar”, the dominant ethnic group in the rest of the country. Shan people are actually more connected ethnographically to the Thai than the Bamar.

But I digress. Inle Lake was magical. It kind of reminded me of Lake Tahoe in California in that it was a natural lake high up in the mountains surrounded by hills. Moreover, I heard strange, magical music. Hearing noises that aren't there isn't a great attestation to one's mental health, but I'm admitting it anyways. Over the roar of the boat's engines, I heard a haunting, delicate and subtle melody that kept kept changing unpredictably, as does all Myanmar music. It sounded like it was coming out of some kind of pipe instrument. I only heard when the boat engine was roaring. None of my travel companions heard it. It was probably just some kind of auditory hallucination, but I'll chalk it up to the power of this long revered holy place.

All in all, I really enjoyed this 'rest day' (I didn't drive anywhere) in Inle. The food was amazing, I got to see what I wanted to see and got to experience what makes this place what it is. 

 

Kalaw to Nyaungshwe: Myanmar Mototcycle Journey 3

Your humble blogger

I'm learning to drive like a Myanmar person. There are certain behaviors on the road that used to baffle and sometimes infuriate me regarding how people drive here. Now, I've come to accept and expect them.

For example, when a driver is entering traffic from a perpendicular side street on your right onto the road you're on, they never, ever look left to see oncoming traffic; they just make a right onto your road without even considering who might be barreling along into their path. It used to bug me a lot. Now, when I see someone approaching the highway I'm on from the right, I just assume they're going to pull on without looking and I adjust accordingly. Heck, even I'm starting to do it! I just pull onto the road as I've got the right-of-way, no thoughts as to what's coming down the road.

This is why Asians have gotten the reputation for being such bad drivers back in the West. In actuality, they just play by a different set of rules.

It was Christmas Eve morning as I set out from Kalaw to Nyaungshwe, the principal town on the shores of the famous Inle Lake. My memories of Kalaw will be that of being very, very cold. Sure, it was only 50-something Fahrenheit, but it was like a San Francisco cold: bone chilling. Pretty town. I'd like to go back there in April in the heat of Myanmar's summer. As the trip to Inle was a short one, the shortest of the whole trip, I took a sidetrip down Myanmay Hwy 54 and found yet another amazing cave with lots of Buddha

Go that way!

images. This cave was much more impressive geologically, if not religiously than the similar cave I had visited in Kalaw.

These wooden bridges are troublesome too

The road out of Kalaw was fine. Well paved and not too much traffic. Thing is though, it was mostly downhill. I suppose it's the same for a car, but as any motorcycle rider who's driven through mountains knows, it's far easier and fun to go uphill than downhill. When going uphill, you can accelerate into the turns, power though them; there's no question of going too fast. When going downhill, it's a mix of downshifting and braking, all the while holding yourself back from the handlebars. It's tough. So, the small 60 km jaunt I talk about was a little harder than I'd thought it would be.

When I got to Inle, I got in a dust up with some guys demanding an 'entrance fee' because I was a foreigner. I didn't get it on video, but I do rant about it in the voice over.

A couple hours after I got Nyaungshwe, so did my friend Dean, who traveled there from Nay Pyi Taw just to hang out with me.

Enjoy the video.




Road Report:
Distance: 60 km
Travel time: 2 hours (not including sight-seeing detours)
Road Conditions (see the key): Good 60%; Fair 40%