Mrauk U

Day 22 - 9/12/2015
On the bus from Mrauk U to Mandalay - West Myanmar

Long gone are white sand beaches and memories of dodgy room in Sittwe.

The time has come to see some history !

Kohtaung Pagoda

For last 3 days we chilled in the past capital of Arakan kingdom and wandered through vast area of pagodas, temples and monasteries surrounded by slowly going life of Arakan country side.

On the way to Mrauk U

Not everyone is running on diesel these days

It’s hard to imagine how beautiful this place had to be in the times of its highest glory (cca 1500 - 1700). Arakan state has been independent powerful kingdom till the mid 18 th century and was conquered as last of territories currently forming Myanmar. Rivalry is still hanging in the air. It was not NLD who won last elections in this region but Arakan National Party. Arakan army is hiding in deep forests of the mountains and spontaneous fights with Myanmar army are common.

On busy day you meet just few foreign tourists

Shittaung Pagoda - 80 000 images of Lord Buddha are hidden inside

"Portuguese fortress like" Pagoda

Locals have very strong opinion about Rohingya case and if you wear long beard one of the first question will be either indirect “What is your religion ? ” or super direct “Are you muslim ? ”

Something fishy in da town

These days Mrauk U township is located around main market and disperse further to country side with small surrounding villages. Life goes slowly by. In a way it reminded me of  Hampi in Indian Karnataka state, just the boulder filled landscape is replaced by the view of pagodas all around.

Sunset over ancient Mrauk U

Except the core area north of the town, most of the pagodas are bearing visible, record of the damage caused by different factors. Either neglected, eroded or damaged by earthquakes.

Around Kohtaung Pagoda

Not as easy to access as famous Bagan and on much smaller scale, but very rewarding and peaceful spot. Quiet ruins provide perfect setup for long photography and drawing sessions.

Buddha's imagery is present everywhere !

Kids on their way to school

Pagodas are hiding thousands of statues

Since our arrival we’re being pushed to a package tour trip to Chin villages up the stream of Lay Mro (Lemro) river from different sides. We read about theses villages where last surviving women with tattoed faces of various Chin tribes ( Chin state is further north on the same river approx. 7 h ride on small boat ) are still to be found.

Chin tribes women used to tattoo their faces to protect their beauty against Arakan kings

The LP guide and Rough Guide mentions price of 80 000 Ks for group of 4 people for a day trip. Pretty steep given the costs of other stuff in Myanmar. After few talks with the locals we became confident that it should be doable DIY way.

"I did it my way" !

Second day morning we started with climbing sunrise hill around 6 am and enjoyed misty/smoky views of pagoda filled dawn. It was also a  meeting point of our group formed of us and 7  other travellers, we met last night in a beer station and had same plan.

Dawn from sunrise hill looking directly east

Before dawn overlooking main pagoda valley

Sunrise catchers in action

After an hour of bike ride through golden rice fields and quiet villages, we got to the spot, managed to meet the owner of one boat and after few minutes of haggling we got a deal of 80 000 Ks for the whole group. In theory it should be possible to get it even cheaper, but at the end it was reasonable for all of us.

Lost in the rice fields

By 10 am we’re cruising up the river.

Ahoy Captain !

To see the life of the ordinary people along the river was as interesting as visiting Chin villages themselves.

The river banks act as mass vegetable farms, stretching for kilometers and every square meter is used to produce some kind of veg.

Bamboo from thick forests further up the stream is transported down the river to Mrauk U to be traded for different goods.

Bamboo load parked in Mrak U

But most surprising was to see how many people are mining (collecting) river stones (huge pebbles) and piling them up on the banks to be further loaded and carried down the stream for building purposes.

During our 2 h cruise upstream we saw couple of boats half sunk under the heavy underestimated loads of theses stones, people diving to collect bigger stones from the muddy bottom and different techniques of cleaning the mud of smaller pebbles buried by flood mud on the banks.

Life in Chin villages seems to be pretty simple. Thatched wooden houses with metal roofs, all built on pylons to survive floods.

Agriculture of simple veg and rice is happening on the fields further out of the villages.

Women are hand weaving cotton shawls which serve these days mainly as tourist attraction ( in the past it might have been different ).

Basic size shawl hand work

Each swine has at least 5 piglets, each bitch has many puppies and more are visibly due soon, each family has plenty of kids. More kids are playing between the houses with stones and wood than sitting in a school slowly learning basic subjects.

