Overland Across Burma from India to Thailand, with a side trip up the Himalayas to a Tibetan monastery October-November 2019 Our route, firstly up to Tawang in Arunchal Pradesh, then from Imphal in Manipur across Burma to Thailand. Blue is flights, red is overland. Part 1 – A week and a half in India Assam – Guwahati and Tezpur Sun 20 – Mon 21 Oct. We arrived in good time at Heathrow where we had some drinks and nibbles in the lounge. We flew British Airways to Delhi, having a meal and more drinks on the plane, and had lunch in another lounge before flying with Vistara, a nice new airline we’d never heard of who forced another lunch on us, to Guwahati where we arrived after 24 hours of over-indulgence and little sleep. We left the clean, orderly airport and struggled through the chaotic, crowded, deafening traffic-clogged streets then down a quieter road that ran alongside the Brahmaputra river to the Atithi hotel where we stayed last time we were here three years ago. It was still as good as we remembered, with the lovely welcoming people on reception, a nice big room with a lovely comfy bed, clean sheets and nice duvet – I’m afraid it will be all downhill from here. We had a walk round heading for the railway station with the idea of getting a train to Tezpur tomorrow, but happened to find the adjacent bus station where we reserved seats on a luxury AC Volvo bus to Tezpur – we’ll see if it’s as good as the hype says. Back at the Atithi we had Kingfisher beers and a selection of fried nibbles, masala peanuts and some delicious tandoori tiger prawns and butter chicken with a delicious onion kulcha for dinner. After we’d finished the staff were dismayed, they thought that we didn’t like the prawns because we hadn’t chomped the entire things, heads, shells and all! Tues 22nd. We got the comfy Volvo AC bus from the bus station across the amazingly wide Brahmaputra river and had a pleasant 5-hour ride to Tezpur, with one stop at a teahouse/restaurant for a glass of chai. They had some nice sticky sweets in a glass display but there was one fly too many on them for Sheila. We got stuck in one big traffic jam for no apparent reason, until we got to the front and found we were following an elephant! At the bus station in Tezpur we gathered our usual crowd and after a lot of pointing, gesticulating, arguing and phoning around, the driver of the electric auto-rickshaw got us to the Heritage hotel with no problem. After a very quick unpack we did our usual trick of tracking down the bar (low lighting but not as gloomy as some) and had a delicious meal of crispy chilli babycorn, butter chicken and egg curry with onion kulcha and jeera rice and of course Kingfisher beer. Arunachel Pradesh Up into the mountains – Dirang and Tawang Weds 23rd. This was the first of four hard days of driving in the mountains. The hotel provided a good driver and a comfy A/C car for the 8-hour drive up the Himalayas to Dirang in Arunachal Pradesh state. The first hour or so was through flat Assam tea plantations, then suddenly we were going up the winding road through the crumbly mountains. For a couple of hours the road was wrecked by landslides from the last monsoon and teams were picking away at rocks to try to clear the road. Then as we gained altitude we entered a Tibetan-style environment with prayer flags, temples and Tibetan-looking people in the little shops by the road. We went through clouds and fog and eventually reached Dirang town. We asked for the Norphel Retreat hotel which had looked good on the internet but it turned out to be not what we wanted at all. It looked impressive from a distance but it was several kms out of town up a hill and it was a big, bleak, cold Chinese-style place with a huge echoing reception area and an empty, freezing dining room. We realized that any hotel called a retreat or spa will be miles from anywhere, so we retreated rapidly to the car and went back the way we had come to the Pemaling hotel which was much more welcoming. We had a nice room with old-fashioned wooden furniture and they found a two-bar electric fire for us. We went for some beers and tasty nibbles in the dining room. In the garden outside music started up and Sheila disappeared. I eventually went to see where she had gone and found her dancing round a fire-pit with a crowd of Indian tourists. She was having a great time. Thurs 24th. The second day started well with a visit to Old Dirang, a nice village of stone-built houses on a small hill inside a citadel wall. The raised houses had steps made of random stones in a crazy pattern, with copious wood stores beside them ... ... and ears of corn drying on frames nearby. From here the day deteriorated as our car tried to cross Dirang town to head up the mountains to Tawang. We spent three-quarters of an hour motionless in a traffic jam in the town as an endless convoy of military trucks tried to navigate their way past cars parked in silly places and the oncoming traffic (us) not getting out of the way. When we eventually fought our way through to the ATM, it was out of cash and we had to find another one in a back street that worked. Then at last we were weaving our way up the winding roads past more endless landslides and road works and into thick fog like yesterday. It was cold when we started and got colder the higher we went. The car driver and his mate who came along for the ride both sat in the front (I usually like to sit in the front with the driver) and kept putting their windows down, we kept asking them to put them up because there was a freezing cold draught in the back, even though we were well wrapped up. Sheila started tapping him on the shoulder to remind him, the longer it went on the harder the taps got but we were fighting a losing battle. Sheila was thrilled to see yaks grazing by the side of the road and we stopped to take several photos. We also paused at the