A Hitchhiker's guide to Myanmar Part 1 (Hsipaw via Bagan)

How strange life can be... Just as you think you took a wrong turn somewhere, the sucker drags you in the completely opposite direction and contrary to your own intuition and feelings on the matter, you end up precisely in the place you need to be. That was the case for me, at least, during my trip across northern Myanmar; namely in attempting to hitchhike to Hsipaw from the sacred town that is renowned for its temples, Bagan...

Bagan

I’d arrived in Bagan from the capital of Yangon and already had a place booked for the evening. I’d booked a place called the Royal Bagan Hotel, which was fairly expensive for a backpackers budget (about £ 18-22), but included a mixed bed air conditioned room, en-suite bathroom, (a tiny) swimming pool and breakfast included. From what I could gather, there must’ve been some cheaper guesthouses in Bagan, but this was the cheapest I could find online prior to coming.

The overnight bus from Yangon was a treacherous one. I’d managed to sleep but still felt quite cranky. I started walking into the town, rejecting the offers of the tuk-tuk and taxi drivers that passed me by. As I walked closer to the town via the main road, sweat now perspiring down my face and back, I came across two people in high visibility vests charging entry fees to tourists just to enter the town. Up until this point I had no idea there was an entry fee. It costs 30, 000 kyat (roughly £20), simply to enter the town, a price only attributed to foreigners. I scoffed at the price, already lamenting the fact I’d paid so much for accommodation and started to try and find another route into the town. The guy tried to usher me back but I headed in the opposite direction, back down the road I’d just came. This time, a couple, impeccably timed and sensing an opportunity, offered me a ride into the town to my hotel for just 7, 000 kyat (less than £4). I jumped in, and they told me to duck down in the backseat. As the driver approached the entrance to the town, he floored the accelerator past the guards. Eventually it was safe for me to get up as we drove out of the guard’s sight. I crept up and slowly, each of us in the car began to laugh, realising it was now safe to do so!

I could probably write an entirely separate article altogether simply to emphasise the mere beauty of the town of Bagan, one that has yet to become inundated with tourists. It is almost certainly, the most touristic region of Myanmar following the capital of Yangon, and for obvious reasons. The city boasts somewhere between 2.000-4.000 temples (estimators aren’t quite sure), and the town is a prime example of the beauty to be beheld in this fascinating country. It is a truly ancient city and the damaged yet still beautiful temples reflect that. The town itself was fortified in 849 AD by King Pyinbya, and the temples were constructed over a 250-year period by locals, who constructed over 10.000 religious monuments (approximately 1000 stupas, 10, 000 small temples and 3000 monasteries). I’d arrived on the back of an earthquake that had devastated the town, leaving some of the oldest temples in ruins.

Bagan is split into three areas: the old town, the new town and Nyaung Oo. I ended up staying in the latter. Due to there being so many temples in each area, you’re practically spoilt for choice. Here’s a description of each town I found online in terms of where is best to stay:

• Old Town

• “This is the place to be if you want to be in the thick of the ancient ruins and some of the most beautiful and expensive hotels in Bagan. It is sitting within what remains of the city walls of the ancient Bagan. This luxury quarter isn’t actually inhabited so there is not much else there apart from the hotels and temples with the exception of high-end restaurants nearby. So if you want to get the best magic out of Bagan (roaming around by bike or horse-cart, during sunrise and sunset), regardless of the affordability, “Old Bagan” is the ideal place for you. ”

• New Bagan (South of Old Bagan)

• “Cheaper mid-price accommodation options are in New Bagan. Located on the high banks of the Irrawaddy River, it’s scenic but more remote. Built more recently to house the local population who were removed from Old Bagan, Although there are plenty of temples nearby but none are as famous or big as those in the older counterpart. It is quite shoppers-friendly with many lacquer-ware and local handicraft shops. ”

• Nyaung U / Nyaung Oo

• “Confusing the travellers with New Bagan is the town of Nyaung U, Bagan’s most budget-orientated area with more choices for restaurants but the furthest from the monuments. It offers the best range of things to do; the centre of the village is atmospheric, with some colonial architecture and a market which is a hive of activities. All the transport links (boat, bus, plane) are situated. If you are touring with a car and a driver which makes little difference to which area you stay in, Nyaung Oo fits the bill. Do weigh in the fact that renting a car will cost you about US$ 40 per day. ”

Source for this information about the different areas can be found by clicking here

Whilst it might be best to rent a scooter or to get around Bagan, after exhaustedly peddling around on a bicycle the first day. I settled for the more environmentally friendly e-bike on the second day, courtesy of my hotel. They travel fast enough and I didn’t have to charge it up once over the 12 hours I rented it for. It's a practical way to explore the city, especially if you’re on a budget.

