Mt Popa and Kalaw
The following day we were back on the road. We stopped at a viewpoint to Mount Popa, a temple set on a mountain top. It’s a stunning sight since the mountain stands alone.
The viewpoint is surrounded by colourful shrines with massive pastel figure of Buddhas and snakes. We reached the top after around 1000 steps up a covered staircase lined with shops and filled with locals visiting the temple.
There are monkeys all the way up, they migrate here where they are fed bananas by the residents.
There are Buddhas everywhere here, in every temple, for sale by street vendors, but the country is very serious about Buddhism. Recently an American was deported for sporting a Buddha tattoo, and a New Zealander was jailed for advertising a bar on the Internet using a Buddha image.
It took us a long time to get out of Mt. Popa, the narrow streets are prone to traffic jams. The visitors are so excited to get there that they sometimes leave their vehicles in the traffic jams to go and celebrate, making it hard to ever clear the traffic!
We stopped for lunch at a highway diner, with throngs of people getting their noodles from servers at a buffet setting decorated with flypaper. Then a few more hours uphill to Kalaw, originally built by the British in the 1880’s as a hill station for the military who had claimed Burma, to escape the heat. It is mercifully much cooler here, especially at night, getting down to 13C the nights we were there.
Myanmar isn’t big on bars and parties, but we found one here. It was about the size of my living room sliced in half lengthwise, with maybe 30 locals and tourists packed in around the bar. Only gin, whiskey, or rum sours were served,and one of those was enough to send me off to bed with my head buzzing for only $1! The locals somehow found room to play a guitar and sing.
We drove in the back of a pickup truck up dusty roads to start a hike to visit a hill tribe village. The people here are so genuinely friendly, more so than any country I have ever visited. They happily pose for pictures, never expecting payment, your thank you is enough. Everyone says “minglarba” (hello) and waves to you.
The British built the railway here, importing Nepalese men to actually do the work, so we went to the railway station where a train arrival was due. We could see it coming, so waited.. dogs and children sauntered across the tracks with the train nearing… and then it finally arrived. Trains here are infamous for being very slow. Anthony Bourdain in his Parts Unknown series did a show here, he got on a train for a 14 hour trip that took 24 hours, and people walking beside it were faster. They are also kind of decrepit. The windows are open so we could talk to the people inside, who took pictures of us while we were taking pictures of them.
We all had a good laugh, a really great experience with the people.