top of the 13,700 foot (4,200 metres) Sela Pass to take more photos. Just as we seemed to be nearing Tawang after 6 or 7 hours our driver decided to stop for lunch which was frustrating, although it was actually rather nice – a small Tibetan tea house serving up a veg thali (replenished as often as you like) with a paratha and a plate of salad and a cup of tea, all for 90 rupees (£1) – Sheila sat in the car fuming. At the checkpoint the guard gave the driver a telling off because he had a normal private car, not a taxi – he was obviously just a friend of the man on reception at the Pemaling who had arranged it. We descended into Tawang at nearly 9,000 feet (2,700 metres), arriving 7½ hours after we set off. We checked into the very nice Norling hotel, because it was recommended by Sheila’s dancing partners the night before. It’s also very close to Tawang gompa (monastery), the main attraction, advertised as the biggest in India. We set out with the driver and his mate who’d brought us from Dirang to go to a sound and light show at a military base, but they got totally lost and we arrived just as everybody was leaving. This was the final straw and when they offered to take us sightseeing and back to Dirang tomorrow I firmly declined (I had to hold Sheila back!) Fri 25th. The big Tibetan gompa of Tawang was only a few minutes’ walk from the hotel so we strolled up there before breakfast as the monks (young and old) were all going from the extensive dormitories to their allotted classrooms and tasks. We went up steps through the various monastery buildings to the great prayer hall ... ... a colourful space with various Buddha statues and rows of benches where the monks sit. It was very elaborate but relatively modern, without the dust and butter-lamp smell of the ancient monasteries in Tibet. There was an interesting museum of Buddhist relics and photos of the Dalai Lama when he came down this road in 1959 escaping from the Chinese. We noticed a butter-lamp offering hall and lit a lamp and a joss stick, then strolled back along the still-quiet street to the hotel. For our third journey we set off in a car for Dirang and this time the journey seemed much quicker and smoother – there must have been the same number of rockslide roadworks but there were way less military convoys and we were in a much better car. Even the snow that came down as we crossed the Sela Pass didn’t slow us down and we arrived back at the Pemaling hotel in Dirang before 4pm. The Pemaling gave us the best room in the hotel, a very nice large room at the top of the hotel with a panoramic view of the mountains, the town and river in the valley below. It had started to rain exactly as we arrived at the hotel so there was no dancing tonight and we settled into the room and had a nice room service dinner listening to the rain hammering on the roof. Sat 26th. For the fourth drive, down to Tezpur, we had another friend of the man on reception we suspect (we never learn). We started well, passing an enormous military convoy parked at the side of the road, but we had only gone a couple of kms when the driver said ‘oh shit, telephone’ (he obviously had some English!) and did a 3-point turn and went back to the hotel where he had left it charging. By now the convoy was on the move and we had to pass them one at a time, on blind bends, in fog, in villages scattering children and animals, with his horn blaring. We also had the usual mud, roadworks and fog. I was sitting in the front but for the first time I wished I wasn’t (and we’ve had some pretty awful drivers over the years). Again we stopped at a Tibetan teahouse for lunch, then arrived back at the Heritage hotel in Tezpur after dark. We thanked the driver profusely, not because of his driving but because we were glad to be alive. As we had a drink and a meal in the bar we were serenaded by a live band. Assam again Sun 27th. There were limited transport options in Tezpur so we backtracked to Guwahati on the Volvo AC bus which was again smooth and pleasant. At the tea stop they had plumptious veg samosa which were very tasty. In Guwahati bus station at 2:15 we found there was a bus leaving at 3pm all the way to Imphal – 16 hours non-A/C. What the heck we thought, let’s go for it. However, when we tried to book we were told it was full so we abandoned that plan with some relief. Near the bus station we found a travel agent in a little booth who booked us on a very expensive flight to Imphal for tomorrow (short notice flights are expensive and holiday flights doubly so – it’s Diwali today and tomorrow so it’s like travelling at Christmas – it was nearly ten times the price of travelling in a week’s time). We walked round to the Atithi hotel where the lovely man on reception welcomed us back and recommended a hotel near the airport. We went to the Rajashree Inn in Airport Road which was alright for one night only (“only two minutes from the airport” – we will see) where we had very pleasant drinks of wine and beer in their bar then a ‘picnic’ in our room of butter chicken and crispy chilli sweetcorn left over from last night’s meal (not quite so crispy on the second day), listening to the sound of Diwali firecrackers in the street outside. Manipur state – Imphal and on to the Border Mon 28th. We were indeed only five minutes from the airport which was close enough, and it appeared that our ridiculously expensive flight tickets must have been business or first class because we boarded first and we were the only people on the plane to be served a meal, although not like a meal in business class on BA we’re sure (there were no other visible differences between our seats and service and everyone else’s). We got a taxi to the Classic hotel where we stayed three years ago and it was just as clean and friendly as we remembered, we even got the same spacious corner room with a view. They were laying out