I left Nyaungshwe, just north of Inle Lake, on the 13th, but not until almost 4 in the afternoon. I spent time in an internet cafe and had a final crepe and guacamole lunch at Inle Pancake Kingdom. I left on a huge modern bus, coming from Taunggyi and headed to Lashio. Several other tourists boarded it heading for Hsipaw, but I was the only one for Kalaw. It took only about an hour and a half to reach Kalaw, arriving as the sun was setting. I checked into the same hotel I had stayed in before and headed out for a dinner of Shan noodle soup. At 4300 feet elevation, Kalaw felt chilly. My thermometer registered 64 degrees in my room just before I went to bed.
The next morning it was 61 degrees in my room when I got up. This morning was Kalaw's five day market, and after breakfast I spent about an hour and a half wandering through it, under mostly cloudy skies. I never seem to tire of these markets. I recognized two of the young women chicken butchers I had watched in Nyaungshwe. There were fewer tourists than at the five day market in Kalaw ten days earlier, when I was previously there. Burma seems to get a particularly large influx of tourists who come for two or three weeks over the Christmas-New Year holidays.
I got to the train station after 11 and at 12:10, only 25 minutes late, left on a train bound for Thazi. The ordinary class carriages were packed, as was the sole upper class carriage, where I had my seat, with local people returning home from Kalaw's five day market. Beside myself, there were only two other foreign tourists in the upper class carriage. It was full of boxes and bags and bundles of all sorts of stuff from the market.
Thazi is northwest of Kalaw, but the train first headed south through the hilly countryside, with lots of pines. A few small rice terraces, already harvested, appeared here and there among the forest. I think the train began to turn northwest about the time we reached our first stop, at the village of Myindaik, about a half hour from Kalaw. We spent about 40 minutes there, waiting for a train coming up from Thazi, but it was a very interesting stop. The platform was filled with hill tribe vendors, a very colorful scene. Besides fruit and vegetables on sale, several ladies were selling flowers, carrying big bundles of them in their arms and on their heads. I enjoyed walking around and was able to buy a chicken, vegetable, and rice lunch, packed in a styrofoam box, for the train ride.
We reached the summit, at 4608 feet, soon after leaving Myindaik, and I enjoyed the beautiful mountain scenery as we very slowly descended. We had some long views down valleys towards distant forest covered hills. I think this may be the prettiest train journey I've taken in Burma. The stops were very interesting and picturesque, too, often with small, colonial era stations of brick with chimneys in small villages.
At one point the terrain was too steep for the train tracks to curve, and our train simply backed down a lower set of tracks, dropping from 3237 feet to 3031 (so said the signs), before again reversing itself and heading down a still lower set of tracks, the three sets of tracks forming a zigzag. There was another, shorter, zigzag about a thousand feet lower.
By about 4 the long views over the hills had disappeared and we were traveling through forest, which we emerged from more than an hour later into a sort of rolling plain at about 1400 feet elevation, reaching the town of Yinmabin. Heading west from Yinmabein, we again descending through hills, much drier ones, at dusk. We very slowly crossed a long and high viaduct, with no guardrails, just before dark. It was dark soon after 6.
We were soon in the flatlands, reaching Thazi, at 700 feet elevation, at 7:40, forty minutes late. I checked into the same little hotel I had stayed in three weeks before. At this lower elevation, my room was a very comfortable 79 degrees when I went to bed, almost twenty degrees warmer than my room had been in Kalaw, at 4300 feet, that morning. Unfortunately, a Buddhist monk wailed away all night on a loudspeaker, stopping only about dawn.
I left Thazi the next morning before 10 on a pickup headed to Meiktila to the west and about 11 left on a very crowded small bus, with folks on the roof, heading north to Mandalay. The sky was overcast all day. We arrived in Mandalay about 2:30 and I checked into a hotel I have stayed in a couple of times before.
I spent the rest of the afternoon at travel agencies and the government tourism office. I had hoped to be able to travel on the upper Chindwin River and then leave Burma into India. You are permitted to do so, if you get a permit, but the price of the permit seems to have jumped from $50 to $150 since I was here in November, and I was told I would have to wait a week for my permit, picking it up in Mandalay. Plus, there are difficulties getting a permit because of my overstaying my visa.
I walked along the southern moat and wall of the palace in the late afternoon, but they were much less scenic under cloudy than under sunny skies. There are fewer tourists here than when I was here a little over three weeks ago, just before Christmas, but there still are quite a few tourists. At 244 feet elevation, Mandalay felt warm, and I enjoyed being able to walk around at night without a jacket.
