We are back online after 2 weeks of up and downs in Myanmar but we kept our diary up-to-date and following few posts are backdated based on our journey.
Day 12 - 29/11/2015
Chang Thua - Southwest Myanmar
It’s been 3 days since we left bustling streets of Yangon and started heading west.
Main way of transport in Myanmar is bus, however quality of buses varies A LOT !
Sometimes it can be fully A/C high class carrier which will cost you less on 4 h journey than old school rattling piece of junk on 2 h journey ;) It might have something to do with different prices charged to foreigners - not all companies do that, we still need to figure this out.
To get out of Yangon we jumped on the bus number 86 on the crossroad of 15th street and Merchant street. After almost 2 hours ride through busy roads and little ride with moto taxi, we reached bus station on the west of the city which serves south and west destinations of Myanmar (for all other directions you have to head north to bus station close to the airport (similar time and distance), this 2h ride costs 300 Kyats (0.2 Eur), yeah you can take taxi for 8000 Kyats but it will take you same time ha !
There was a lot of touts trying to get us into their bus to Pathein and they all wanted crazy 7000 Kyats ( I know it’s just 5 Eur, but we knew there is one company charging just 3600), thanks to girl we met in the guest house earlier that morning we had her previous ticket with the name of company and price written on it, that worked as a charm! All touts left us when we showed them a ticket and one young boy helped us to find the office, which is on the inner side of the bus station ( we got dropped on the outer side ).
We’ve secured last free spaces on the 5th seat in the back, ate delicious lunch for standard street food price ( 1500 Ks) and managed to dry off our sweaty t-shirts in their air conditioned waiting room.
Bus was clean, comfy air conditioned coach and our seat had little sliding window ! Yes the only openable window in whole bus !
Very shortly after leaving outskirts of Yangon landscape changed dramatically, grey streets of dirty city were replaced by endless green nature and little wooden houses built above wetlands of Irrawady river. Buffaloes enjoying their mud baths, farmers seeding new rice paddies, now and then Buddhist pagoda hidden in green lush of palms and banana trees.
Waters of surrounding streams were not grey from garbage anymore and got more healthy yellowish colour ( local soil seems to be very rich with clay ).
Approximately after an hour we made first turn left and started heading south. You could feel the power of afternoon sun even through black tinted windows of the bus.
The scenery didn’t change much all the way to Pathein and after beautiful sunset over sight endless rice fields we’ve reached our destination.
Again main bus station was little bit further away from the town itself, but nothing comparable to Yangon.
There seems to be few guest houses in Pathein, but we’re too tired after busy day and followed advice of LP guide and checked in to Day to Day Motel (17 000 Ks) for reasonably clean and very simple room with no windows, toilet and hundreds of mosquiteos.
Forget about mosquito nets, Burmese accommodation doesn’t provide those, so make sure you bring your own !
Even though Pathein population should be around 300k, it doesn’t feel like that. Couple of main streets, one old prison ( yes our motel was directly on Jail street :), central located pagoda boosting lot of gold, diamonds and precious stones, river promenade where the locals hangout all day, all night and few street dhabas.
We cruised for 2 h around, bought some fruit to poor kids begging on the river front, saw bike accident, robe auction connected with the end of the festival and had pretty spicy curry.
Next morning we had just one sight seeing mission left - umbrella workshops !
It took us a while to locate it and we scored some nice discoveries ! Internet cafe and local chorus singing prayers in monastery.
After an hour of walking around we finally reached street with workshops. Very simple setup family businesses creating pure bamboo umbrella frames (30cm - 150cm in diameter) covered either with impregnated cotton or with silk. Finally painted with traditional Burmese ornaments are being sold on the market all around Myanmar.
We didn’t resist and bought smaller one (60cm diameter), it’s gonna be loads of fun to travel around whole SEA with it !
Midday checkout took just couple of minutes and we’re on the mission again ! Where the f*** is that bus station to Chaung Tha ?
