Myanmar: Sister time vol. 2

What happened to lottamobiili after Istanbul? I went home in order to organize myself, apply Visa for Pakistan ( which i was denied), celebrated Christmas with my family and bought tickets to Bangkok, Thailand. My plans changed a bit because of the cold Central Asian winter that I wanted to avoid. Currently, my plan is to cycle through Thailand and Myanmar and from there  cross the border to India. Where I will end up after India will be big surprise, also for myself.

 

After Christmas holidays, i flew to Thailand and now I am heading towards Nagaland in India. My sister joined me for the ride through Myanmar. We got visas for Myanmar from Bangkok and crossed the border in Mae Sot. The border crossing was one of a kind, the clean, rather quiet and organized Thailand changed to more noisy, more smiling, more intense Myanmar. Rarely there is such a big difference on border crossings than we felt in Mae Sot. In our opinion, the change was only for better. Myanmar has opened for tourism only few years ago, so we were looking forward to get off from the tourist crowds in Thailand. Myanmar has been closed for foreign encounters nearly half a decade. Therefore people are extremely friendly and helpful. It is absolutely the people who make the country one of my favorite country to cycle.

From the border of Thailand we climbed some beautiful mountains and headed towards Yangon through Hpa An. We tried to sleep in the monasteries, but without success. Therefore, we ended up sleeping in local people's homes, wild camping and some nights we spent in the guest houses. On our first night we had beautiful experience at Burmese home with two sisters (!), where we were so well taken care off and the whole village came literally to watch us. We got surprised, that the family wanted to host us since we had heard that it is illegal for foreigners to stay with the Burmese families. Well, for us the the adventure through Myanmar could not start any better.

The road to Yangon was in rather good condition and the landscape changed from forested mountains, river valleys to agricultural fields. Neither of us have felt more welcomed to a country as we felt in Myanmar. While cycling, people invited us for coffee, everybody was waving at us and shouting hello! Burmese people are absolutely one of the most friendly people. I had a flat tire after we left from Hpa An towards Yangon and I had 10 men wanting to help me out. The result was twisted inner tube, smiles and laughs.

Yangon, as a former capital of Myanmar, is one of my favorite cities in Asia, even though the food poisoning put us down for several days. I applied the permit to cross the border into India in Tamu-Moreh border crossing from travel agency called Exotic Myanmar. While we were in Yangon it was unsure, whether it will be possible to cross the border at all, since the border was closed due to earthquake and slow official paperwork on Indians side. After getting official paper from Indian Embassy, which allowed me to cross the border, I was able to apply the permit from the travel agency. I did spent some time stressing myself out about the problematic border crossing, but as usual things end up just fine.

After Yangon we decided to take a bus to north, since we missed three cycling days while being sick in Yangon. The north was much cooler and hillier and we were happy for the change. When cycling down from Kalav to Bagan we enjoyed over 40km downhill. The serpentine road which was not on the best condition made us to drive slowly and once again the children were everywhere waving and greeting us. Again, we were just absolutely happy to be in Myanmar. So many smiling faces made us smile even more than we normally do. While being in Finland, I was asked why am I smiling, should have asked back why are you not smiling, are things really that bad in Finland? In Myanmar, country of smiling people, my happiness was never questioned.

We spend 4 days cycling from Kalav to Bagan and met a couple from Germany on bikes. We made adventurous routes together and pushed our bikes on the railways, were bathing next to the roads ( normal in most of south East Asian countries) found some beautiful camping spots in the canyon where small river was running. How beautiful time!

From Bagan started our last stretch together to City called Monywa. How sad it can be to say good byes to such an amazing little sister? I was not sure, if I could continue alone and not have somebody to share the situations. How much easier it is to face new this together than alone? Who would laugh with me from the morning to evening? Even if our parting happened over one week ago, how I miss my own sorkkamuumi!

After Lauriina left, the bicycle touring suddenly changed to bicycle exploring- or adventuring. I must have missed my sister that much that I lost my way while cycling from Moniwa to Kalewa. I had an idea of just making small detour into the jungle, and there I was hoping that the road would take me back into human settlements as soon as possible. The road condition was not that good and the inclination of the mountains made the road  toughest road I have been cycling so far.

The nights I spend in the jungle reminded me how much noise the jungle can make after it gets dark. I thought that in that national park there would not be any big mammals such as tigers and elephants. Later, I heard I was wrong. Well, I slept with earplugs deep in my ears, so I would not hear all the noises. The only animal I saw was barking deer, how loud they can be!

How I ended up into Village called Mingin is still surprise for myself. The roads on the mountains were only loose sand, and I was not able to cycle them up or down. For the first time I was swearing out loud and hoping that there would be traffic to save me from the situation I had put myself into. There was no traffic in a whole day. While I was pushing my bike up, I managed to go only 2km in an hour. As usually, everything turns out well, I managed to get out from the mountains alive with new great memory of mini-adventure. The guest house I slept did not have a bath, so I joined the local people washing themselves and everything else on the river. In middle of my bath I looked over my shoulder and saw 15 people behind me, making sure I know how to clean myself. When did shower become social event? The next day, I took boat to Kalewa which was well worth it. How nice it was to sit down and do nothing else than smile for beautiful old villager women and watch the view of small river villages passing by one by one.

From Kalewa I took the India-Myanmar friendship road. How beautiful the first stretch was, following the river in between green hills, with a proper road! My last night in Myanmar, I spend with a family from Chin state. The girl, who took me in was a teacher of the local school. Her working days sounded long into my ears: from 8am to 11.30am and from 1pm to 5pm and then again evening school from 7pm to 8.30pm. After spending night with the family,  I was sad to get closer to Indian border.

I found Myanmar as a very good country for cycle touring. The roads in between tourist places are in rather good condition, but it is easy to choose rods less traveled. I felt very safe in there, I managed to do wild camping (even if it is not really allowed), had pillow fight with girl of my age, got to drink raw eggs for breakfast, challenged myself with hard roads and the most surprising thing is that my bike, Lady Princess made it, with only two punctures and gear problem, through the tough roads of Myanmar!

And here's a song for this time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NucJk8TxyRg