Mandalay to Pindaya, Myanmar
Even though we were grateful to not have to bike right from our hotel in busy, downtown Mandalay, I am not sure any of us realized that we were were about to get in the van for over three hours to drive on windy roads into the mountains of Myanmar.
The road wound up and up and up until the scenery changed and more people had towels wrapped up into a hat on their heads. People smiled less, the thatched houses gave way to studier substances and the air was noticeably cooler.
We ate lunch in a little restaurant and once again relied on Chem's ordering skills to get us something vegetarian, tasty and not too heavy. After all, we were about to get back on the bikes at noon for the next 50 km.
Biking along the roads in the Sham Region was the first day that we reached the types of roads we had had thought we would have been on the whole time. We wound through village after village, up ad down the “undulating” hills as Chem it called them.
Kids ran to the edge of their school yards, yelling Mingalaba as we road by and mothers held their children up to wave at us. We were more on our own as we rode, each at our own pace, riding fast down the steep descents and plodding along as the road went back up, up and up.
“Don’t be too excited when you see a downhill,” Chem reminded us at the first snack break of watermelon and sweet sesame cookies. “Where ever the road goes down, it then goes right back up.”” And he was right.
The scenery had changed in addition to the terrain and the people. Gone were the dusty, dry hills of Bagan and Mandalay and in their place were mountains jutting up against the horizon, a patchwork of farmland in the foregrounds. Grapes, wheat, potatoes and more now harvested and waiting for the rain to return in May.
That night we shared a bottle of locally grown wine after we bid adieu to Pai and Chem it. We had bamboo huts to sleep in and indulged in a massage before bed to soothe our sore muscles. We wondered how our new guide would be for the last two days of biking and marveled over how fast the time had gone and how quickly we had gotten to know one another, as often happens when traveling together in a foreign land- Team Joy Sore Butt biking their way through the countryside of Myanmar.
Pindaya to Kalaw to Inle Lake, Myanmar
I think Kath was right when she named Nyee Nyee the joker. Not just because he laughed a lot with his infectious laugh. Though that is why she had decided that was his nickname. That along with the fact that his name was hard to pronounce, and it was so similar to the driver that we couldn’t remember whose was whose and it seemed rude to ask again. Though in retrospect the joker was probably not any more appropriate.
But really in my head he became the joker somewhere in the middle of the Kalaw to Inle Lake ride.
He had said four hours. We knew that couldn’t be accurate since he had told us three the day before and that had taken us four and a half. But still he was the guide and so even as I added an hour for good measure, I didn’t think that he was going to be so far off that we’d arrive close to sundown.
He had suffered greatly the day before on our trip from Pindaya to Kalaw. Initially full of joy and large guffaws of laughter with his skinny little legs and flip flops, he soon became despondent as we headed up and down hill after hill.
Even though we stopped to see the women on the hillside digging ginger and Kath even broke out the Polaroid to give them pictures of themselves. Midway into the second hour out of four, he was slapping his cramping quads and holding on to the support vehicle as it rode slowly up the hills.
But there was nothing that he said that could have prepared me (or us) for that last day of biking. He had said it was two and a half hours of up, followed by one and a half of down. And that this trip he had actually done once or twice before, unlike the Pindaya to Kalaw stretch, which had been his first time.
The ride out of town while up and down and on a super trafficky road, didn’t feel much different than what he we had been riding on the day before. Up and down, Up and down, Up and down. I had been reluctant to get on the bike in the morning. I had had enough of that particular bike, of the up and down, it was hotter than it had been the day before and I still felt a little dizzy and nauseous, as I had been for the last few days.
But then once on the bike, I got in a groove and we cruised along the roadway till we left the traffic and headed into a smaller, quieter road. It was absolutely breathtaking and we were thrilled that our last bit would be through such gorgeous farmland with mountains as our backdrop. We had succeeded in changing our flights – or at least they had to the following day to Yangon so we would also have two nights in Inle Lake and a full day without the bikes to see the lake and relax for the change, instead of being so programed from dawn until dusk.
Then we hit the gravel. The thing is that he had said that some of the road would be bumpy or off road. And the company had said that 60% of the riding would be on paved and 40% would be off road – hence the mountain bikes. But looking back over the last nine days, it had been mostly paved.
I asked Nyee Nyee how long we would be riding on this road that made my teeth vibrate and he just laughed his joker laugh. “10 minutes? An hour? Two?”
“Noooo, not that long.” Kristen decided to use the support vehicle for the next few miles, but when the road momentarily smoothed out and Nyee Nyee assured us that it was going to be smoother she hopped back on and hoped for the best.
We stopped to see the basket weavers. It turns out that while road construction and digging ginger from the earth is women’s work, basket weaving is men’s work. Something about education level and status.