My gut feeling telling me it’s on the road heading that direction was completely wrong, so we got tractor powered tuk-tuk to give us quick lift and bought 2 seats for 2pm ride. Wow forget A/C this time :)
Around 12:30 rattling piece of rusty junk arrived with one of the rear wheels flat, we saw the men in action ! 2 guys jumping on metal rod to get rusted screws loose :) pretty quick job, less than 30 minutes and the bus had shiny 2nd hand tyre on !
Strange fact about travelling by bus is the preparation for take off. All passengers are expected to be ready 30 mins before departure and most of them sit down on their place at this time. With A/C buses fair enough, but midday heat in rusty junky piece of crap doubles the temperature easily and no air circulation could make some people faint :)
Long distance buses also do all the postal work, so it can happen that half of the bus is filled with goods of all different shapes, from well packed boxes, through brand new car tyres to super heavy bamboo baskets full of bananas wrapped in banana leaves. All these parcels are distributed through available space so it is very common that your feet rest on either someone's luggage or postal goods. Getting closer to departure time, everything have moved at least three times to achieve slightly more space for more goods. When it looks like there is no more space which could be used, second layer is placed on top of the first, spare passengers are seated on little plastic chairs in the middle aisle and the bus makes first hundred meters just to stop to either wait for more people who are late or to pickup even more goods. So middle aisle is no longer occupied just by passengers, but with crates full of rice and passengers sitting on top of them :) You don’t want to think of accident consequences. Escape from such loaded bus is close to impossible.
Except of the main roads connecting big cities ( population of 100K+ ) all other roads are mainly single trek paved roads with 2m of dirt with rocks on both sides. It feels like there are non-stop improvements works happening and people of all ages from kids and women to old men are adding gravel and tar to those dirt bits. Average speed of the bus can’t reach even 60 km/h. So covering distance of 70 km can easily take you over 2 hours in flat terrain and 4-5 hours in hilly terrain.
Anyway after two and half hours of sweating jumpy ride we reached Chaung Tha and got dropped on the station, which given to the fact that it’s just a beach tourist village is almost in the heart of the village and on the main road, walkable distance to the beach and loads of local guest houses.
The beach in Chaung Tha is nothing really worth the ride itself. Brown sand mixed with dirt, rubbish and mud coming out of the river and can become well crowded with Burmese tourists.
The secret stash lays just a little bit south across the river !
We met couple of white faces which stood out of the local crowd and asked for tip for accommodation.Their advice was to check dirt road parallel with main road. By some luck we’ve ended up in the same placẹ where they were staying. Approximately 15 E for reasonably clean room with huge bed and unreasonably stinky toilet with shower and no window, for a change full of mosquitoes.
Street food was still available, but in “Restaurant” stylẹ. Mohinga and cold rice with prawns curry did the job and by 9 pm we fell exhausted to the bed.
Morning missions were agreed in following order: 1. book bus tickets back to Pathein for next day, 2. get a deal on motorbike from one of the local riders, 3. get out of Chaung Tha and checkout the area direction to Ngwe Saung.
Quests 1 and 2 got done within 30 minutes and we scored decent 125 cc bike for 10 000 Ks and 2 litres of fuel for additional 1800 Ks. Bound south direction we headed to explore.
First river crossing was just down the 2nd main road and with wooden pram powered by old smoky diesel engine got us across some 2km wide river estuary. Quick ride through first village which got us to crossroad either left to continue on the sand track or hit the sand highway on the beach ! White / grey sand, palm trees some mangroves and that was it !
Civilisation suddenly seemed so far far away. We didn’t stop on the first beach and instead we continued to 2nd river crossing. Slightly smaller estuary and much much smaller boat.
