A COUPLE OF DAYS IN PYAY BEFORE VISITING BAGAN

LET’S START WITH A VIDEO SUMMARY THIS TIME!

See below highlights from my 2 days in Pyay:

HEADING TO PYAY

I left Yangon to head to Pyay with a friend I’d made during my stay there. We were both heading in the same direction, so we figured we’d grab a taxi together and try and get on the same bus.

The bus station was interesting. Very basic and there didn’t seem to be any way of knowing where to buy tickets, which bus was heading where or even who was an employee or who was just waiting for a bus!

I’d already booked my ticket via the hostel and paid 6,500 Kyat for it. (Approx. £4). Jenny, who I was travelling to Pyay with, hadn’t yet booked hers and managed to purchase a ticket for the same bus as me for 5,000. There’s an obvious lesson learned there! Generally speaking, if you’re going to get a bus in Myanmar, ask at your hotel or hostel if they tend to be fully booked in advance or not. If not, grab a ticket at the station.

Before boarding the bus I looked around at the food stalls to see if I could pick up any nice snacks for the ride.

They sold things like this:

I think I’ll pass, thanks

It was ridiculously hot, in the midday sun, so some of the locals had the clever idea of hiding out in the bus’ baggage hold:

Grabbing some shade

The journey itself was around 6 or 7 hours. I watched a movie and tried to get some sleep. This was a little futile though, as I was introduced to the fact that in Myanmar drivers beep their horns pretty much once every second.

They do it to alert other drivers or pedestrians to their presence. Sounds fair enough, but it seemed that they were beeping out of habit even when there was no one around. This totally messed with my zen-like state.

Upon arrival in Pyay, I jumped in a tuk tuk and made it to my motel. Needing a break from hostel life I’d booked a private room in a place called Naung Yoe Motel. It was pretty basic but it would be ok for a couple of nights. The owners spoke very little English, but I was used to getting by in this sort of situation by now.

One of the first things I noticed was that there was no toilet roll in the bathroom, but they did have a supply of single serving sachets of lube. Hmmm. Motels will be motels.

HEADING OUT TO TOWN

That evening, after settling in, I decided to go and meet my friend for dinner and a few drinks.

The motel was a little way from town, roughly 20 minutes walk. It was getting dark and there was no pavement on the way, just a dusty path by the side of the road and traffic whizzing past.

I felt a bit like a celebrity here, in a strange way. Everyone I walked past wanted to say hi and were genuinely surprised to see a Westerner in their town. One guy who was driving past on his tuk-tuk of sorts, offered to pick me up, so I jumped in with him at the front of his ‘vehicle’ and we made our very bumpy way to my friend’s guest house.

Once I arrived, I offered to pay him for his trouble or buy him a beer, but he refused and was just genuinely happy to help me and even seemed grateful to shake my hand! Here he is:

We headed out for some food – a place called Grandma cafe. It was a very simple place, but the food was great and probably the best I had in Pyay. I’d definitely recommend it.

It seemed like all places here would seem quite simple and authentic.

After dinner we headed for a drink at this bar by the river where they had this very strange karaoke setup.

There were half a dozen Burmese girls who would take it in turns to sing a song. The songs were all Burmese and I had no idea what they were singing about, but I assumed they were all local pop songs.

Each song would start with a guy on the stage playing keyboard and a girl singing. But where was the girl singing from? She wasn’t on stage.

She would sing the first 20 seconds or so of the song and then walk out onto the stage and stand still in the middle of the stage continuing to sing the song. Towards the end of the song she would walk back and exit the stage and continue singing from backstage until the song had finished.

This would repeat over and over until all girls had sung. They would then all appear on stage and sing together:

Another round of individual singing would then kick off.

If you liked one of the girls you could choose to pay a few thousand Kyat to have her come over and join you at your table and chat to you until it was her next turn to sing. Very bizarre.