I’d spend two nights in Bagan and by the third day it was time to leave. I’d decided this was now the time I’d try and hitchhike, having been coerced into using public transport thus far along my travels. As it turned out, hitchhiking directly to Hsipaw from Bagan proved to be a near impossible task and I had to settle for the town of Pyin Oo Lwin (near the second ‘city’ of Burma: Mandalay), a town which was famous for boasting the former house of the famous British writer George Orwell.

Hitchhiking in Myanmar

As it so happened at the beginning of my first attempted hitchhike in this country, I found myself on the middle of a main road heading out of Bagan. To clarify ‘main roads’ are nothing like what you’d come across in Europe or even in other more metropolitan areas of Asia. The women with their faces painted in Thanaka (a type of beauty product to protect against the sun), and the men dressed in their longyi’s - which is essentially a long male skirt/wrap that is worn across the waist - all huddled around me, whilst the mosquitoes took their turns nibbling at my ankles. After waiting there for about 40 minutes with my ever-growingly heavier backpack, and after many locals puzzlingly looking at me asking if I needed help or for them to call me a taxi, I was finally rescued.

A minivan approached me, with a middle-aged Burmese man at the wheel, an elderly couple in the back, accompanied by the driver’s wife and son.

“I’m going to Hsipaw... ” I naively stated.

“Not going there” the driver replied, bluntly.

“Can you take me any further down the road? ” I asked.

He gazed at me confusedly before nodding his head in a rather noncommittal form of agreement. I climbed into the back of minivan, crammed alongside a teenage boy. With me being white and European, and him being a teenage Burmese boy, the conversation soon inevitably turned to football, specifically to the English Premier League. Burmese people are crazy about football, it’s probably the sport you’ll encounter most of the youth playing on the fields or streets second only to local sport of Chinlone, which likewise involves kicking a small, woven, plastic-like ball up between players and trying not to let it touch the ground. They dropped me off about a mile down the road at a main intersection, which joined Bagan to another nearby town. I climbed out and nervously waited for any sign of a vehicle. After 10 minutes, no cars had passed. I started to worry. “Where the f**k am I? ” my mind began to wonder.

Never underestimate the kindness of strangers, particularly when said strangers happen to be Burmese. An eagle eyed young lady had spotted me from what appeared to be a local farm on the corner of the road. She approached me, speaking only in Burmese. Quickly realising my limited Burmese vocabulary, which practically only extended to Mingalaba (hello), she soon forcedly, and thankfully, began to speak with me in English. Like many other concerned, confused natives had before her, she began by asking me if I needed a taxi. The concept of hitchhiking, though to an extent rather common, is something Burmese, and for that matter inhabitants of other Asian countries, can’t quite get their head around. The idea of a white man, seen by them to be deemed as prosperous and wealthy, practically ‘begging’ for a ride to another town seems preposterous. When it comes to locals doing the same however, it is a fairly common occurrence, albeit usually only for short trips.

Within two minutes of me trying to explain to her what I was doing, a car came across the horizon. I waved frantically trying to catch their attention. The cliché of standing with your thumb out to hitchhike in Myanmar is redundant, the only way you’re going to get a ride in this country is by doing something – anything - to grab their attention. Sometimes if you wave they’ll simply wave back, thinking that you’re just being friendly. Due to this reason, I’d adopted an odd posture of waving frantically like a lunatic, sporadically intermixing my waves by jumping up and down when it felt necessary. The results were, better, shall we say.

There were two men in the front of the car. They spoke practically little to no English but one of them (the driver) had substantially better speaking skills than the other. Again I enquired about getting to Hsipaw. The lady acted as an intermediary translator between us. “Too far” they explained as they told her they were going to Mandalay “Mandaly will do! ” I exclaimed excitedly, realising this was probably my only chance this day of getting anywhere close to Hsipaw, let alone any other major town such as Mandalay or Pyin Oo Lwin. I made the decision there and then to hitchhike to Mandalay and get a bus or a taxi to Pyin Oo Lwin when I arrived there, with the naïve hope of still reaching Hsipaw by the end of the day. I climbed into the back of their minivan (what is it with Burmese people and minivans?! ) with my head touching the ceiling. The van was destined to drive into the distance across the cracked roads filled with potholes, for what then felt like would be a long and bumpy ride.