Tide was fully in when we started our journey which meant exiting from the boat directly to the sand - muddy water and driving for some 50 meters until we got to dry land again. On first sight it looked a bit scary, but after observing few locals there was nothing else left than to go for it ! At the end it was easy peasy, lemon squeezy :)
There was no village on this small piece of land wedged between 2 rivers, just couple of houses distributed far away from each other and one small pagoda standing proudly on the top of small hill and shining in full gold glory. Beach highway was even wider than the 1st one and had to be at least 5 km long across beautiful bay surrounded by rocky capes on both sides. We stopped for first bath and little bit of snorkeling. Water fell warmer than air and unfortunately wasn’t really clear. Sandy bottom with little waves limited visibility to 1 meter. We jumped back on the bike and continued towards 3rd river crossing. Similar story as the 2nd one, little boat crossing short estuary. On the other side, as it was getting closer to some civilisation again, was pretty clean village with most of the villagers resting during high noon heat on the floor, either sleeping or chewing betel and looking around. The road has also transformed from sandy track to concrete 4 m road so we turned right and got back on dirt / sand track and soon we reached another hidden beach with nothing around. We got as far as conditions allowed, at some point the rocks replaced golden sand and we had to head little bit uphill on stony road. We knew that this was not the most direct way to Ngwe Saung but we wanted to explore the path more than Ngwe Saung itself. In couple of kilometers we hit the beach again and drove between scattered rocks with small golden pagodas built on top of them - definitely worth the detour.
The profile of the beach has changed and became little bit steeper with much deeper sand, which made riding a motorbike firstly tricky and at some point impossible.
No matter where you’re heading, there is all the time another road waiting for you just behind next corner :) Suddenly we’re riding through lush green forest around backwater lake used for shrimps culture - ha ! that’s where they get all those shrimps for soups and pastes :) For 15 minutes it looked like we’re lost a bit, we had to make couple of decision whether left or right but at the end we joined same concrete road which we left half an hour ago in the village after 3rd river crossing. In next 15 minutes we’ve reached village of Ngwe Saung.
On a first sight it’s not comparable with Chaung Tha. Main road is not busy at all, no one is building new restaurants, no cut trees, just a couple of food stalls on left side and few rich bitch resorts on the beach side. First possible public road to right took us directly to the beach where small restaurant was setup with umbrellas and plastic chairs and tables directly on the beach. We’re starving as it was already 2 pm and our food for whole day was just few little bananas in the morning. Fried rice with vegetables was bit tasteless until the moment they brought us amazing spicy and sour sauce from limettes, corriander, parsley and chillies. Suddenly the meal got dragon like taste :)
Beach and water quality were much higher than Chaung Tha either ! White sand and crystal clear water with little bit of swell and off shore wind produced 1-2 foot wave and I have imagined days in rainy season when this place could be pumping with surfable swell ! Who knows, maybe someone surfed in the past and definitely someone will surf it in the future. Some kilometer off shore is small rocky island where the diving and snorkeling is supposed to be good ! Unfortunately the daylight limit didn’t allow us to explore that, maybe next time :)
By 3:30 we’ve started heading back the same way except the small detour we did earlier. I’ve managed to almost drop the bike 2 times from boarding on the small boats what definitely entertained the locals like nothing before :) It felt a bit like a caravan heading to next trading port.
Mix of people with different mission. Young family with 30 ducks hanging off their rattling bike heads down. Old military guy and his younger driver, couple of normal locals and us 2 heading back to Chaung Tha and trying to catch last ferry before the sunset.
At the end we’ve reached our guest house with last light of the day.
Mission accomplished successfully !
Day 12 - 29/11/2015
Chang Thua - Southwest Myanmar
It’s been 3 days since we left bustling streets of Yangon and started heading west.
Main way of transport in Myanmar is bus, however quality of buses varies A LOT !
Sometimes it can be fully A/C high class carrier which will cost you less on 4 h journey than old school rattling piece of junk on 2 h journey ;) It might have something to do with different prices charged to foreigners - not all companies do that, we still need to figure this out.