Turning math lesson to English basic numbers lesson :) 

Pre school kids of the village streets

Tattooed women ?? Yes they are there, it’s few of them and it’s not as such attraction as the touts are making out of it.

Getting to know local legendary women

You feel quite odd staring at those poor old women through the camera lens so pressing the shutter button needs some dose of courage.

Universal language dictionary - Point It !

We brought them some coffee, tea, chillies and limes. Others brought candies for kids and similar basic food commodities which are scarce if you live far away from the shops.

In 2nd village we had a chat for good hour. sat in a circle on plastic chairs and luckily local English teacher was present and did all translations. Without him we wouldn’t be able to get any answers to our questions.

Thanks to Pedro we had last Polaroids to give them a small present :)

So we found out that the most needed help from outside world would be health care and medicine. Being at least 8 hours away from nearest city ( Mrauk U is just bigger village) makes dealing with diseases very hard. Malaria is very common during rainy season and awareness of mosquito transmitted diseases almost equal to zero.

Apart of health topics we discussed topics of love and marriage, travelling, dressing style and history / future of face tattoos.

Return journey down stream went little bit faster and most of the crew fell asleep during afternoon heat.

Lake south of Mrauk U

We finished the day with huge dinner, few beers and good portion of laugh.

Laughing Buddha is our favourite !

Another hard day in the travelling office is behind us !

Path is the destination !

Sittwe

Day 18 - 05/12/2015
Sittwe - West Myanmar

Our boat ride from Taunggok went pretty smoothly.

Aiming north !

We stopped at few small jetties to drop and pick up mail, goods and people and kept going north. Half way through Swiss guy called Richard joined our cruise and we leaned a lot about long term stay in Myanmar. Richard spent last 7 months travelling through Myanmar on his motorbike and went through many unforgettable moments which some of them he shared with us, told in his opera trained voice. As a summary - No one really knows what the foreigners are and are not allowed in this country, but as result you can try absolutely everything and with a bit of confidence and luck you will succeed.

Classic fishing boat

By 3 pm we’ve reached Sittwe and checked into cheapest and probably dirtiest guest house in the town - Prince Guest House. For 14 000 Ks we got tiny room with cracked dirty walls, dusty mattress which remembered British rule, 2 highways of ants and dozens of mosquitoes trapped inside of the mosquito net.

Prince guest house - so far the winner of the Messy Bessy award 

It was the time to try out Permethrin spray. It bloody works !!! We sprayed most ants infected walls, both sides of the mattress  and mosquito net, closed the windows and went out for 2 hours to let the insecticide to do its magic. On our return there was no memory of ants and mosquitoes any more.

Sittwe is pretty busy city. We didn’t feel so much rush on the streets since we left Yangon more than a week ago. Market has its own strong vibe and specially the fish section close to the port. We didn’t check the beach and sunset view point as we run out of daylight while wondering through the market.

Bananas, bananas and more bananas

Creepy dried fish - 1000 Ks (less than 1 Euro) per piece ! 

We filled up our bellies with Rakhine curries, rice and super strong 8 % Dagon lager and fell asleep like babies around 9 pm.

Tati trying Thanaka - local makeup

Pathein - Gwa - Sittwe

Day 18 - 5/12/2015
On the board of Malikha Express from Taunggok to Sittwe - West Myanmar

Since our last entry we’ve managed to move further up some 300km on Burmese west coast. Chaung Tha to Pathein was easy bus ride early in the morning which gave us enough time to research how to get to Yegyi and further to Gwa during same day.

It was in Pathein when we first time tried to hitch hike. We’re looking for internet cafe where we stopped couple of days ago but we either forgot the direction or the place just disappeared over night ( former is obviously more likely). Anyway stood on main road crossing some smaller road, right below the lights Tati knocked on the window of some silver Toyota Hi lux and asking with her best smile : “Mengalaba, do you want to give us a lift to bus station ?” Very warm smile from inside of the car saying, “Yes sure I’m going that direction anyway !”