the Diwali decorations in reception with coloured powder and candles. Best hotel so far! Manipur is a ‘dry’ state but the room service man got us a couple of very expensive bottles of beer from a ‘friend’ and I went round the corner and bought a couple of packets of crisps from a hole-in-the-wall shop so in the evening we had our usual pre-dinner drinks and nibbles in our room, watching the various Diwali firework shows in different parts of the town. Down in the restaurant they had a Diwali buffet which was very good value so we finished the day feeling completely full again. Tues 29th to Thurs 31st. We got an auto-rickshaw to the ‘ladies’ market’, one of the main attractions in Imphal. It was very varied and colourful and spread out over a huge area, in three or four large market buildings and the open spaces all around them. When we got back to the hotel we shared a delicious boneless fried Pangas fish with creamy mashed potatoes and vegs for lunch. For dinner we shared the wonderful special Manipur Thali that we pre-ordered the day before. We went with a nice car and driver for the Loktak Lake tour, which should have had five sightseeing stops but three of them – two museums and the Japanese war cemetery on Red Hill, site of a fierce WW2 battle – were closed for the holidays. That was OK because the lake was our main purpose and that was very picturesque. At the first viewpoint in Keibul Lamjao national park the lake was almost completely obscured by floating weed with deer browsing on the vegetation. The second lake viewpoint was at the Classic Resort hotel which had nice lakeside rooms and cottages and great views of the lake and ‘floating islands’ of weeds, some with houses on them, although its café was rather disappointing, with very slow service unlike our hotel in town. On the way back we stopped in an army base to buy some much cheaper cold beers at the NAAFI store. Thursday was a compulsory extra relaxing day because of a general strike – no taxis, no shops, no market. Four days in one nice hotel, Sheila thinks she’s died and gone to heaven. We followed our usual routine, read the newspaper that they put under the door then a nice breakfast of fruits and salads, corn flakes, fried eggs and baked beans and spicy dishes from the buffet. We walked through the eerily quiet streets to the Commonwealth war cemetery where casualties of the battle of Imphal are buried, soldiers of all ages from 17 to 51 and ‘ranks’ from hospital sweeper and wine waiter to Lieutenant-Colonel. The inscriptions on the graves were very moving, Sheila says it’s a good job she uses waterproof mascara. Back at the hotel we shared a tasty egg curry and rice for lunch. Then in the evening we had our usual beer and crisps, followed by very tasty fried Pangas fish again. Part 2 – 2½ weeks in Burma (Myanmar) Sagaing Division and Magway Division On a different Road to Mandalay Fri 1st November. The strike was extended for another day but the hotel said that the driver was willing to go anyway. We had an amazingly traffic-free drive across the valley and up the winding roads through the hills, where the road improvement works were almost continuous. Despite the hundreds of armed soldiers and police standing about all waiting for protesters to start trouble, it took half the time it would have taken on a normal traffic-clogged day. Our details were entered into big ledgers at three separate checkpoints by friendly, smiling Indian soldiers and at the third one their C.O. invited us to sit with him for a cup of tea. The huge, new border post was empty except for us and the official who entered our details into a computer this time instead of a ledger, and we were out of India. Our nice driver stayed with us and took us to the rickety ‘Friendship Bridge’ that crosses the river into Burma. On the Burmese side there was a simple little shed where we were quickly checked into Burma and that was it, we were in! However, the Burmese side was deserted except for one auto-rickshaw man who took us the few kms into Tamu town to the ‘bus station’ which was a little shop that issued bus tickets, where we found that the next bus to Kalewa was at 8am tomorrow morning. We asked around all over town but there were no taxis or cars available to take us anywhere, so in the end we went to another little ticket office and booked on the 3pm 9-seater minibus for the 16-hour ride all the way to Mandalay. This meant that we missed out the riverboat ride down the Chindwin river that I had hoped for, and also the whole Bagan section of the journey, but on reflection we decided this was a good idea. We loved Bagan when we went there in 1982 and suspect it has become much more commercialised since then – they say you should never go back, although we often do. I walked round the corner to the bank to ask about changing some currency and was surprised to see an ATM outside, and amazed when it coughed up a wadge of Burmese Kyat without any complaints (we’d had trouble with ATMs in India). I had a noodle soup and a cup of coffee at a nearby café and walked back to the ‘bus stop’ while Sheila guarded the cases. During our whole time in India we only saw three ‘white faces’ but here we already met some back packers and there were many more tourists to come in Mandalay. The minibus was actually very comfortable with nice thick cushion seats and (in our row) plenty of leg room. Sat 2nd. The bus didn’t go the direct way to Mandalay because ‘that road is not good’, but headed south to Gangaw in Magway Division and east through Myinmu on a good road, crossing the Chindwin river in the darkness then crossing the Irrawaddy as dawn broke. As 16-hour overnight bus rides go it wasn’t bad, and we arrived at Mandalay at 7am, 24 hours after leaving Imphal. The British Army took a month to make this journey out in 1942 and even longer coming back in 1945. The driving in Burma