To get out of Yangon we jumped on the bus number 86 on the crossroad of 15th street and Merchant street. After almost 2 hours ride through busy roads and little ride with moto taxi, we reached bus station on the west of the city which serves south and west destinations of Myanmar (for all other directions you have to head north to bus station close to the airport (similar time and distance), this 2h ride costs 300 Kyats (0.2 Eur), yeah you can take taxi for 8000 Kyats but it will take you same time ha !
There was a lot of touts trying to get us into their bus to Pathein and they all wanted crazy 7000 Kyats ( I know it’s just 5 Eur, but we knew there is one company charging just 3600), thanks to girl we met in the guest house earlier that morning we had her previous ticket with the name of company and price written on it, that worked as a charm! All touts left us when we showed them a ticket and one young boy helped us to find the office, which is on the inner side of the bus station ( we got dropped on the outer side ).
We’ve secured last free spaces on the 5th seat in the back, ate delicious lunch for standard street food price ( 1500 Ks) and managed to dry off our sweaty t-shirts in their air conditioned waiting room.
Bus was clean, comfy air conditioned coach and our seat had little sliding window ! Yes the only openable window in whole bus !
Very shortly after leaving outskirts of Yangon landscape changed dramatically, grey streets of dirty city were replaced by endless green nature and little wooden houses built above wetlands of Irrawady river. Buffaloes enjoying their mud baths, farmers seeding new rice paddies, now and then Buddhist pagoda hidden in green lush of palms and banana trees.
 |
| Lower Irrawaddy river |
Approximately after an hour we made first turn left and started heading south. You could feel the power of afternoon sun even through black tinted windows of the bus.
The scenery didn’t change much all the way to Pathein and after beautiful sunset over sight endless rice fields we’ve reached our destination.
Again main bus station was little bit further away from the town itself, but nothing comparable to Yangon.
There seems to be few guest houses in Pathein, but we’re too tired after busy day and followed advice of LP guide and checked in to Day to Day Motel (17 000 Ks) for reasonably clean and very simple room with no windows, toilet and hundreds of mosquiteos.
Forget about mosquito nets, Burmese accommodation doesn’t provide those, so make sure you bring your own !
Even though Pathein population should be around 300k, it doesn’t feel like that. Couple of main streets, one old prison ( yes our motel was directly on Jail street :), central located pagoda boosting lot of gold, diamonds and precious stones, river promenade where the locals hangout all day, all night and few street dhabas.
We cruised for 2 h around, bought some fruit to poor kids begging on the river front, saw bike accident, robe auction connected with the end of the festival and had pretty spicy curry.
 |
| Pathein main pagoda lit at night |
It took us a while to locate it and we scored some nice discoveries ! Internet cafe and local chorus singing prayers in monastery.
After an hour of walking around we finally reached street with workshops. Very simple setup family businesses creating pure bamboo umbrella frames (30cm - 150cm in diameter) covered either with impregnated cotton or with silk. Finally painted with traditional Burmese ornaments are being sold on the market all around Myanmar.
 |
| Bamboo, cotton and varnish on top to make it water proof |
 |
| Tati choosing the right colour and size |
My gut feeling telling me it’s on the road heading that direction was completely wrong, so we got tractor powered tuk-tuk to give us quick lift and bought 2 seats for 2pm ride. Wow forget A/C this time :)
Around 12:30 rattling piece of rusty junk arrived with one of the rear wheels flat, we saw the men in action ! 2 guys jumping on metal rod to get rusted screws loose :) pretty quick job, less than 30 minutes and the bus had shiny 2nd hand tyre on !