We jumped to back seat leaving moto-taxis on the road with jaws open all the way to their knees :) It turned out the guy was just giving a lift to his well kept wife and baby to their home in Pathein before heading to work in Yangon. We’re offered ride full way back to Yangon with him. It was not our way this time so we gratefully said thank you. Instead he dropped us on the bus station, talked to bus drivers, asked for bus to Yegyi and following connection to Gwa for us. By 11:30 we got everything sorted, bags waiting inside the bus and we filled our bellies with delicious noodles and rice in local dhaba. Bus to Yegyi took almost 3 hours but that didn’t matter at all as the following connection bus was supposed to arrive between 5 and 6 pm.

Bus dropped us exactly on the spot where the next one should be stopping, very easy so far :)

Locals surrounded us asking where are we going ? I guess most of them never seen white face before as this place is not really on foreigners maps and most just pass through the junction hidden behind tinted windows of A/C bus.

Observing traffic on crossroad in Yegyi

We explained them our expectations of bus to Gwa around 5pm and they agreed there should be bus coming around that time. Cool we thought, let just sit down, read, chill and observe local life. Around 5h we got an update from one local saying that the bus will come at 7 pm. Bus left Yangon at 2:30 and had couple of troubles on the way (one side window panel completely fell out - which provided A/C and in night hours was source of bitter cold).

We got little bit bored after 3 hour sitting on the crossroad and started having jokes with locals collecting road tax :) They were really funny crowd with red stained ruined teeth :)

At 7:15 the bus really arrived and already expected us to jump on board - nothing like letting locals talk to their friends on the bus even without asking them to do so :)

The journey through mountains separating Ayerewady and Rakhine state is strenuous and far away from easy. The hills rise up to 600 m and the road is again just single tarmac track with dirt on both sides. 180 degrees turns in steep hills are very narrow and maybe it was better we didn’t see all the dangerous beauty. After 4 hours of bumpy ride we’ve managed to get across the mountains and our bus started dropping some guys in tiny villages. It was completely pitch black dark outside and we knew that Gwa should be on the beach, so we expected some signs of beach - palm trees, fisherman fishing on boats with light etc. Big part of the bus got out on one station and Tati’s instinct saved us from missing our destination. She pushed me to ask the guys who forgot where we’re heading when are we gonna reach Gwa. They replied simply : “Gwa here”, that was just when we’re leaving the village :) So we jumped off payed our 8000 Ks each and went to look for More Guest House. Even though there were no lights on in the whole village, we managed to locate it, wake Mr More and we scored quite nice room with 2 double beds and mosquito nets. 8000 Ks each per night - so far cheapest on our journey through Myanmar.

Next morning we woke up to the sound of Myanmar music around 4:30 AM, cruel fact about life of Burmese people, they wake up terribly early and they start their day with loud music and phone calls. Room next to us was occupied by 3 young workers on their journey somewhere and they had a morning blast ! At least we got out of the bed early and went for beach walk followed by quick breakfast which consisted of fried bread, fried sweet bread and for a change fried pancake like piece of dough.

Kilometers long beach in Gwa was nice but locals advised us to check the area south of the river for more remote experience. Instead of getting a motorbike we talked to random bicycle owners and scored 2 small bicycles for 1000 Ks each for the day, what a bargain :)

Crossing of river in little canoe

To get across the river we used service of an old men paddling his 4 m long canoe like boat across the estuary. Tati dropped her heart down her pants couple of times :) but it felt pretty safe. The guy either thought we speak well Burmese or he didn’t care. Anyway he didn’t stop talking for whole 10 minutes. Ja-le, ja-le, hou-bi, hou-bi etc. Later on we figured out that ja-de, ja-de is ok, ok, and hou-bi, hou-bi is ok, enough.

Coconnut and bamboo provide all needed shelter

Little village with own primary school, pagoda and monastery was awaiting on this side of peninsula, wedged between beautiful white sand bay surrounded dotted with palm trees and volcanic rock cape with little Buddha shrine. Water was much cleaner here than in Gwa.

White sand paradise beach !

Refreshing swim, rest and snack on freely laying coconut ( little mission to get in without the right tools ) and we’re on the track again exploring further. Cracked earth rice fields and dried out rivers reminded of us that wet season has been gone for a while and it’s still more than 6 months till new one comes. During this time locals seem to live mainly from coconuts - freshly cut from the trees for drinking and dry ones available to pickup on the ground for cooking.

Getting into coconut with little blade is rather difficult

We stationed for 2 hours, stretched our hammock between two palms and Tati relaxed while I disappeared with snorkel and mask to see what’s hidden under the water surface.

