Hpa-An

Three years ago, when I first visted Myanmar, I really wanted to try and see the southern coastline. It's just north of the gorgeous west coast of Thailand but hasn't seen the same tremendous development. However, foreigners still weren't allowed to travel freely in that part of the country yet.

This year, two factors pointed me back in that direction. First, the restrictions were recently lifted in the South. And second, Anthea wanted to visit Myanmar while she's still local to Southeast Asia. So it made a good rendezvous point and an opportunity for a new adventure.

Myanmar now allows many countries to get an entry visa online which is infinitely more convenient than it use to be. The old style embassy-issued visa now allows entry over land. But the new visa still only allows entry through the Yangon airport for the time being so that's where our trip would start.

Shwedagon Pagoda, Yangon

I was initially thinking of just flying straight to Dawei, but Anthea heard that Hpa-An was worth visiting. It's a small town just inland from Mawlamyine with some great limestone formations and caves to explore.  

We decided to make the first few days of our trip as comfortable as possible - ease into the challenge. We spent the first day with a friend of Anthea's who lives in Yangon teaching. The city seemed to have cleaned up a bit since my last visit.  It wasn't so different, but there were fewer broken parked cars, and a fair number of new buildings under construction. But Yangon wasn't really what we came to see.

So after a day of sight seeing and visiting, we hired a private driver to take us the first leg to Hpa-An. We'd have plenty of time to take buses, trains, and boats. Today we'd travel in style.

I wasn't expecting much in the way of luxury from our ride. The last time I was in Myanmar, most cars were just barely holding together, but this ride turned out to be first class. A nice, new comfortable Toyota with a friendly, polite driver. He showed up to our apartment right on time and whisked us off into the countryside.

There wasn't a ton to see along the highway. We had to drive a bit north from the capital before getting to the highway that headed south. There were a few small towns, but mostly just lots of grassy plains.  

After a few turns, it was clear that the driver wasn't entirely clear how to get to Hpa-An because he kept stopping to ask for directions, which turned out to be common practice everywhere we went in the country. Over the next couple of hours, we stopped-and-asked our entire way to the Hotel Angels Land, one of the cushier places to stay in Hpa-An at around $40 per night.

Two attendants opened the glass doors for us and several uniformed employees lined up behind the registration desk smiling and nodding at us as we checked in. They were adorable. And we were happy to be off the road.

They gave us a hand-drawn map of the surrounding area including the town itself and some points of interest we might venture out to.

Our experience in Hpa-An is the first time I can remember spending an extended period in a place where I was a tourist, but most of the people in the area were not used to seeing tourists.  There weren't very many people around who wanted to sell us gifts.. or take us on a tour.. or recruit us for their guesthouse. They were, by and large, not merely tolerant of our presence, but seemed sincerely happy to see us.

In return for a town with little tourism, we also got a town with little to offer in terms of the comforts of vacation, like nice restaurants or other entertainment.  But people there seemed happy and relatively comfortable in their day to day lives. Their charming town was beside a river and surrounded by beautiful scenery.

We found a local restaurant that served traditional Myanmar dishes that all came with a dozen little steel bowls filled with various appetizer dips that were meant to be mixed with a main dish and a plate of lettuce, cucumber, and green beans. It was a lot of mysterious new flavors to take in.  The whole spread cost about one dollar each.

On the way back to our hotel, we took a detour and got semi-lost in what turned out to be an exceedingly charming neighborhood.  The street was mostly dark, but the wooden homes had enough lights on to give a glimpse in to some of them which seemed warm and decorated with love. The block had that special vibe that everyone anywhere wants in a neighborhood. I wished my camera could capture the dimly lit scene, but there was no way. Good detour.

We arranged a motorbike for the following day so we could check out some of the sights from the hand drawn map.

The first stop on the map, a limestone tower topped by a Buddhist temple, turned out to be a real tourist attraction. There were tour buses, cars, and motorbikes and people walking around everywhere.  But no western tourists - only local tourists who had come in from surrounding areas. We stuck out like a sore thumb. I walked around with a permanent sheepish smile on my face because everyone looked directly at us as we walked by. If someone didn't notice us, their friend would whisper in their ear so they wouldn't miss seeing the odd foreigners.  Most of the time they smiled shyly and some would say "hello!" or "mingalaba!". Some would hold out their hands to shake.

It felt like we were Brad and Angelina trying to anonymously attend a public event to no avail.

Anthea was initially hesitant to put her camera in people's faces and take pictures without permission. But she soon discovered that people wanted to take pictures with us, and we could trade favors.  At one point things started to get out of hand as some teens were practically lining up to trade pictures with us. It started to snowball.  But it was flattering and sweet.  We felt so welcomed.

We got back on the road to see a couple more sights.  The cave that got the most enthusiastic review from the hotel staff was also the furthest ride.  But the map wasn't to scale.

After a long ride and some wrong turns, we realized we had no idea where it was. Oh right. This is Myanmar.  You have to ask. So we stopped and asked a couple of times. People were happy to help, but without any signs it still wasn't easy.

Out on the highway, teens would speed by waving and giving peace signs.  Some trucks held camouflage clad youth and sported blue and red Republic of Kawthoolei flags. It was hard to tell if this was just a fashionable way to cruise or a show of military resistance.  Both seemed equally likely, and not mutually exclusive.

We thought we were getting closer to the last cave, but weren't sure. We saw a building with a sign written in Burmese and a bunch of cars, so we headed up the driveway.

We were met by a parade of Buddhist monks driving a variety of random bullhorn-equipped jeeps and tractors. They seemed both confused and amused by our presence. One asked where we were going, and Anthea remembered the name of the cave, "Saddar!".

They motioned for us to follow them. So we joined the parade - between a couple of tractors.

They enthusiastically pointed us down a red dirt road just around the corner. Thanks monks!

The road led to one of the most fabulous landscapes I have ever seen. Our narrow dirt road split an expanse of green rice field, and led to a limestone mountain. We had to just stop, get off the bike, and stand there for a minute. Are we really here?

The road ended at another Buddhist temple with worn stone white elephants at the entrance.  The cave was adorned with a number of golden statues. Another place that had been painstakingly and lovingly adorned with creative spiritual artwork.

But then I saw a string of light bulbs lighting a path deeper into the cave. So we followed it. And kept following it. We had to leave our shoes at the entrance. And I began to wonder what the clammy mud under my bare feet was made of. Bat poop? Ack. But ok, let's keep on climbing through it.

After awhile we saw a brighter light. There's an exit. There's a nice lake surrounded by trees out there. And there are some row boats in the lake.

And they want to take us on a ride back to the other side. Oh this is cool.

They float us through another cave tunnel and out into the rice fields back toward our shoes.

And whistle us a tune along the way.

Nice work.