Strange fact about travelling by bus is the preparation for take off. All passengers are expected to be ready 30 mins before departure and most of them sit down on their place at this time. With A/C buses fair enough, but midday heat in rusty junky piece of crap doubles the temperature easily and no air circulation could make some people faint :)
Long distance buses also do all the postal work, so it can happen that half of the bus is filled with goods of all different shapes, from well packed boxes, through brand new car tyres to super heavy bamboo baskets full of bananas wrapped in banana leaves. All these parcels are distributed through available space so it is very common that your feet rest on either someone's luggage or postal goods. Getting closer to departure time, everything have moved at least three times to achieve slightly more space for more goods. When it looks like there is no more space which could be used, second layer is placed on top of the first, spare passengers are seated on little plastic chairs in the middle aisle and the bus makes first hundred meters just to stop to either wait for more people who are late or to pickup even more goods. So middle aisle is no longer occupied just by passengers, but with crates full of rice and passengers sitting on top of them :) You don’t want to think of accident consequences. Escape from such loaded bus is close to impossible.
 |
| You think you commute on busy bus journey ? come to see Burmese in action :) |
 |
| Pathein is well known for high quality rice |
 |
| Burmese love Chaung Tha beach |
The secret stash lays just a little bit south across the river !
 |
| Empty untouched beaches south of Chaung Tha |
Street food was still available, but in “Restaurant” stylẹ. Mohinga and cold rice with prawns curry did the job and by 9 pm we fell exhausted to the bed.
Morning missions were agreed in following order: 1. book bus tickets back to Pathein for next day, 2. get a deal on motorbike from one of the local riders, 3. get out of Chaung Tha and checkout the area direction to Ngwe Saung.
Quests 1 and 2 got done within 30 minutes and we scored decent 125 cc bike for 10 000 Ks and 2 litres of fuel for additional 1800 Ks. Bound south direction we headed to explore.
First river crossing was just down the 2nd main road and with wooden pram powered by old smoky diesel engine got us across some 2km wide river estuary. Quick ride through first village which got us to crossroad either left to continue on the sand track or hit the sand highway on the beach ! White / grey sand, palm trees some mangroves and that was it !
 |
| RaT in beach highway action ! |
Tide was fully in when we started our journey which meant exiting from the boat directly to the sand - muddy water and driving for some 50 meters until we got to dry land again. On first sight it looked a bit scary, but after observing few locals there was nothing else left than to go for it ! At the end it was easy peasy, lemon squeezy :)
 |
| Watch out for underwater stones ! |
 |
| Holy places in the middle of nowhere |
No matter where you’re heading, there is all the time another road waiting for you just behind next corner :) Suddenly we’re riding through lush green forest around backwater lake used for shrimps culture - ha ! that’s where they get all those shrimps for soups and pastes :) For 15 minutes it looked like we’re lost a bit, we had to make couple of decision whether left or right but at the end we joined same concrete road which we left half an hour ago in the village after 3rd river crossing. In next 15 minutes we’ve reached village of Ngwe Saung.
On a first sight it’s not comparable with Chaung Tha. Main road is not busy at all, no one is building new restaurants, no cut trees, just a couple of food stalls on left side and few rich bitch resorts on the beach side. First possible public road to right took us directly to the beach where small restaurant was setup with umbrellas and plastic chairs and tables directly on the beach. We’re starving as it was already 2 pm and our food for whole day was just few little bananas in the morning. Fried rice with vegetables was bit tasteless until the moment they brought us amazing spicy and sour sauce from limettes, corriander, parsley and chillies. Suddenly the meal got dragon like taste :)
Beach and water quality were much higher than Chaung Tha either ! White sand and crystal clear water with little bit of swell and off shore wind produced 1-2 foot wave and I have imagined days in rainy season when this place could be pumping with surfable swell ! Who knows, maybe someone surfed in the past and definitely someone will surf it in the future. Some kilometer off shore is small rocky island where the diving and snorkeling is supposed to be good ! Unfortunately the daylight limit didn’t allow us to explore that, maybe next time :)
By 3:30 we’ve started heading back the same way except the small detour we did earlier. I’ve managed to almost drop the bike 2 times from boarding on the small boats what definitely entertained the locals like nothing before :) It felt a bit like a caravan heading to next trading port.
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| Following beach caravan |
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| Choose your duck ! just 3 Eur, buy 5 get one for free |
Mission accomplished successfully !
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