Backpacking the Golden Land

This quote has been my motto since I’ve chanced upon it (not a long time ago though). I use this excuse to go on trips for my birthday. For that year, 2017, I decided to pay Myanmar a visit.

I came across Terry (Htet Paing Soe) when I was doing my research for our 7-day Myanmar trip. I noticed that he was active in answering people’s queries about Myanmar. I tried my luck to send him a personal message. Helpful and friendly enough, he provided me all the answers to my questions and even asked me whether he can help me book the required tickets.

Originally, we planned to do a DIY trip to save costs. This time, we decided to get help from Terry for us to enjoy and learn about the culture and history of Myanmar. With his help, guidance, and recommendations, it was like everything was done through a travel agent, minus the cost, and the best part was I have the flexibility of doing whatever I want based on what I planned.

On our first day, we flew from Singapore to Yangon International Airport where Terry picked us up.

We wore matching outfits from head to toe!

We were then sent to 30th Corner Boutique Hostel — a one-star hostel, cozy but decent, very accessible within Yangon city area. We decided to get a cheap option since we’re only staying to spend a night for transfer purposes.

Yangon is (sorry for the word) an unkempt city to stroll. There were a lot of spit everywhere – very visible due to its red color. Betel chewing remains wildly popular in Myanmar. I remember old people in the Philippines used to do this too.

We only managed to visit Shwedagon Pagoda and 19th Street on our first night.

Shwedagon Pagoda is about 10min Grab-ride from our hotel, which is Yangon’s most famous landmark. It is a massive 99-meter high gold plated pagoda with the diamond-studded spire set on top of a small hill in downtown Yangon. We were advised to visit in the night which was a perfect time for us too! Admission is US$5 per person. We hired a tour guide for a couple of hours for a “donation” fee.

There are a lot of other structures or relics inside the complex.

After this, we went to 19th Street which is a street food shop on the roadside of Chinatown — the most famous barbecue and drinking place in downtown Yangon. If you are familiar with Lau Pa Sat in Singapore, it is very similar to that.

The next day, we quickly went to visit a Catholic church – this is also one of our promises; a promise that whenever we’re in a new place, we will visit a local church. We visited St Mary’s Cathedral in Bo Aung Kyaw Street.

Near the church is the Bogyoke Aung San Market where one may also buy souvenirs. It was also the only place where we found a mall and a fast-food restaurant.

On that same day, we took the VIP night bus from Aung Mingalar Highway Bus to Inle Lake. It cost us about US$20 for the one-way trip. Tickets include the fare, water, and some snacks. It was roughly a 12-hour bus ride with at least two stop-overs.

We reached Nyaungshwe about 8 o’clock in the morning. When we arrived, we went straight to La Yaung Thoon Hotel, a modern and artsy temple-inspired hotel. It is about 5-min walk from Nyaungshwe center.

Inle Lake is a freshwater lake where local farmers are famous for one-legged fishing (didn’t capture on photo) and home to the Kayan tribe.

We only had one purpose of visiting the place, but it ended being one of our favorite parts of the entire trip. Our purpose was to meet the Kayan tribe or most commonly known as the long-neck ladies.

I first heard of them from my Anthropology class way back 2007. Imagine carrying up to 13kgs of brass wires around your neck!

Aside from these, Inle Lake also showcases their livelihood above the water – there are silk/ cotton/ lotus weaving, silversmith or goldsmith, sweet and flavored tobacco, and other temples in the floating villages.

The next day, we took our time to spend in the hotel and rest for a bit before we took another long bus ride. It was about 6-8 hours of land transfer from the Inle Lake bus station to Mandalay. It cost us about US$15 for the one-way trip.

We arrived in Chan Mya Shwe Pyi Highway Station at about 6 o’clock in the morning. We then went straight to Green Days Inn – a small hotel, perfect for a one-night stay. Since we arrived early in the morning, the shops were still closed. We asked the hotel to provide us the free breakfast included in our booking, since we won’t be able to use it the next day.

It was a jam-packed day for us.

From there, we made our way to Shwenandaw Monastery, a historic Buddhist monastery made of wood that used to be an apartment of a king.

Our next stop was the Kuthodaw Pagoda — a Buddhist stupa that contains the world’s largest book, there are 729 shrines were erected around the pagoda. Each of them is a single marble slab whose 2 sides were inscribed with Burmese scripts, with each slab made to look like pages of a book.

On that same day, we went back to our hotel to have a quick dinner and to pack our things. We left the hotel before the sunrise.

Here comes the most awaited part of this journey.

Bagan is one of my highly anticipated places to visit. I planned to climb and go inside the temples, see the beautiful sunset dotted with the colorful flying hot air balloons, and of course, get to ride on a balloon. But before this, there was an earthquake that destroyed a lot of pagodas. It shattered my dreams and I thought I lost my chance. The good thing was that they didn’t close the archeological zone. They re-built it and closed the temples for visits for the safety of the tourists.

So yeah… we went. Bagan is dusty due to the dry season. The entire region does not have much concrete roads.

We arrived there after lunchtime. We then went to Bagan Princess Hotel to unpack and to freshen up. We stayed the night in the hotel swimming and resting before we head to the next day.

The next day, we rented an e-scooter for us to explore the archeological zone. We woke up early, planning to see the hot air balloons on sunrise. On our way to the zone, something unexpected happened… it rained!

Since we’re halfway through, we braved the rain. We planned to continue to go and just wait there for it to stop. But rain started pouring to the point we can no longer see the road. We then decided to head back to the hotel.

I was so worried that it will affect our next days’ activities. I called up Terry – he said that we’re lucky! It rarely rains in Myanmar. Some years have zero rain days. Imagine the heat!

When the rain stopped early afternoon, we continued what we have planned for the day. We took the e-scooter back to the archeological zone to explore by ourselves.

I was praying real hard that night not to rain the next day ’cause the following day was our biggest day! We had our hot air balloon rides booked. We woke up early to be picked up. While waiting in the hotel lobby, my phone rang. The hot air balloon operator called to let us know that we have to standby for pick-up but if it rains, they have to cancel the flight.

I was so hopeful until a van pulled over. I was so excited, I was looking outside the glass window to see who pulled over. This is no joke – when I saw the guy alight from the vehicle, the sky cried with a loud thunder!

I cried too. It was my birthday.

The guys went up to us and just said sorry. I cried even more. Iking was hugging me – he knows how broken-hearted I was. We went to the hotel room and I just ugly cried. It was supposed to be my day! But then Iking reminded me that God has better plans for me. (Thank You, Lord, for this human being ❤️)

I went back to sleep and hoped that there are better things to come. For that day, we just decided to hire a tour guide to bring us around and tell stories of the temples.

We still managed to enjoy the day and decided to make the most of our day since it will be our last day in Bagan.

There are specific pagodas that can be climbed. Our very friendly tour guide made sure that we were able to go in and enjoy the beauty of Bagan.

Our train experience was horrible, and maybe the worst decision we ever made. The train was very old and filthy! One will get the feel of getting sick because of it. We didn’t even touch our food and bought chips along the way, instead. We felt like we’ll be more healthy and safe if we eat junk food, at least it’s sealed. We had to hold our pee for an entire 12-hour ride just to skip using the toilet.

The only thing that made us endure the ride when we saw a rainbow.

<sub>A Filipino currently living and working as a corporate warrior in Singapore, aiming to share experiences with the people who have the same interests. The goal is to be traveling one country at a time while keeping sustainability in mind, so hoping to inspire other travel junkies too!

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