Myanmar Motorcycle Journey 7 - Pinlaung to Loikaw

Cold. Oh, I was so cold. I thought I had been cold a few days previous, up in Kalaw, but this was a kind of coldness I had not experienced since leaving America.  I should point out that the town I was leaving, Pinlaung, has an elevation of 4800 feet (1460m). The temperature on the thermometer was all of 55F (13C), but I was moving on my motorbike, the air was thick with fog, and the sun had not yet risen over the ridge of the mountains. And I was wearing shorts. I didn't bring pants with me on the journey. Now, Pinlaung to Loikaw was another short stage, only 90km (55 miles); I could have just holed up in a tea house or someplace and waited it out until the air got warmer. No, with the help of some cold weather gear I bought along the way, I kept going.

In the town of Pekon, my breakfast was a bowl of Mohingga, the traditional Myanmar morning soup. My eyes and camera were open, looking for anything I could that I remembered from reading The Land a Green Ghosts, a remarkable and award-winning memoir by Pascal Khoo Thwe about growing up as a hill tribesman and the political upheaval in Myanmar in the late 80's and 90's. Much of the book is set in Pekon, and it was a real thrill for me to be visiting the town that had fascinated me so much in print. Literary tourism is a real thing, but it hasn't come to Pekon as of yet. There were no big signs saying "FORMER HOME OF PASCAL KHOO THWE THIS WAY!", but I did find one building mentioned quite a bit in the book, the town's main Catholic Church; most of the Padaung tribe are Catholic, not Buddhist.

Soon after leaving Pekon, I found myself in Loikaw, the capital of the state of Kayah. I found Loikaw to be a town of two halves. The north part of town had big, wide streets, sidewalks, landscaping, smooth flowing traffic and lots of beautiful buildings and monuments. Cross a one-lane bridge to the south part of town and you're in a crowded, chaotic, dusty Myanmar city.

As you'll see in the video, my activities in Loikaw included finding a hotel, visiting the amazing Taung Kwel Zaydi pagodas and having a dinner I'll never forget. Continuing the theme of my favorite ukulele music in the background, enjoy!


Road Report:
Distance: 89 km
Travel time: 3 hours
Road conditions (see the key): Excellent 2%, Good 83%, Fair 15%

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 5 - Nyaungshwe to Pinlaung

After two nights on the shores of Inle Lake, I was rested and ready for the next stage of the journey. We were treated nicely (got a free Christmas Dinner) by the folks at the Queen Inn (just across the canal near the bridge), so I said goodbye to them as well as my friend Dean, and I was back on the road.

As I skirted down the east coast of Inle Lake itself, I passed by several luxury resorts. $150-$200 per night type joints which I'm sure are quite lovely, but it got me thinking about how tourism is developing here in general, something I've though about quite a bit over the course of the entire journey.

I've had a lot on my mind, but not like this girl.

Seems to me like they're building way too many high-end accommodations and not enough mid-priced stuff. Why aren't there any affordable hotels on the lake? They're all up in the town of Nyaungshwe (connected to the lake by a canal). Why hasn't anyone opened a motorcycle rental shop in Nyaungshwe? Two sets of tourists asked me where I rented my bike. I understand the government here wants a controlled growth of their tourism industry, but I question the direction it's going.

Another example of this lop-sided development is the town of Nampan, a town almost as big as Nyaungshwe at the very southern end of the lake.  You'll see me make a detour into the town about 1 minute into the video. Before being joined by Dean, my plans included possibly staying a night in Lampan after visiting the ruins of Inn Dein the day before. I couldn't find any information for reasonable accommodations in Lampan, but I had been assured by others that there had to be a guesthouse or two. Look at the place. There's no guesthouses. In fact, it looked rather poverty strciken; an influx of tourist dollars certainly couldn't hurt the place.

Moooooove it!

South of Inle, the roads began to get hilly again, and I saw some remarkable stuff. Almost hit a cow. I do wonder who would get the worse of a cow-motorcycle collision.

There's a much larger lake a bit south of Inle, although this one is man-made, a product of the country's largest hydroelectric dam. I was admiring it's growing width in the valley below me, and eventually (after about 12 miles of looking at it), it occurred to me: The lake is on the wrong side! If I could see it at all, it should be on my left! Oh well. First time getting lost. I blame Google Maps. They showed the road I was on as ending at the point where I needed to turn right up towards Pinlaung. It didn't end.  

The geology got more and more interesting.

I'm always fascinated by Buddhists monks on motorcycles. 

Finally, I got to Pinlaung which I'll write about more in the next blog

And enjoy the video...



Road Report:
Distance traveled: 95 km (was supposed to be 60)
Time: 3.5 hours
Conditions (see the key): Good 35%; fair 60%; bad 5%

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. 

 

Myanmar Motorcycle Journey 2: Nyapyitaw to Kalaw

At the time of writing this, I am finishing up my 8^th day on the this trip, trying to think back to what it felt like on the 2^nd day, the subject of this blog, my first day driving on the motorbike, from Naypyitaw to Kalaw. So much has happened since then that it makes it hard to remember, but I think, in a word, that first day on the road was one of exhilaration.

My motorbike, with luggage

As I've mentioned in previous blogs, I have been anticipating this. I've been in Myanmar nearly two years now, and as I've always wanted to do anywhere I've lived, exploring the place, on my terms, at my own pace, stopping when I want to stop, going where I want to go is how I want to travel. You can't do that on a tour or with other people. You can only do it on your own. Now that I own my own motorbike, I can do just that.

Joko, stop now. 

Most don't understand. It's been asked why would I needlessly subject myself to re-injuring my back just two months after I had major surgery? (Answer being is that I had the surgery so that there wouldn't be any chance of re-injuring it) The few Myanmar friends I've explained this trip to sort of understand it, but at the same time, think I'm weird. Driving a motorcycle isn't fun; it's just a means to get from one place to another. Certainly, they think, there's nothing enjoyable in a 200 km motorcycle ride. Okay. Agreed, to some extent. Riding a motorbike IS fun, albeit 200 km of it can be trying, I'm buoyed by the thrill of seeing lots of new stuff I've never seen before. See, I'm a foreigner. Everything I see here is new and interesting.


Maybe some of my motivation is that I need to prove to myself and others that I'm still a young man. I can tame the iron horse and go where none of you have ever been. A mid-life crisis, if you will. I dunno. All I can say is that I'm having experiences, compiling memories and learning about myself and the world more than I ever did during my years just grinding it out working in Amerika.


Lots of what's interesting on the road here I actually have seen before, here, many times, and if you follow me through this trip on this blog and my videos, you'll see many times too. Ox carts on the highway. Roadside pagodas. Flocks of goats and cows. Vehicles piled high with the most amazing combinations of people and goods; all of this you'll see in this series of videos. Even though I've seen them all before, it still gives me a thrill to be driving along and run into something quintessentially Myanmar.


And don't wear feet. 

This video also taught me a few things about using my GoPro Camera, things which I've applied in continued shooting. First off, camera angle. In that vid, it was too low: too much road, not enough surroudings. More importantly, holding my head steady, something I didn't do in these shots. Normally, when riding a motorbike, your head is in constant motion; checking the sideview mirrors, you gear and speed on the dashboard, what's coming up around the next turn. That leads to jerkiness in video. I'm shooting better now. 

I'm in the second half of my vacation now, which is mostly beach time. Time I can work on new videos too.  

Road Report:
Distance: 221 km
Time: 6.5 hours
Road Conditions (see the key): Excellent 5%; Good 65%; Fair 30%