Life ain't that hard 

Hammock view

It was the first time since I tried in Myanmar and was lucky enough to see plenty of corals and quite varied marine life. Fish of different colours and shapes were occupying rock and coral sanctuaries and seemed not worried about a presence of a human. The blue square ones being quiet curious and coming really close to check me out. Little mouth and little white tail fin didn’t fit proportionally with huge blue flat square body decorated with few orange stripes. What a beauty though.

Sea breeze was picking up on the strength and Tati got little bit worried about me as she couldn’t see my snorkel any more in the choppy sea. Time to head back. By the time I got out the breeze became moderate and I’d guess somewhere close to 18 kts. It would be great to have a kite here right now...

We’ve packed the hammock after drinking another huge coconut which was just laying around and started semi walking semi riding bicycle on the beach back direction to Gwa.

Queen of the jungle on the bicycle

Endless beach in midtide

Through whole day we met just Norbert (German close to his 60‘s) in first bay and few locals moving up and down or scouting for coconuts. I wish it would stay like this in the future but who knows, one day the development might reach this remote paradise as well.

Spiritual part of life in Gwa

Lost pagoda between the palm trees

That night we made first wrong decision of our journey, to have a dinner in local kneipe called Royal restaurant. Only Royal aspect of the food was being sick like a King. Poor Tati was KO all night and following day.

With the words of classic - Never more...

After full day of rest Tati felt stronger and we hit the road again. We started reasonably early with full Burmese breakfast - Rice & vegetable curry accompanied by green tea. With full bellies and good mood we walked half way out of Gwa village and stopped first pick up going past us. This little truck dropped us couple of kms out of the village just when Toyota Hi-ace (very similar to our own in Europe) was coming, quick jump in its way and question could u give us a ride worked like a charm. Mio and Nele were locals from Ngapali coming back from Yangon area where Mio is responsible for few road constructions. Mio turned out be pretty busy guy in our age. Engineer, restaurant owner and keen diver who spoke for Burmese conditions pretty well English. We got tips for cheapest accommodation in Ngapali, were offered some whiskey ( we suspect that both of them were drunk a bit ) in exchange we offered what we had - sweet little bananas and smiles. We could have gone directly to Ngapali for free.

But that would be too easy and we don’t like easy.

Firstly we’re aiming to see Kanthaya and Sattwa villages with their beaches. As they were pretty far away from each other ( cca 10 km) we opted for the latter one and hang our hammock on the beach for 2 hours. The water wasn’t the cleanest again and only spot where it was possible to see something under the water were small rocky islets 100 m off shore across the river estuary.

Around 3 pm we slowly started walking towards the main road again. Long walk in full power heat ended on the bus station ( just opposite local primary and high school) where we waited for almost 2 hours until first bus was passing by. Motivated by morning success we expected some cars to pick us up, however through those 2 hours there was just one SUV passing by ... The rest were just local transport - trikes, mopeds, bikes and tractors.

For next 4 hours we were on bus rally ! Sitting on the back seats we’re non-stop air borne as the bus was heading lightning speed over pot-holed tarmac road and just sound speed over dirt roads. By 8 PM we’ve reached Thandwe and half an hour later they dropped us where we needed in Ngapali. Bloody great service at the end ! Massage and home delivery for few euros.

Arriving in pitch black darkness again we didn’t consider option of hammock night under the trees as we couldn’t see the trees :)

Earlier tip from Mio proved to be working. Caravan Motel ( real name Thiri Yeikmon Motel ) had non A/C room available for 30 000 Ks ( cca 23 Euro) way cheaper than the other “resorts”. Location wise it was pretty good - 2 mins walk from the beach.

We woke up next morning early as usual in Myanmar but to our surprise it was not blue bird day but overcast with little bit of rain falling sporadically.

Mohinga for breakfast went down smoothly and we went for snorkeling between the rocks on left side of the bay. Shallow waters, firstly sandy water with not much visibility cleared up as soon as the sand changed to rocky bottom with many corals sheltering marine life and creating underwater garden. The coral is not the shiniest colourful coral you can find on the other places in South East Asia, but at least it’s alive and enables the life around to vary from blue square fish to yellow dotted, leopard like fish, all of them staying on a smaller size.

By 2 pm we’re picked up by bus on the main junction and headed north to Taunggok.

The journey was accompanied by light rain which is completely unexpected during cold season and can bring unexpected complications to traffic on the roads.