The guys realized the back of the van wasn’t particularly accommodating for me, and the front passenger who had the lesser of the English speaking skills amongst the two, decided to switch places; possibly due to my height, possibly due to them administering foreign privileges, I don’t really know... I was thankful to say the least as the back of that van wouldn’t have been a particularly comfortable experience for a 6’3, 85 kg guy with an overly-sized backpack, though at the time I didn’t want to seem as though I were taking advantage of them and hesitated before agreeing. They virtually insisted I sit in the front and thus I couldn’t really argue, and the driver, his teeth now blood red from chewing the Betel nut he had in his mouth, seemed excited to have the chance to practice his English with a new face. Betel nut is a type of seed that is indigenous to Asia and parts of Africa. I’d previously come across it in Taiwan, it was truck drivers who were most famous for chewing it there. The effects are similar to that of chewing tobacco; mild euphoria, and an increased sense of alertness. The side effect is they make your mouth appear blood red, as though you’d been chewing something that was still alive.

About an hour along the way, we stopped off at a small town. As it turned out the guys were on the last part of their shift at work before heading home to Mandalay. Their job was to collect the money from certain stores. They told me to wait by the van whilst they went to collect the money from all the local shops. After a few minutes I had to climb out of the van, which due to the scorching temperature outside, had now trans mutated into a parked, static sauna. I’d arrived in Myanmar in mid August and had now been there just over two weeks. The weather was hot but from what I could tell I’d missed peak tourist time, at least that was how it seemed whilst I was in Bagan.

One of the guys came back to the van and told me to come around some of the shops with them. I did so, taking the opportunity as a chance to buy some snacks for the remaining 4 or so hours of our journey. As I walked down the street next to my Burmese counterpart, the faces of the locals watched in sheer amazement; this town was some 80-120 km away from the touristic sites of Bagan, so to see a white person in such a place was indeed a rare commodity. In one shop where I stopped to pick up some fruit the lady who owned the store, so excited to see a foreigner, gave me the fruit for free, which would have probably only cost about two pence anyway. It would be nothing to pay by western standards and I certainly had no qualms in doing so, but in any culture it is always seen as rude to reject a gift!

Along the trip we drove past the Burmese equivalent of roadworks, which was essentially local women carrying heavy rocks to hand over to the men in order to construct the road. Seeing women working on building and construction sites is a common occurance in Myanmar, and leaves a lot to be said for the case of female egalitarianism. Is it conceivably correct for women to be given the job of carrying the heavy instruments for construction? This article from The Guardian shares a fascinating insight into the roles of women in this industry as well as society at large in Myanmar.

We arrived in Mandalay around 7 pm. The driver took me to his home to meet his family. None of them could speak any English. His neighbourhood seemed incredibly deprived but by contrast, the inhabitants all seemed entirely content with what they had. Do we Westerners really have it so much better? Is this idea, this superiority complex inherent with having more technology and bigger skyscrapers really such a gift? In brief contemplation I began to consider the ascetic lifestyle, picturing myself living in a hut before quickly remembering my own culture, background and ways of life. Perhaps it is difficult, if not impossible to go from living as we do, to living as they do. But the question now becomes, is it right for us to coerce our way of life upon other cultures in the name of international development and economic growth? Or, being as happy as they seem, would it not in fact be a burden to do so? Time will tell on this matter, the capital of Yangon is already a shining beacon of East meets West, with shopping malls and restaurants located within proximity of temples and monasteries.

Pyin OO Lwin

After stopping at his home for a few minutes I got back in the driver’s car and admittedly I had no idea whereabouts we were going. He explained he would negotiate a taxi to Pyin Oo Lwin for me, which I thanked him for as there was every chance I would have been charged an astronomical price just for the mere fact of being a foreigner. We arrived at the bus station but there were no more buses to Pyin Oo Lwin that evening, so as we agreed he negotiated a price with a taxi driver for me. I climbed into another stranger’s car, this time however I was paying, and said my goodbyes to the other kind stranger who’d gratuitously taken me so far already. It was about an hours drive to Pyin Oo Lwin and the sun was starting to set. The hilly road there was filled with nothing but trees, inspiring greenery, crops and small huts where people lived and sold food and cigarettes. I grew tired but dared not fall asleep incase I missed an incredible view: every second of the short journey was filled with beauty.

As I arrived at the train station in Pyin Oo Lwin I headed straight to the ticket office. There were no trains to Hsipaw until the next morning at 8 am. I wandered the streets and found a hostel in the town centre, which cost about £3 for the evening. I arrived at the train station the following morning to find two other foreigners also waiting for the train. The train arrived, though it wasn’t like any train you’ve encountered anywhere else. It was slow, bumpy and the windows were wide open, to act as a form of ventilation from the scorching, external tropical climate. At each stop, women would jump on and off with baskets on their heads trying to sell food. I got on the same carriage as the foreigners and sparked up a conversation. The guy (Omri) was from Israel and the girl (Juliette) was from France. They’d told me how they’d found the name of a trekking guide to take them up into the mountains for the evening in Hsipaw and asked me if I’d like to join. I agreed there and then.