was much calmer than the awful driving in India, although it was a shock to be driving on the right-hand side of the road, especially as all the vehicle were right-hand drive (for left-side roads), although new tax rules for vehicle imports are likely to change that; Burma used to drive on the left but suddenly in 1970 General Ne Win changed it, possibly because his wife’s astrologer told him it would be better for the country. Ridiculous! Mandalay Division – Mandalay The bus driver dropped everybody off where they wanted to go rather that at some grotty bus station miles outside town and eventually found the Smart Hotel, recommended by our friends and travellers Gill and Mark, and kindly dropped us at the door – we were last so we had a good tour of down-town Mandalay. The hotel is in a good location and we had a nice large corner room, and after unpacking and freshening up I went for a walk round and found a nice-looking restaurant, some travel agents and a generous working ATM within a few blocks. I walked along by the fort walls and moat and down to the railway station which appears to have been completely rebuilt into a huge modern edifice since our visit here in 1982. We went for a nice lunch at the nearby Bar a Vin which I’d found on my walk, then booked a tour for tomorrow at the second of the nearby travel agents (we didn’t like the wide-boy running the first one). We had a snooze to catch up on lost sleep and went back to Bar a Vin for a very nice meal and some very nice glasses of red wine and Myanmar beer – all the drinks came with bread and garlic mayonnaise dip. Sun 3rd. We went on a big sightseeing tour of former capital cities and their pagodas, monasteries, big Buddhas and big bells, with a very good driver in a nice A/C car. We started at Inwa then crossed the Irrawaddy to Mingun, stopped for lunch, then to Sagaing hill ... ... and crossed back to Amarapura and the longest wooden footbridge (in the rainy season the water comes right up to the walkway). Along the way we stopped at a weaving shed where the lovely friendly ladies chatted as they worked extremely complicated patterns – funnily enough there was a shop attached and Sheila bought a blue silk/wool shawl, very cheap she said! (Whatever she gets, she always says it was very cheap or else she’s had it for ages.) Altogether a great tour, nine hours start to finish. We had another free happy-hour strawberry daiquiri in the nice rooftop restaurant at the Smart hotel, then the lady on reception called a tuk-tuk (auto-rickshaw) for us using an Uber-style app on her phone called ‘Grab’ – an interesting juxtaposition of cultures! We went to ‘Super 81’ restaurant some way away, where we had a super Chinese-style meal of BBQ prawns followed by seabass fillets with veg fried rice, with a nice half-bottle of Burmese shiraz red wine and several glasses of Myanmar beer (we decided against the deep-fried pork colon). Mon 4th. We went on another big sightseeing tour around Mandalay town with a cheery driver called ‘KZ’, first to the top of Mandalay Hill (by car, not the hour-long climb up the stairs, thank goodness) where Sheila rang the bell ... ... then to nearby pagodas including ‘the biggest book in the world’ (730 marble tablets engraved with Buddhist texts on both sides) ... ... and the very atmospheric wooden Shwenandaw monastery. From there we went across town to the colourful Mahamuni Pagoda with the oldest Buddha in Myanmar, carved during Buddha’s lifetime. For centuries men (ladies aren’t allowed in) have been making offerings of gold leaf which they are allowed to stick onto the Buddha themselves, so that the Buddha’s body is bulbous with layers of gold leaf. The Buddha statue is old but the pagoda itself looks quite modern, to the extent of having several ATMs inside where you can draw out cash for your offering. Nearby we walked down marble-carving street and got covered in marble dust, and went to a nearby wood-carving workshop where they produce all sorts of fascinating figures. Sheila was going to buy a lovely carving for $150 but found out that shipping would be $500 so abandoned it. Happy with this we went back to Bar a Vin for a late lunch of French onion soup. For dinner Sheila splurged at Bar a Vin with a bottle of sparkling wine and a burger (she wanted to say she’d had a burger in Burma, she doesn’t usually eat them but actually it was very tasty)! Tues 5th. By the time we’d had a nice breakfast in the rooftop restaurant (fried eggs from the cooking station and hot chicken in basil leaves with coriander) we found that the markets around town were already closed, so we went to the ‘supercentre’ shopping mall, but the shopping expert was not impressed, so we went to Bar a Vin for fried Japanese fish fingers for lunch with strong Myanmar stout and Myanmar lager that knocked Sheila out for a couple of hours. I had a nice coffee at Poco Loco café one block from the hotel, then a nice tea at an office next door where they kindly let me use their computer to check emails and type up this writeup. We had a lovely dinner at Bar a Vin – a steak for Sheila and Sea Bass in lemon sauce for me, which turned out to be pure theatre – it came with a separate dish of very spicy sauce and a side order of ‘tea leaf rice’ which was fried rice with some unidentified leaves in it and a fried egg on top. We liked Bar a Vin, good service and people who welcomed you back as friends. Shan States – Inle Lake Weds 6th. After another nice breakfast we checked out of Smart hotel and went with Congo, KZ’s brother, to Nyaungshwe, the town at Inle Lake. The first half of the journey was dead flat down the E1 expressway from Mandalay towards Rangoon, then at Meiktida we turned off and went up the snaking road into the spectacular Shan mountains. After a stop for lunch we arrived at Nyaungshwe, which seems like a pleasant, relaxed travellers’ town. They