All Things Must Come to an End: The Last Installment of Team Joy's Biking Bonanza

"How does this thing work?"


Team Joy!

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. 

(This is obviously not the gravel section- it is not pictured due to obvious safety reasons)

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.

Temple Overload and Biking Bliss

Bagan to Pakokku to Monywe

On the fifth day of biking, our behinds were less sore and we rode through what we had hoped the first few days were going to be like. We boarded the boat at the shore of the Irrawaddy river on the same type of long boat that had taken us on the sunset cruise. I think we were all surprised not to see a local ferry and within the first hour, it became clear that we weren’t going to make it to Pakokku without a pit stop. 

The driver was gracious enough to head toward an island and we hopped off into the soft, black sand and copped a squat along side the river, hoping no cruise boats or fisherman would show up in this exact instance. Luck was on our side and in no time we were back to the noisy meandering ride up the river. 

The Jetty in Pakokku is not a place that sees a lot of tourists, but enough to know what types of goodies they come bearing,  which became clear to us in a matter of seconds when we were surrounded by women selling blankets and women and children asking us if we had shampoo, perfume or lipstick. 

When we established we had none of those items, we thought for sure, they’d make their way back to their thatched palm leaf houses, but they stood hovering around us as we changed into our biking gear, leaving less than an arms length between us as we we exchanged our long sleeved shirts for biking jerseys and donned our padded pants.

 Kath dazzled them with her digital polaroid and once again, we were asked to pose with some of the local women. 

We set off around 11:15 on a dusty road through town and made a right at the river, trees on either side of us. The dirt roads and shade from the tree were a welcome change and when it lasted only the first fifteen minutes until we made a right onto the main thoroughfare, we let our a collective sigh. 

But despite our initial chagrin at begin back in the land of beeping horns, our ride felt more of what we had pictured when we had first arrived in Myanmar. Chem It, our new guide was attentive and the support driver, Pai, came equipped with oranges, bananas, a variety of sweet and salty snacks for us to feast on every 15 km or so. We saw no other tourists for the duration of the ride as we road past fields of sunflowers, rows of cotton, chickpeas and corn. Burma continued to be the land of Buddhas and smiles as we received waves, smiles and and shouts from the people standing in their houses, their stores or riding their motos or their own bikes. 

We passed the cart of hay being pulled by the bulls, a woman retrieving water from a well, a young boy being hosed down by his father in the yard and a boy getting his hair cut by the local barber. We bumped our way up and down hills, past dry fields and brown landscapes, and into groves of what Chem It called Rain Trees. We road passed temple after temple, stuppas and pagodas and at some point, we realized they too had become part of the scenery. 

Finally at 2:20, Chem It told us it was getting late and asked us if it would be ok to get into the air conditioned van to drive the rest of the way to lunch and to see the Phon Pwint Monestary. We stopped at a place so local, there was no menu and no other women in the restaurant and feasted on whatever was ordered for us after agreeing we would all eat vegetarian. Bowls of soup and plates of rice were given to each of us and then as has been the custom in most places we have eaten, they brought us plates and plates to share. Tomatoes and onions with a tangy sauce. Sautéed watercress with garlic, cauliflower with egg and another plate of greens. We left nothing over after our 45 km bike ride – we were famished! 

I think that as we got back into the car, I was not overjoyed about going to see yet another religious monument. I know that’s what I had agreed to do, but I was tired and full and hot and I thought I would feel like “great – another temple.” But I was mistaken and am so glad we went. 

   

Phon Pwint is an expansive set of caves and ruins that covers miles and miles. Chem It explained to us that if the government cared enough to excavate and preserve the area, that perhaps what was still underground was as big as Angkor Wat. From what we saw, I don’t doubt it. 

As you enter into the area, you walk up a set of cement steps and begin to pass some of the 9000 caves that are placed around the temples – each one with small buddhas inside – over 40,000 in all.

 Monkeys scurry to meet you and beg for food on the cliffs and at the base of the various religious structures and statues of   lions and tigers “protect” the Buddhas and the temples in each area. 

A few local boys asked to take their picture with me and Chem It explained that they like to post these pictures on Facebook.

 I kept trying to imagine what their caption would be . . . just like Kris and I wondered if the people holding the Nat celebration we had crashed earlier that day had thought the four white girls arriving via bicycle was an omen – be it good or bad. Now after reading Amy Tan's Saving Fish From Drowning - I have no doubt that's exactly what they thought. 

The piece of Phon Pwint that most struck me though was not the intricate carvings or statues of Buddha. It was the trash. Chem it explained that that too was the government’s problem – that no good trash pick up system existed and that until that was established, there was really no good place to put rubbish. 

But one could not help but be awed by this sacred place, where thousands of locals come to worship their god, covered in bits of paper and plastic, plastic bottles, styrofoam and smashed tomatoes. 

Myanamar has only been open for tourism six years. Chem It explains that it has been a slow start with tourists coming mostly in tours. The local people are still hesitant around tourists and surprised to see white faces. I know that soon this will change. 