The next day, too, was cloudy, with a few drops of rain. I finally decided to give up the Chindwin and the land crossing to India, at least for this year, and fly from Yangon to Dhaka in Bangladesh. My ticket, on Biman, Bangladesh's national airline, cost only $185.
The next morning it was 61 degrees in my room when I got up. This morning was Kalaw's five day market, and after breakfast I spent about an hour and a half wandering through it, under mostly cloudy skies. I never seem to tire of these markets. I recognized two of the young women chicken butchers I had watched in Nyaungshwe. There were fewer tourists than at the five day market in Kalaw ten days earlier, when I was previously there. Burma seems to get a particularly large influx of tourists who come for two or three weeks over the Christmas-New Year holidays.
I got to the train station after 11 and at 12:10, only 25 minutes late, left on a train bound for Thazi. The ordinary class carriages were packed, as was the sole upper class carriage, where I had my seat, with local people returning home from Kalaw's five day market. Beside myself, there were only two other foreign tourists in the upper class carriage. It was full of boxes and bags and bundles of all sorts of stuff from the market.
Thazi is northwest of Kalaw, but the train first headed south through the hilly countryside, with lots of pines. A few small rice terraces, already harvested, appeared here and there among the forest. I think the train began to turn northwest about the time we reached our first stop, at the village of Myindaik, about a half hour from Kalaw. We spent about 40 minutes there, waiting for a train coming up from Thazi, but it was a very interesting stop. The platform was filled with hill tribe vendors, a very colorful scene. Besides fruit and vegetables on sale, several ladies were selling flowers, carrying big bundles of them in their arms and on their heads. I enjoyed walking around and was able to buy a chicken, vegetable, and rice lunch, packed in a styrofoam box, for the train ride.
We reached the summit, at 4608 feet, soon after leaving Myindaik, and I enjoyed the beautiful mountain scenery as we very slowly descended. We had some long views down valleys towards distant forest covered hills. I think this may be the prettiest train journey I've taken in Burma. The stops were very interesting and picturesque, too, often with small, colonial era stations of brick with chimneys in small villages.
At one point the terrain was too steep for the train tracks to curve, and our train simply backed down a lower set of tracks, dropping from 3237 feet to 3031 (so said the signs), before again reversing itself and heading down a still lower set of tracks, the three sets of tracks forming a zigzag. There was another, shorter, zigzag about a thousand feet lower.
By about 4 the long views over the hills had disappeared and we were traveling through forest, which we emerged from more than an hour later into a sort of rolling plain at about 1400 feet elevation, reaching the town of Yinmabin. Heading west from Yinmabein, we again descending through hills, much drier ones, at dusk. We very slowly crossed a long and high viaduct, with no guardrails, just before dark. It was dark soon after 6.
We were soon in the flatlands, reaching Thazi, at 700 feet elevation, at 7:40, forty minutes late. I checked into the same little hotel I had stayed in three weeks before. At this lower elevation, my room was a very comfortable 79 degrees when I went to bed, almost twenty degrees warmer than my room had been in Kalaw, at 4300 feet, that morning. Unfortunately, a Buddhist monk wailed away all night on a loudspeaker, stopping only about dawn.
I left Thazi the next morning before 10 on a pickup headed to Meiktila to the west and about 11 left on a very crowded small bus, with folks on the roof, heading north to Mandalay. The sky was overcast all day. We arrived in Mandalay about 2:30 and I checked into a hotel I have stayed in a couple of times before.
I spent the rest of the afternoon at travel agencies and the government tourism office. I had hoped to be able to travel on the upper Chindwin River and then leave Burma into India. You are permitted to do so, if you get a permit, but the price of the permit seems to have jumped from $50 to $150 since I was here in November, and I was told I would have to wait a week for my permit, picking it up in Mandalay. Plus, there are difficulties getting a permit because of my overstaying my visa.
I walked along the southern moat and wall of the palace in the late afternoon, but they were much less scenic under cloudy than under sunny skies. There are fewer tourists here than when I was here a little over three weeks ago, just before Christmas, but there still are quite a few tourists. At 244 feet elevation, Mandalay felt warm, and I enjoyed being able to walk around at night without a jacket.
The next day, too, was cloudy, with a few drops of rain. I finally decided to give up the Chindwin and the land crossing to India, at least for this year, and fly from Yangon to Dhaka in Bangladesh. My ticket, on Biman, Bangladesh's national airline, cost only $185.
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