spell the lake ‘Inlay’ here, like it is pronounced. We got a very nice large room with windows on two sides at the charming Aquarius Inn (another great recommendation from our friends Gill and Mark) in a great location near restaurants, markets and the boat jetty, then Congo took us to the Red Mountain winery a few miles outside town, where we had a pleasant wine-tasting and watched the sunset over the lake (the view was better than the wine, oh well, it’s early days for the winery). We had a walk around the quiet streets past the boat jetty and went to ‘Peter’s Tapas Bar’ for tasty tapas including pakora Burmese style with Enoki mushrooms, and South African wine (they didn’t have the local produce!) Thurs 7th. We went for a big eight-hour boat ride all round Inle lake. It was great fun sitting in ‘armchairs’ in our long-tailed boat, with its noisy outboard motor and the propeller stuck out behind, racing through the canals into the lake itself, pausing to take the standard tourist photos of the ‘leg fishermen’ (although there can’t be any fish for miles with the racket from the boat motors) then through the floating vegetable gardens full of tomato and other plants. We went to a silver workshop and the floating market opposite a colourful monastery which was actually on an island, and was predictably touristy but good fun for a bit of haggling. I was interested in the old Victorian silver coins that many of the stalls had for sale until I realized that they all seemed to have the same amount of wear, and I realized that we had just visited a silver workshop – what a coincidence! We went up a canal to the Inn Tein pagoda, which actually had 1,054 brick pagodas, some covered in gold and silver shimmering in the sun. Two chaps took us to the top of a nearby hill on motorbikes for an impressive aerial view. We had a delicious lunch at Golden Moon restaurant near the market – tamarind chicken and prawn coconut curry which came in a hollowed-out coconut. Then we headed further down the lake to another pagoda, a lotus-weaving workshop and a cigar factory where amongst others they made mint, banana and honey-flavoured cigars (but they lost interest in us when we said we didn’t smoke). Then we went back to ‘Jumping Cat monastery’, another gem – an old, atmospheric wooden place constructed with a forest of huge teak poles and lovely smooth old floor planks. The weather had been nice so far, sun with fluffy clouds, but we were alarmed to see a huge black cloud and obvious rainstorm covering the end of the lake where we were headed. Our ‘crew’, a guide and a boatman, got out plastic macs for the four of us and big umbrellas for us two, and we crouched under the umbrellas as the boat roared through the pelting rain back to the jetty. The dye came off my shoes onto my feet and no amount of scrubbing would shift it for days. Once we’d had a bit of an airing and dried our extremities we walked up the road and went to ‘Beyond Taste’ restaurant and had 2-for-1 Mojitos and tasty Shan pork tenderloin, veg curry and ladies’ fingers (okra). Fri 8th. We had a pleasant walk round Nyaungshwe. the town at the top of the lake, following a noisy procession through the streets holding up all the traffic, through the market with super vegetable, fish and meat stalls, to the Cultural Museum in the half-derelict, melancholy palace of the last prince of Nyaungshwe. We walked along Jetty Road looking at the boats and asked about how to get to Loikaw tomorrow. Because it was a holiday all the boats were out and about and the canal was packed with them racing up and down. We stopped for lunch at Hyoo Myat restaurant (actually a shack but with very nice people) right next to Aquarius Inn and had amazingly tasty avocado salad and sweet and sour pork, with Myanmar beer and Black Shield stout. After a quiet afternoon another tropical downpour started so we nipped next door to Hyoo Myat for a very tasty dinner, just the same as lunch plus some goodies from the BBQ and a half-bottle of red wine, which the poor waiter had to go on his motorbike in the pouring rain to buy from the convenience store – we tried to stop him but he insisted! Kayah State – Loikaw town and Pan Pet village Sat 9th. We checked out of Aquarius Inn and set off in a car with a cheerful young driver who couldn’t speak any English, and drove along by the top-end resorts down the side of the lake and up through the spectacular Shan Hills. The road had a good surface but due to ‘budget constraints’ was only wide enough for one and a half vehicles, so every time we met oncoming traffic we came to an almost complete standstill while the other vehicles whizzed past because our driver didn’t like to put the clean, comfortable car onto the dirt verge. Nevertheless we made good time and arrived in Loikaw about 11am. The driver was clearly on less familiar territory and we crawled through the town as he repeatedly asked the way, but eventually we went on a side road up into the hills on the other side of town. We went to Pan Pet village which is the home of the Karen tribal people who are famous for their women’s ‘long necks’, supported on columns of brass neck-rings. The village centre was set up for tourists, with souvenir stalls and long-necked women weaving and posing for photographs, but they were friendly people and we wandered behind the tourist veneer where there was a genuine working village with animals and crops, and the women (still with the long necks) were happy to stop and chat (with limited English) and of course be photographed. Sheila met a very nice lady who waved from a balcony and she went into her garden to chat. Sheila achieved a 60-year ambition to meet the long-necked women in their home village ever since she saw them in National Geographic magazine. On the way back to town there was an artificial lake and on the dam wall were two elephants giving rides, mostly