I kept thinking about all the times I have jokingly heard about basket weaving as a course of study and wondered if anyone who made those jokes (including yours truly) has every seen the kind of work that goes into making a basket from palm fronds by hand.
One guy was chopping down the trees, another pulling long strips of bamboo from them, two more were slicing the strips into even pieces and then there were two men creating the baskets, weaving them into large containers stable enough to carry all the ginger we had seen, the potatoes and whatever else needed transporting. All by hand.
Kath had her polaroid handy and both the boys, the men and the local kids and mom from the village enjoyed the photos she took and gave them, laughing as they saw the piece of paper spit out from the camera revealing their serious faces.
These kind, smiley people who seemed to be laughing all the time, always took photos without a smile to be found.
We got back on on the bikes and Nyee Nyee told us that we had just about another hour or so. We didn’t realize that meant an hour or so of uphill on the rocky road followed by at least an hour or two of some of the steepest, rockiest mountain biking riding I have ever done. I think I have mentioned before my fear of anything fast. Mountain biking is among those fears.
But in the end, we had to get from the top to the jetty where we would take our boat along Inle Lake to Nyaung Shwe. And so without anyone to really complain to, I looked Mr. Fear right between the eyes and silently screamed, “Come on – let’s see what you got.” And then I just took off.
It was like I had become some other version of myself, barely touching the brakes, catching air on the bumps, finding the best path on the wide fire road. Down, down, down we flew along the roads until every part of me felt like it was cramping and vibrating. And then just when I thought I couldn’t take an other second of downhill on this unpaved road, Nyee Nyee flew past me and made a right, onto a paved surface.
I cheered. I mean not just in my head, but aloud. “WOOO HOO!” And I could hear Kristen doing the same thing as she made the same right – “Paved roads!!!!” We were ecstatic.
And then just like that – the bike trip was over. Ten days of togetherness. Ten days of getting on the bike not knowing what to expect and riding and riding and riding. Ten days of seeing new places and eating new foods and having new experiences, and poof, we got off the bikes and it was over.
It was funny to think back to the flight from Yangon to Bagan where I had contemplated jumping ship – I wasn’t sure about the tour – the having to go where people told me when they told me, the fanciness of the hotel – all of it. And now it was about to be over.
Nyee Nyee was his old jovial self as he led us through the town to the jetty and onto the long boat with the four wooden chairs all in a row. We had gone from bikes to boats for the last few days. Nyee Nyee as it turned out was not so much of a biker – and he for one was happy about that, back to being the joker.
Inle Lake, Myanmar
The fisherman stands poised on the edge of the long canoe, balancing on his right leg, as he dips the oar attached to his left leg deep into the dark blue water and pulls in to backward along the canoe. He holds the basket net above his head and as we snap a picture, he leans forward, as if to say, “Aren’t I talented? Don’t forget to tag me on facebook!” We laugh and wave and continue puttering along Inle Lake in our Long Tailed Canoe with the wooden chairs all lined up in a row.
We are grateful to be off the bikes on this second to last day as a group, enjoying the cool morning air and the sun shining down on us.
Inle Lake has to be one of the strangest places I have ever been with more than 800 villages and 300,000 villagers living in floating villages on stilts in the water. Instead of roads, there are waterways; instead of cars there are boats. Tomato plants grow in floating gardens, women wash clothes in the water off their docks.
A floating sliver shop serves to melt down the rocks from it’s aluminum, copper, silver blend until it’s 98% silver and formed into bracelets or earrings – ready to sell in US dollars for a pretty penny to the visiting tourists.
It is by far the most touristy place we have been with the exception of maybe Bagan. The tourists ride through the inlets and lake in boats with chairs all in a row. Four, five and even eight people sitting in a row.
The locals sit on the boat floor along with burlap sacks of goods or grass to be used to make an island or just up to 20 people all huddled in the middle of the boat waving to us as we pass one another.
Nyee Nyee grew up on the eastern banks of the lake and tells us that each village as its own primary school, pagodas and hospital but that only the bigger lake villages have high schools or monasteries, and that each village has a special skill.
There are some that make and sell lotus and silk weavings, women painstakingly pulling out the small strings out of each lotus branch until it is thick enough to become thread to use in a loom.
Some villages make silver products and each grow food and send out their men to fish for grouper and other marine life that taste good fried and in curries.
As we putter around adding to the noise pollution on the water’s surface, we can’t help but wonder what it was like before the motors came along.
How peaceful it must have been to sway along in your house along the water’s edge, lake grass just under the surface, a game of volleyball with the bamboo ball, clothes drying on the line, women taking their baths at the water's edge, the only sounds – the egrets and the seagulls and the sound of the fisherman, rowing with their feet.
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