Due to poor road construction conditions, every monsoon brings a lot of destruction to local roads and this year’s monsoon was rather on the harsher side. 3 months of torrential rain which some days lasted for up to 22 hours brought floods through all Rakhine state and some roads and bridges got literally washed away.

Cold season is the time to start with road works again. Year after year same bridges over little creeks are re-built with river stone mixed with cement to last till next hard core rain time.

In steeper hills areas whole sections of tarmac slide away with the mountain land slides and these areas become pure dirt roads until they are re-constructed. This can be very dangerous on unexpected rainy day as we witnessed on our bus ride.

Slight curve to the right with little inclination hanging over steep hill falling down to deep river on dusty clay surface mixed with rain water became more slippery than ice. Suddenly we understood why there is a need for 4 guys to operate one bus :)

One (the Boss) was driving while the others jumped out, took their shoes off and started throwing everything what was available under the wheels of heavy bus slowly crawling up the curve. There was moment when we fell how the back wheels are not getting enough of grip and front wheels were not following direction of steering wheel. Little bit scared of possible consequences we experienced another aspect of daily life in Myanmar. In 10 minutes we passed through difficult section and the rest of the journey went smoothly through endless rice fields surrounded by little creeks, rivers and lush green hills.

By 4 pm we’ve reached Taunggok and the rain was gone !

Busy with taxi drivers as usual, Taxi, taxi, moto-taxi ?? One guy was especially funny, with voice of 12 years old mutating castrate his “taxi” call on the beginning sound like a joke, until Tati tried to simulate the same sound and all other moto-taxi dudes cracked up to hard core laugh. Poor little thing.

We didn’t need a taxi (at least we thought so) as there were supposed to be few foreign oriented guest houses in close vicinity of the bus station.

Unfortunately 2 were fully booked, one was undergoing through reconstruction and the last one had just one room available. If the greed didn’t rule the family of the owner we’d end up there and we’re ready to pay up to 20 000 Ks. What a surprise that in shit hole like Taunggok they wanted more money than on Ngapali beach - 40 000 Ks. We’ve tried as hard as our dignity allowed us to bargain and push the price to reasonable level, but after 10 minutes of negotiations the young lady started ignoring my presence and continued in her book keeping. So we ventured out to try more radical thing. Get to jetty and to survive the night somewhere close to next morning mission. Tati has incredible hitch hiking skills. Second car she stopped gave us a lift to jetty and managed to convince owner of non-foreign oriented guest house to take us in for a night. Very basic thatched wooden hut standing on wooden pylons, 4 sqm room and ratan mat on wooden floor sheltered by mosquito net were our sanctuary.

Tasting local life style

Woken up by dogs having gnarly fight below the house around 4 AM and by sore joints from tough floor we ventured off to find a jetty of Malikha express direction to Sittwe.

We got disappointed by first sight of our speed boat. Fully closed cabin reminded submarine. It looked like we’ll spend next 9 hours locked inside with almost no view through dirty black colour tinted windows.

Sunrise on Taunggok jetty

But don’t despair, it wouldn’t be reasonable to follow safety rules on a boat navigating with 20 kts pace through rivers and ocean to keep the cabin sealed :)

We all live on the white submarine !

As soon as the sun warmed up surrounding air we climbed into the front deck and spent following 7 hours watching beautiful nature around us.  Steady breeze forced us to wear a jumper for almost all of the journey and protected us from harsh sun power which you forget about while cruising in high speed.

Simple living conditions on the river shore

Yangoon - Pathein - Chaung Tha - Ngwe Saung

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.

Lower Irrawaddy river 

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.

Pathein main pagoda lit at night

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.

Bamboo, cotton and varnish on top to make it water proof

 We didn’t resist and bought smaller one (60cm diameter), it’s gonna be loads of fun to travel around whole SEA with it !

Tati choosing the right colour and size

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.

You think you commute on busy bus journey ? come to see Burmese in action :)

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.

Pathein is well known for high quality rice

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.

Burmese love Chaung Tha beach

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 !

Empty untouched beaches south of Chaung Tha

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 !

RaT in beach highway action !

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 :)

Watch out for underwater stones !

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.

Holy places in the middle of nowhere

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.

Following beach caravan

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.

Choose your duck ! just 3 Eur, buy 5 get one for free

At the end we’ve reached our guest house with last light of the day.

Mission accomplished successfully !