for local children. Of course the big kid in our party had to have a go and she went off on the elephant along the wall, then we stroked the elephants and bought bundles of bamboo sticks and bananas to feed to them. There were some fascinating spiky rock formations in the hills and each one had a gold or silver stupa on it, but the most spectacular of all was Taung Kwe Zayde, right in the middle of Laikaw town. We were just contemplating whether we had the energy to climb the steps when we saw that they had built an elevator alongside it, so we took the easy way and were soon enjoying the spectacular views from the top. Back on the ground though, we ran into trouble – it was now after 3pm and the plan was to stay the night then see a couple more sights tomorrow and drive back to Inle lake. However, it turned out that today was a holiday locally and all the hotels in town were completely full. After conferring with the man back at base our driver said he was fine to drive back to Inle now. He did a great job and after all the unlit motorbikes, people and animals had drifted away soon after dusk, the road was clear and almost traffic-free. We arrived back at Aquarius Inn at 8pm after a very long (for the driver) and very satisfying (for us) day. We went to the ‘Ancestor’ restaurant just down the street and had a delicious meal of wok-fried beef in peppers and sliced fish in ginger. As we left they closed up for the night and the town was going to bed. Back in Shan States – Inle Lake and Taunggyi balloon festival Sun 10th. We had a quiet morning after yesterday’s exertions then popped next door for another delicious lunch of avocado salad, Shan noodles and sweet and sour pork. I walked along by the canal to Pub Asiatico for a cappuccino but it wasn’t very good. At 4:30 the same driver and car from yesterday took us up to the big balloon festival in Taunggyi, which is normally about 45 minutes away but the festival is huge and the traffic was awful and it took us two hours to get there. Even then, when the driver dropped us near the entrance to the festival site, we walked with the packed crowds for more than half an hour through the stalls and cafes and amusement rides to the balloon field. Apparently 1½ million people attend the festival over five days and it felt like they were all there right now. We found a step to sit on and at 8pm we saw our first balloon take off. The balloons were huge too and they trail a really spectacular firework display high into the sky, which lasts for 5 or 10 minutes before they drift away. It was brilliant. People told us that sometimes the balloons go part-way then come down, spewing thousands of pounds-worth of fireworks (sponsored by commercial organisations such as banks) into the crowds. Apparently last year was the first time no-one was killed at this festival (now they tell us!). When we eventually left after 11pm (the show continued till 4am!) the only way we could get out was to attach ourselves to one of the conga lines weaving their way happily (but a bit rowdy) though the crowds, till we eventually rendezvoued with our driver and got back to the hotel about 1pm. An amazing evening! Mon 11th. We had a quiet walk around Nyaungshwe town, watching the boats and checking out a couple of restaurants, then a lazy lunch at Pub Asiatico with tapenade, anchovy pizza and blue-cheese burger, with Kirin beer and French red wine, all delicious. At 5:30pm the tuk-tuk took us to the bus station and we got the comfortable overnight bus to Bago. We had the seats behind the emergency exit so we had lots of legroom and coach-style reclining seats, the only problem was that the A/C was cranked down to freezing. They supplied thick blankets and with these and our own blankets and jumpers I was quite cozy but Sheila said she had an awful time – apparently we were on different buses. Nevertheless we both got quite a lot of sleep after Sheila had taken a sleeping pill. Bago Division – Bago (Pegu) town Tues 12th. After two stops at service areas we arrived at the bus station before 6am. We had 3½ hours to wait for our next bus, so the bus office manager organized a tuk-tuk tour of Bago’s best sights for us. We saw the four-face Buddha and a huge reclining Buddha ... ... on a bejewelled pillow (claimed to be the largest Buddha in Myanmar although there is now a bigger one but it is almost brand new so we didn’t count it) and a couple of nice stupas and monasteries, a very good tour. Our bus to Moulmein left at 9:30 and drove through the town centre past the Hindu temple, railway station and market and out into the countryside. We had left the mountains behind and the scenery was dead flat as we drove through part of the Irrawaddy delta. The bus was comfortable with plenty of leg room and the A/C was set to a more reasonable temperature. There was a badly over-acted Burmese sitcom on the TV but luckily the volume was turned down. We stopped for a 30-minute brunch at another of the well-organised service areas and had two randomly-chosen little meat dishes with ‘bottomless’ bowls of soup, veg accompaniments and some very spicy relishes. Mon State – Mawlamyine (Moulmein) Since independence lots of things, from the name of the country to towns, rivers and streets have been renamed or re-spelled. I’m afraid I’ve tended to use the old British spellings here – sorry Myanmar! Gradually the mountains came back and finally we were on a long combined road, rail and foot-bridge across the wide Than Lwin (Salween) river into Moulmein town. We went to the Cinderella hotel which was centrally located and absolutely lovely and we got a big, bright corner room. Sheila informs me that they do wonderful laundry – she thought it would not be pressed because there is an iron and ironing board in the room but no, it all came back beautifully pressed and she was not called upon to lift a finger. After planning