Moulmein To Hpa An, Myanmar
I awoke at 330 am for a bus back to Moulmein because I wanted to see the countryside verses just pass through it. The bus left at 5 am and there wasn’t anybody on it. I had two seats to myself all the way back to the station. The bus wasn’t an AC bus but a local bus. The driver didn’t play Burmese music at full volume and he didn’t put on a movie at the same time.
The powdered road dust from the pass entered the bus through the open front door and every crack around the windows changing my red backpack to rust and coated it like cake frosting. The morning ride was still worth the odd hours. I got to watch the road work, as I mentioned before men broke rock and others sort the rocks by size and toss into baskets and carry to various piles and places along the side of the road. Oh and if you look close those are bullet hole stickers.
I noticed lots of green military vehicles at the top of the pass. Women and young people all worked the road in the dust as we drove the winding turns. The dust cloud we raised puffed up and settled down the gorge and floated off like a sustained mist rising in the heat of the day to come.
Back at the Breeze Guest House I was greeted by smiles and a 7$/night room including breakfast. I saw a guy I probably saw in Dawei and we began chatting. He and a companion were from Colorado and we went out to dinner and exchange travel stories. Talking to others is definitely a good way to get through the cross information problem in Burma. They had entered Burma from Thailand at the most southern point in the country that is supposed to be against the rules but I’ve heard of many getting a boat or bus and coming up through the islands or by land. This means that some areas where westerners haven’t been to in a long time are now open. They did mention that the ocean is much more blue the further south one travels.
I arranged to join a small group of westerners for a boat ride to Hpa An where there are Buddha caves and some interesting caves to boat through. The boat ride was about 5 hours under a boat canopy and past small fishing villages and people washing clothes, themselves, brushing teeth, and water buffalo soaking. Egrets and Cranes waded; ducks drifted, and brown Kingfishers darted skittishly out of sight to the refuge of the tall grass along the riverbank. The river remained tranquil and languid as the two stroke Chinese engine hammered along. I stuffed my headphones in and listened to a wide assortment from Chopin and Brahms to Marilyn Manson and Damu.
We arrived in Hpa An and didn’t have a clue where to stay but I questioned a tuk-tuk driver who said he knew the cheapest place to stay and drove me there directly. Someone said they had checked a few days before and that it was full but I knew that two days in advance is too far. I stayed at the Soe Brothers Guest House and I volunteered to share one with a kindly English gent named Jeffrey but we nicknamed him Alfred from Batman, they look and spoke alike. Hpa An is a nice sleepy little town that many tourists seem to just stop moving and chill out on a balcony and watch a week go by eating good food and listening to the other travels tales and highlights. I stepped out in the afternoon heat for a late lunch that proved difficult at first. On the main street with a clock tower at one end I found teashops and stores packed with sweets. One or two roads away and a few turns and there were a few restaurants available. The portions were big and the beer cold with ice on the bottom of the bottle. You’ve got to love it. By nightfall both balconies were packed with laughter and smiles. There was a group of folks heading to the Buddha caves and some cottage industry locations by tuk-tuk that headed out almost everyday in the morning and I hoped on board the 5 cave tour with Pagodas and Stupas inside some of them. That is gold leaf in some places out of reach.
The next morning ‘Alfred’, a couple from Poland, a Swiss gent and myself sped off in the morning cool. One of the first caves we went to was named Kaw-goon Cave with many Buddha and scriptures dating back to the 13th century and there are some earlier signs that take it back to the 7th century. Not to get into all the caves details, they are beautiful and deep and worth the day journey to see them. After lunch we went to a proper cave with no pagodas in it. Flashlights are a must because you don’t know what you’re going to run into.
As we passed through the cave we were walking on approximately eight feet of bat guano with their shrill cries above us. Coming out on the other side of the mountain we walked down a set of stairs to the waters edge of a shallow lake where we climbed into canoes and paddled through another cave and out along narrow waterways at the edge of vast rice fields with palm trees in the distance. Fish and ducks puttered around in the water in no particular hurry.
I had a bus ticket for Yangon the next day so it was a quiet evening on the balcony with those from the tour hearing a little about each other and our paths. The Polish pair are headed towards marriage and living in Australia awaiting citizenship, Jeffrey ‘Alfred’ has retired to a small town with a good pub in England. Good pubs are hard to find and once you find it you don’t let go he says. We lost the Swiss gent but I think he had an interesting tale to tell as well.
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