Fire festival in Kalaw

We take the bus from Bagan to Kalaw, a small town in the mountains at an altitude of 1,300 meters. Kalaw serves as a starting point for trekking tours to Inle Lake. Two days ago, Max and I were talking about me getting off in Kalaw to go hiking while he continues to Inle Lake and we meet there in 4 days. He wasn't thrilled about the idea of him chilling at the lake while I do the trekking tour alone. But now that he's finally healthy again, we can do the tour together :-)
We take an overnight bus to Kalaw. Since the town is in the mountains, the bus ride is quite curvy. We read on the internet many times that the ride is considered the worst bus ride of the entire trip and people throw up one after another. Since I easily get motion sickness, I'm not particularly excited and packed my hand luggage with Vomex and MPT. And then the ride turns out to be totally relaxed and we sleep more than ever :-) We arrive in Kalaw at 3 o'clock in the morning, walk half an hour to our motel, which is located a bit outside the village, wake up the man wrapped in blankets behind the reception desk and then get some more sleep.
The next morning, we enjoy our banana pancakes with canned milk on the balcony at around 10 degrees (it's damn cold in the mountains at night) and then we head to the village to book the trekking tour. We quickly find one and book the three-day tour that starts the next morning. Since it's really cold at night, we sleep only in bamboo huts and I packed for a tropical trip, I buy a down jacket first. This jacket will later be worth its weight in gold.

In the evening, we go out for Indian food and then to a bar. We can hardly believe it, but it looks like a classic pub. Dark, with a bar counter, little space, many people, alcohol, and a lot of sayings and coasters on the walls. Totally cozy and more than atypical for Myanmar. There are still two seats available at the bar, we order the classic Rum Sour and quickly strike up a conversation with a group of soldiers in civilian clothes. The four men work in higher positions for the military in Myanmar and therefore speak English quite well. We have a really great evening, chat a lot, I have to look away from time to time because they want to tell Max some dirty jokes and the rum adds to the atmosphere.

Later, we go together to the fire festival in the park (yes, there are many festivals here). When I say "we go", I actually mean "we drive". After all, one of us had only a few drinks... The park is less than 2 km away, but of course, we can't go get the car afterwards. That wouldn't work.

On the way to the Indian restaurant, we already come across the parade towards the park on the occasion of today's fire festival. Singing and dancing people with lanterns and torches in beautiful colorful traditional clothes.

Fire festival means that countless small bonfires are made in the park, around which people sit and groups compete against each other with their self-made firework towers, which are judged by a jury. It's really a spectacle! Now, with fires burning everywhere and rockets whizzing around, alcohol is also being consumed :D People are in a good mood, dancing and stumbling around. And the fireworks are amazing! A tower measuring 4-5m is set up and lit at the bottom. What follows is the largest battery I have ever seen. The show goes on for at least half an hour and the rockets fly over the grounds. Following the motto "it's all totally safe", people zigzag back and forth when the rockets fly in their direction. Why should you aim the firecrackers at the sky... it looks much nicer when they fly in all directions. It's truly an amazing show and it goes on all night. We only watch one tower because it's really cold and we have to get up early the next morning.