some excursions for the next days we went to the jungly garden restaurant behind the hotel and had really nice garlic bread with chicken sausage followed by salmon steak, with a bottle of Italian Montepulciano wine (at the same price as Burmese wine). Weds 13th. We went on a day trip to the ‘Death Railway’ at Thanbyuzayat, the Burma end of the wartime Japanese railway from Thailand. It was 1½ hours’ drive through endless rubber-tree plantations, some being tapped, some patiently waiting their turn. There was a very moving CWG cemetery for the British, Australian and Dutch POWs who died working on the railway, a museum at the railway terminus with an old steam train, a standing Buddha by a lake, a giant hollow sitting Buddha that we climbed up inside and an enormous reclining Buddha with an even bigger one being built alongside. Nearby there were enigmatic giant heads peeping out of the jungle. When we got back I had a walk round the town and along Strand Road and we had another wonderful meal in the hotel restaurant in the evening – the crispy prawn tempura was especially good and we had them every night. Thurs 14th. After another really good breakfast in the garden restaurant at Cinderella hotel, we went on our own walking tour of Moulmein. First of all I was dragged into a little barber’s where he spent ages cutting the little bit of hair I’ve got left. We walked up the covered walkway to Kyaik Tan Lan pagoda, with stupas and buildings sparkling in the sun and great views all over the city. We walked along another covered walkway to Mahamuni pagoda on the next hilltop, where the Buddha image in the chapel was the prettiest, sparkliest we had seen, and the scent of the lilies and jasmine flowers was wonderful. This was Sheila’s favourite pagoda by far and we sat there for quite a while contemplating. We walked down the hill past the prison and the ‘wet market’ (which was mostly vegetables) to the central market inside a large, packed market hall where Sheila bought some temple bells. We emerged out the other side onto Strand Road, which runs all the way alongside the river Salween. We had a quick look at the nearby Strand hotel but it was rather empty and soulless, so we walked all the way down Strand Road in the sun and crossed the park opposite city hall to our hotel. We had soup and a cold beer for lunch to re-hydrate ourselves. In the evening we had another great meal at the hotel restaurant. Kayin State – a day trip to Hpa An Fri 15th. Hpa An (the ‘H’ is silent) is a couple of hours up-river from Moulmein. It would have been nice to go by riverboat but then we would have missed some of the other sights, so we had a really good nine-hour car trip. We went to several Buddhist caves, ... ... including Kha Yone cave full of pilgrims being treated by a ‘healer’ ... ... and Kort Ka Taung cave nearly a mile long where we came out at the other end by a lake and got a boat back to near the starting point (where we had left our shoes, as you do at all Buddhist sites) but the last ten-minute walk back over stones and gravel was pretty painful. We visited pagodas like Kyauk Ka Lat perched on impossible rocks where we were blessed by monks, and others with nice views of the Salween river. We had lunch in a little restaurant in Hpa An town where as soon as we sat down they filled the table with ten dishes of chutneys and plates of vegetables and noodles, then we ordered a couple of curries from the menu which came with as much rice and soup as you want and cups of Burmese tea – a huge meal for just £4 (including two packs of Sheila’s favourite coffee sweets)! Climbing the steps in the next Buddhist cave we went to was hard work after that. We got back at dusk, dusty and with bruised feet, and had another great meal at the Cinderella’s restaurant. They had gone out specially and bought in some bottles of nice cold Burmese Black Shield stout for me. Mon State – back in Moulmein Sat 16th. Sheila woke up and said “I’m not sure where I am but I like it here” – I must get her a better map. We went for a gentle walk round town, stopping at St Patrick’s church (built in 1829) and back to the two lovely pagodas on the hill. We strolled through some interesting back streets from the prison to Strand Road and along the Strand where we had a lovely relaxed lunch at Nadi Hleng restaurant under thatched umbrellas overlooking the river and watching the boats going by. Part 3 – A week in Thailand Sukhothai Sun 17th. We set off at 7:30 to drive to the Thai border. All our other drives have been in comfy modern cars but this time a rattly old minibus with poor suspension turned up and set off at a snail’s pace, which made Sheila rather grumpy. Then for most of the way the road was absolutely awful, just stones, mud and potholes, so by the end Sheila was totally fuming. Apparently a Chinese company had been building the road but then they ‘went away’. The road led straight to the border, over a bridge and on through Thailand. The border itself was a big, busy affair, very different from the almost deserted border from India. There were rows of different offices and we were directed to ‘number 9’ where two harassed officials sat with piles of passports on their desks and a crowd of people waiting for theirs to be processed. Each newcomer was guided by the crowd to fill in a form and which pile to put their passport on, and in a surprisingly short time we were through. It was midday and a kind family travelling by car gave us a lift over the unshaded bridge – in the middle of the bridge vehicles just crossed to the other side of the road to conform with the left or right-hand regulations. After finding the well-hidden ‘visa on arrival’ office at window 13 we followed a slightly less stressful procedure to get in. We chatted to a nice young American chap as we wound our way through the procedure and at the end he kindly offered us