BLISTERING HOT BIKE RIDE

The next morning, my friend and I decided to rent bikes and check out more of the local area. This was a mistake. It’s just way too hot. And hilly. Rent a scooter instead!

We rode up hill for a couple of kilometres. Exhausted and sweating we stopped for a drink.

I heard a couple of kids trying to play a guitar which was badly out of tune. I decided to roll a dice. If it was even, I’d go over and tune it up for them. I rolled a 4.

I went over and tried to tune this thing, but it was hopeless. Every string I tuned meant another went out of tune and halfway up the neck the string would be out of key. I handed it back and apologised. At least I tried!

We carried on riding and went over a bridge to the other side of the river aiming to head out to a large lake we’d seen on the map.

We headed out for another few kilometres. There was no shade, it was around 36 degrees and we were running low on water. According to the map there also seemed to be no way to get directly to the lake and we couldn’t find that there was anything to do there.

We headed back.

We got back to the bridge and decided to try and find a place to rest up and grab some food and water on this bank of the river. There were two ways we could go, so we rolled the dice to decide which way.

There was nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Exhausted, we headed back to the bridge and back to the side of the river we started on.

Finally we found somewhere to rest and grab something to eat. All in all, don’t do what we did! We’d have been better off staying where we were!

ANOTHER PAGODA

Having recuperated, we headed over to see the main Pagoda in town – the Shwesandaw Pagoda.

Shwesandaw Pagoda

Definitely worth a look around if you’re in Pyay. There’s not too much to see here, from a typical tourist standpoint, so this should definitely be on your list. It’s worth it to see a view of this huge buddha which stands in the middle of the town:

I bumped into some monks, at the top of the pagoda. Check out this dude in the middle who refuses to be off his mobile phone. This seemed like a perfect contradiction to me:

Tradition and technology

I took the opportunity to get a photo of myself with one of these guys:

Monk buddy

Wandering around the pagoda I also caught this great shot of one guy praying:

Here’s a few more pics from the pagoda visit:

SUNSET OVER THE AYEYARWADY RIVER

After leaving the pagoda we met up with some locals that we’d met previously for a drink and to watch the sunset over the river. It was so relaxing to be here for a couple of hours, watch the local Burmese go about their business and watch the sunset behind the hills:

Ayeyarwady sunset

After sundown we headed to the local street food market for a bite to eat and a drink before heading home:

A WALK AROUND TOWN

The next day I spent most of the morning and afternoon working on some blog updates, but I also took the time to take a walk around the town and took a few snaps of the streets of Pyay.

Here’s a few:

I don’t know what was going on here!

VISITING A LOCAL VILLAGE

Later that last afternoon, before I was leaving Pyay, I met up with the local guys that I’d met. They’d been to a class at the local university and, with some of their friends, they were heading to the village that one of the guys lived. They asked me if I wanted to come along and I accepted.

I hopped on the back of one of the guy’s scooters and we headed about 30 minutes out of town, to his village.

They welcomed me in and gave me something to drink and a bite to eat. Very hospitable and friendly people!

When the sunset was close, we went for a walk around the village. This was such an experience. It was amazing to see the simple life that these people live. It was so humbling.

We headed out through the village and to some fields where the locals were going about their business – tending to their crops.

There was a natural spring here, which was utilised to irrigate the surrounding fields. I saw this woman who would walk with her watering cans, down to the stream of spring water, fill the cans and then walk up and down, watering the crops

We headed out a little further, to watch the sunset over the fields. It was an incredibly peaceful moment and I felt privileged to be able to experience a slice of Burmese village life.

Watching the sunset

After sunset, the guy who had driven me out to his village gave me a ride on his scooter back to where I’d dropped off my bike so I could ride back to my motel.

My next move was to head to Bagan and I’d previously rolled the dice on how I should get there. The dice had determined the train and so I waited for my ‘taxi’ to pick me up to take me to the train station.

Next stop Bagan…..