04.06.18 - 10.06.18 Bago, Golden Rock, Mawlaymine - last week in Myanmar

After the relaxing days at Inle Lake, it was time to travel south again, where we wanted to enter Thailand at the end of the week. Since we decided not to visit the capital of Myanmar - Nay Pyi Taw - despite its allegedly ghostly appearance, we had to take another night bus ride of 570km back to Bago. Maybe it was our semi-expectations of Bago that kept our motivation for this bus ride limited. Unfortunately, this did not improve when we saw the bus with which we were supposed to make this journey. Myanmar had spoiled us with comfortable buses so far, so this rattletrap was very unusual. Unfortunately, the night did not get much better... planned 10-11 hours turned into 15, as our bus apparently had some problem that could luckily be fixed during numerous breaks, as the air conditioning was also affected, which blew a freezing breeze through the bus.

But somehow you still arrive. Bago has proven to be a shabby, very very loud city without real highlights. So after two nights in a spartan, but very expensive room, we were glad to move on. This time we decided to take the train again, not only because the train station was in the city center unlike the bus station. So we chugged along very comfortably for three hours until we arrived in Kyaikto. From there it was only 15 minutes by a 'bus' (a kind of pick-up truck with benches in the back) to our actual destination - Kinpun, a small village from where we wanted to visit the famous Golden Rock the next day. Due to a lack of alternatives, we had unintentionally booked a quite fancy hotel and found ourselves in a cozy bungalow, which was perfect for the upcoming rainy weather.

Despite the rain, we wanted to visit the mentioned golden rock, which according to legend is balanced by four hairs of the first Buddha, and we couldn't miss that. In order to transport a large number of people to this rock, as it is one of the holiest sites in Myanmar, trucks were equipped with rows of seats, which were packed to the brim in Asian style. When our truck ride started, the pouring rain had subsided, but the sky remained very gray and we drove into the fog, so we couldn't see anything of the huge area surrounding the rock. But it's something to walk around in nothingness. Well, and the rock is just a cute little stone standing on a small area, but it was still a funny trip, which was even better because of the bad weather, as a large part of the crowds usually crowding around the rock was missing. For the onward journey to our last stop in Myanmar, Mawlamyine, we took the train again, enjoyed some train snacks and admired the rain-soaked landscape. Although there is a lot to see in and around Mawlamyine, we decided to stay only one day and visit a 170m long reclining Buddha. The nice little town made it quite easy for us and we quickly found the bus for our destination. The area around the Buddha is quite surreal, over 500 oversized monks lead the way to the area, where even more oversized figures are waiting, some of which have not been completed for years, or are already falling apart again. In between is a well that is used as a waterslide. The huge reclining Buddha can also be visited from the inside, where scenes from Buddha's life are recreated, but since the interior looks like a huge construction site and is dirty and wet, visiting barefoot is not much fun.

We all agree that this was a very well chosen destination for our temporarily last excursion in Myanmar. In the morning of June 10th, we drove with a shared taxi for 4 hours to the border with Thailand.

The almost four weeks in Myanmar were very beautiful and a great start for our journey. The people here have welcomed us extraordinarily warmly, everyone wants to help without expecting anything in return (which we have not experienced in Asia so far), our tattoos are an absolute hit here and we have not been smiled at so often in a long time.

Occasionally, this much attention is also a bit overwhelming or even unpleasant, for example when small guesthouses insist on carrying our heavy backpacks for us (by small and skinny people), but they want tourists to feel comfortable at all costs. However, we are also very curious to see how this country develops under the emerging tourism... maybe we will come back in a few years to experience that. There is definitely a lot to see.