a lift. It turned out that he had gone to Burma for the day to get another 30-day Thai visa and he and his girlfriend were going back to Tak where there would be a lot more buses going to Sukhothai than here at Mae Sot, the border town. We drove through the mountains and stopped to have a look at a pagoda and a viewpoint, then they kindly dropped us right at the bus station in Tak, which is exactly half-way to Sukhothai. It was 3:10 pm and we asked at the office when the next bus was due and they said 3pm! It was running a few minutes late so by the time we’d bought our ticket it was drawing up at the bus stand and a few minutes later we were off. The bus dropped us right in the old city of Sukhothai (rather than an out-of-town bus station) and we asked an auto-rickshaw driver if he could take us to the Garden hotel, where we might have stayed on our last visit 15 years ago (we’re still not sure if it is the same place!) Rather than take advantage of a couple of lost tourists the rickshaw man said you can walk, it’s only 100 meters down that street. The rooms in the attractive old wooden building were full but we got a nice clean room in the new block and by 6pm we were settled in and strolling down the street looking for a restaurant. There were plenty of options in a row on the main street not far from the hotel so we picked one more or less at random and had a very nice meal. Thanks to the kindness of strangers and some good luck it was a very satisfying day, especially because in my silly game of ‘joining the dots’ (linking together all our overland travels) this joins up all our travels round India and its neighbours with our big overland journey from London to Singapore via the trans-Siberian railway and China. Well it makes me happy! Mon 18th to Tue 19th. We had a bit of a ‘traveller’s bug’ so we had a couple of quiet days and didn’t do too much. We moved from the modern wing into one of the lovely rooms in the old building at Garden hotel, all polished woodwork and lots of space. There were about 20 ‘free rental’ pushbikes at the hotel so we found a couple that were more or less our size and cycled round old Sukhothai historical park with its picturesque brick pagodas and ruins among moats and lakes. We just revisited a selection of the ruins as we’d seen them comprehensively 15 years ago. We found a pottery factory/shop on a back street and bought a terracotta pot lid to replace a broken one at home, then stopped for a mango smoothie after our exertions. We went to a different restaurant, the Coffee Cup, and had western-style food just for a change, Sheila had mashed potato with chili con carne and I had a mushroom soup and duck in black pepper sauce, with a glass of not-that-great Italian wine. Bangkok Weds 20th. We went to get the 7:30 VIP bus to Bangkok. It became a morning of people forcing food on us! We had an early breakfast at the hotel then as we were checking out the nice wife of the hotel owner gave us fruit and waffles for the journey. Then as soon as we were settled into the very comfortable bus and got going, the ‘flight attendant’ handed out a bun and cup each and poured us a cup of coffee. At 10:30 we stopped at a service area and there was a voucher for a free meal in our bunch of tickets so we had a free lunch. We got to Bangkok bus station about 3:30 and were tricked by a taxi tout into a very overpriced rattletrap with a surly driver, who actually turned out to be very helpful; he rang the Airbnb owner for us and got directions to find the place which was a short distance from Khao San road. The ‘artisan loft’ Sheila had booked was fantastic. We walked down the alleyway behind the b-and-b and it was full of restaurants and massage parlours (only for legs and backs), like a less disreputable version of Khao San road, the ‘traveller’s street’, and along Khao San road itself and stopped at the Tasting Room, the poshest place on the street. We had an Erdinger black beer at £7 a pop and a couple of nice glasses of wine, with a very tasty spicy seafood stack and a pepperoni pizza from a real pizza oven. Thurs 21st to Sat 23rd. We had coffee and corn flakes in the communal kitchen at the b-and-b then went for a lengthy stroll along Khao San road, which seemed relatively clean and quiet at this time of day, and along Khao San 2 (which has a name of its own but nobody uses it). We crossed Chakra Bongse road and strolled along Soi Rambuttri, the group of alleyways behind the b-and-b which are also full of shops and restaurants. I had a coffee opposite the beauty parlour while Sheila had various beauty treatments. We got a taxi out to MBK mall but we weren’t very impressed. We had a nice lunch at Madam Musur restaurant of a spicy sausage dish and a rather bland Thai salad, then came back to the b-and-b where Sheila had her mango and sticky rice that we bought at a stall along the way. In the evening we had another walk around the alleys and Khao San roads, had a satay starter with a couple of black beers at Maam Musur then stopped at StrEATs, the poshest place on Khao San 2 (this is becoming a habit!) where we had a huge rack of tasty ribs with nice wine and beer. On Saturday afternoon we got a taxi out to the airport area and stayed in a nice little wooden cabin at ‘Thai Wooden Home’ Airbnb and found a restaurant down the road and had another nice Thai meal. Sun 24th. We had a very indulgent morning starting with breakfast in the airport lounge, with a couple of big glasses of wine. It was a self-service bar with all sorts of liqueurs and spirits lined up on the bar so we sampled a selection. Then on the plane they dished out multiple little bottles of wine with lunch, so we spent the rest of the flight recovering. We didn’t indulge in more wine with dinner before we came in to land 12 hours after taking off. A long day. If you would like to see more of our travels just click the map.