The train ride, all 5 or so hours of it, was filled with spectacular landscapes as far as the eye could behold. Lush green fields embellished with flocks of birds and crops of plantain nestled around each small town. Young kids excitedly shouted and waved to the foreigners on the train, this perhaps being the first time some of them had ever seen white people.

Trekking and sleeping in the mountains of Hsipaw

When we arrived in Hsipaw, a pick-up truck ushered us into the back (for free) and without second thought we got onboard. It took us to their local hostel and booked us a room for the night (clever marketing! ), with the reception staff agreeing to keep our backpacks there whilst we commenced the hike on the following day. We met up at the hostel with our tour-guide-to-be ‘Mr. Bike’. The 2-day and 1 night trek cost 40.000 Kyat (roughly £20), which included all of our food, transportation, and accommodation for the evening in a host’s house up the mountain. In many ways I felt lucky that we’d ended up with Mr. Bike as our tour guide, being only the second popular trekking guide in the town, it meant that we would be his only customers. The main trekking guides in the town usually worked alongside the most popular hostel in the city: Mr. Charles Guesthouse, which fortunately wasn’t where we were staying.

The following morning we prepared for our trek with Mr. Bike. He took us up into the mountains, passing local kids on the way up, who forced us to stop at every encounter. The area was rich with organic, fresh fruit and vegetables. At one point Mr. Bike picked up a courgette, sliced it with his machete and gave a piece for each of us to eat. The taste was refreshing and the weather was hot. Landscapes filled with hills and tea fields were dotted across the horizon. Insects of all shapes and sizes colourfully decorated the scenery as well as the atmosphere, as cicadas littered the air with their buzzing drums of peaceful, summer apt music. Holding one in my hand I beheld the beauty of its glossy green coat, recently emerged from its springtime cocoon.

The hike itself took approximately 5-6 hours, with us stopping for lunch at a local’s hut along the way. Burmese food is fairly tasty, but you soon begin to realize the lack of variation in dishes as well as the originality in comparison to other local Asian cuisines such as Thai food, which seems somewhat similar if not slightly spicier. For less than £1 a meal however, you’d be hard pressed to complain.

We finally reached the top and met our host family for the evening. It was a long, exhausting trip that was made all the worthwhile by the friendly greetings of the local inhabitants as well as the delicious food that our hosts had prepared for us. Our hosts comprised of a young, beautiful single mother accompanied by an equally delightful toddler and her grandmother. Their English was limited but what use are words when you have the hospitality of Burmese mountain folk?

As it transpired we had fortunately ended up in the village on a somewhat special night. It was a religious holiday (Buddhism is the dominant religion in Burma, with some 94% of Burmese people actively practicing it). We took part amongst the local celebrations, which consisted of the natives and local Buddhist monks gathering in the local temple to chant and play queer sounding instruments. It was certainly noisy but nevertheless interesting! We then headed outside to congregate under the night sky; it was a full moon, a prerequisite that always commemorated this special occasion. The local men took part in a peculiar yet simple dance, going around in circles as the women surrounded them performing a simple hand gesture to accommodate it. There was a fellow hiking group up there who were staying with another local family. We all got involved in the festival atmosphere and attempted to join in the dance, trying not to upset the rhythm too much with our ill-timed dance moves!

As we arrived back at the home we cracked open an ice-cold local Burmese beer and smoked a Burmese cigar (cheroot). A wave of almost transcendental bliss engulfed me as I lay down in deep, near meditative relaxation; why did those monks spend all that time meditating when they could just as easily do this? To my surprise the monks often did smoke cheroot from what I could tell, and their love for football was equally as perplexing, though I shall save that for a different blog post! The following morning Mr. Bike took us down a different route, where we came across a waterfall where hoards of young locals had gathered (was it school holidays? ) We joined in amongst the fun and climbed up the slippery rocks to the top of the waterfall – the closest thing we had to a shower in the last 24 or so hours. The trip finally came to an end and as with all traveling encounters, Mr. Bike, Juliette and Omri came to say our goodbyes. The people who I’d had such good conversations with over the last 48 hours - mainly practicing my terrible English polluted accented French – were also destined to head their separate paths.

Mr. Bike was an excellent guide and I have him, the kind stranger who picked me up from Bagan as well as of course Omri and Juliette to thank for this wonderful adventure. It is peculiar how life puts you in situations you had no idea you’d end up in. When I planned my trip to Hsipaw I had no idea how to get there or what I’d do when I finally arrived. It is always though the kindness of strangers that we have the most serendipitous and fulfilling experiences in life. There were many other encounters were I’ve been fortunate to witness this kindness, both in Myanmar and other countries. If it is possible to do these encounters justice through the medium of words I’ll continue to attempt to do so in the forthcoming blog posts.

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