Road to Inle
MYANMAR | Friday, 18 May 2007 | Views [944]
The road to Inle was no different than all the other non-maintained roads in Myanmar; big potholes, curving narrow strips of road. We boarded a local bus in Kalaw (as if we hadn't had enough bus experience our last trip) and they packed it full, inside and rooftop, with the morning commuters and all their goods. Ladies, children and elder men along with full fare paying tourists on the inside; boys, men, animals and cargo on the roof. We quickly grabbed our plastic baggies of Indian curry and chapatti for our breakfast, and off we sped, stopping at each local town to pick up and drop off passengers. No one on the bus spoke a word of English, and we really weren't sure about how we'd know which stop was Shwe Nyaung, our point of bus transfer, so I busted out the regional map in my guide book, and chatted it up with the woman next to me in sign language. They finally figured out where we were going, and I felt somewhat confident that they might tap us when it was the right stop. An elder man boarded the bus, and was standing next to my seat. He conveniently announced each town name, successively louder each time when I looked at him with a very confused look, trying to comprehend the words coming from his beautiful toothless mouth. We finally got to our stop, and by then, I think the whole bus load of 50 people knew it was our stop and motioned us off. Dropped out on the street, and looking clueless, we were a tout magnet. RIck shaw? Trishaw? Taxi? Motorbike? All the touts were out in force. We found what appeared to be a bus station - when we said "bus?" the man behind the desk nodded "yes," (but as we've found, yes means yes, I see you in front of me talking, and nothing more), so there we stood. Apparently there are no busses, only trucks with two planks along each side of the back of the pick up area for seats. At first the touts wanted 2000 kyat to go 11 kilometers... We had just paid that amount to come a good 60 k's, so I knew better than to just take it. I finally got the guy down to 400 kyat, and they packed us into a truck that was already completely overloaded with people and parcels; but we're finding that the goal of local transport here is to get as many people from point A to point B as possible at all costs - including comfort, safety, and vehicle well-being. We paid our mandatory $6 USD fee at the government checkpoint and headed to a guest house we hoped had rooms, and we were elated to find a very rustic room, on stilts, over the river for only $13/night. It didn't matter that the faucet on the sink was just a rusty hole spewing water - we had our luxury villa over the water, and were happy to be off busses. We learned after a short time in Inle Lake, that electricity was a luxury here, and that it frequently went off. We got pretty quickly used to walking in pitch dark over bridges and pothole roads to dinner, under the cool monsoon downpours. We sat by candlelight, the only two people in the restaurant (it's low season and there are little to no tourists that we have seen), listening to the rains pour down, and loving having weather to appreciate and celebrate. Yet another beautiful part of Myanmar we are anxious to get out and see tomorrow.
Tags: planes trains & automobiles