Our guide told us that he thought the newly elected government might help that. With more tourists comes more trash. I only hope that the tourists that come can help to find a way to clean up the trash that is already there, rather than contributing to creating more of it. 

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Mandalay, Myanamar

I was glad to hear that I wasn’t the only on that was officially templed out last night. We had started out cycling right from our hotel and biked about 15 km to the first stop, a pink temple built in the 1930s that supposedly had over 600,000 Buddha images. I initially was not convinced until I began walking around and realized that there Buddhas everywhere. 

Not just the gigantic sitting buddhas in every vestibule, but the tiny little buddha statues that were on every corner, tower, ledge and surface. There a Buddha, Here a Buddha, Everywhere a Buddha. It was like someone was trying to win the Guinness book of world records for the most Buddhas in one place. 

Of course, that was not the story that Chem It told to us as we stood outside of the temple, but by then my tourist attention span was already wandering and I can’t tell you if the person who built this particular temple was trying to pay homage to a king or reacting to a Nat’s prediction that he would burn in a fiery hell if he didn’t put up so many Buddha images that the devil wouldn’t be able to find him. The stories were all beginning to blend and while I felt egotistical and bad that I couldn’t seem to pay attention, I was really interested in the biking and the people more than the Buddhas. 

But actually despite that fact that my ADHD had kicked in, I rather enjoyed the time in this temple, wandering from room to room, Buddhas sitting and standing in yellow or black robes. 

People praying or asking to take our pictures with them. Kristen sat down to meditate, Kath and Marie wandered off and Chem It waited outside, so for a moment, I was alone. I sent some good love to Maricela and her family and hoped that these Buddhas could also send some peace to their aching hearts. 

Back on our bikes, it was already hot and the next 8km took us an hour, through backroads and small villages and miles and miles of farms. We headed up a huge hill to reach the largest standing Buddha in the country with a ginormous reclining one in front him. This was definitely the country of Buddhas. 

Chem it explained that there were 31 floors to this Buddha with the first eight representing the levels of hell before we got to humanity and then Buddha only knows what. Chem it was worried about the time and the heat and us eating and not wanting us to get back to our hotel at 7 pm again, so after the second floor in this Buddha statue, he urged us to finish taking our pictures and get back on our bikes. That was ok by me as I felt a little over saturated by Buddhism at this point and I was only to glad to hop back on the bike and continue on our journey. 

Kristen’s bike was once again flawed and Chem it set to work trying to straighten out the gear shift in the back that seemed to be tweaked. In the end, he put the bike back together, switched bikes with her and off we went into the heat, riding past children who ran out for a high five, pick up trucks that rumbled past with monks packed into the back and on the roof, waving their hands in a slow wave and naked babes being bathed with a well and a bucket in their front yard. We stopped for snacks and then once again headed out. 

The next hour felt like torture. I pedaled and pedaled as fast as I could, but didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. I had to pee so bad my stomach felt like it was swimming and I just couldn’t keep up. Finally we stopped and I told Chem it and sure enough it seemed that my wheel was now tweaked and the brakes had been on. No wonder it felt like all of a sudden I was going backwards. 

We finally stopped for lunch at 2:00, ready to call it a day. The beer was cold and we let Chem It order all the vegetarian food he wanted again and feasted on dishes of what seemed to be greens and eggs and some type of underwater vegetable that was unknown to all of us.  

When we arrived in Mandalay, we all agreed that we were sight seen out. What we really wanted to do today was bike. Bike early, see what there was to see from our bikes and come back to enjoy the pool in the heat of the day. 

That evening, Kristen and I attempted to wander out into the city of Mandalay. Attempt being the operative word. Mandalay reminds of every major city I have been to in South East Asia. Motorscooters everywhere you turn, no sidewalks to speak of with gaping holes in the little sidewalks that existed, and after an hour of walking around looking for the said tea house or beer stands, we abandoned ship and went back to the hotel feeling a little terrorized. Mandalay was no more my city than Bangkok had been and I longed to be back in the mountains or along a lake or at the coast. So after an hour we abandoned our search for a coffee or a beer and retreated back to the hotel. 

 Later that night when the four of us decided to venture back out to a vegetarian place that Kath had read about, we didn’t risk the nighttime walk and ponied up the dollar each to take the taxi the 8 blocks from our hotel. Fully worth its weight in gold. 

This morning we were resolved to tell Chem it our plan. No more temples, no Mandalay sightseeing – just biking in the nice cool morning. Kath told him the plan and he agreed . . .or so we thought. 

We got into the car to get out of Mandalay and Chem it shifted around in his seat to explain to us that before biking we would just make a quick stop to the God only knows what Pagoda with some amazing views. 

This one was famous because. . .  yeah, I don’t know. Maybe a monk was excited to make this pagoda and then a donor came along. Maybe a king got drunk and then ate his baby. To be honest, by this time, all the stories were starting to blend together. I was ready to be on the bike!

We got back in the car wondering why we weren’t biking yet only to be told that we had to go check out the white temple which was a monument from a king to his wife’s death. I think at that point if I had a blunt object, I might have clubbed Chem it –despite the fact that he was so sweet, but that didn’t feel very Buddhist of me, so I swallowed my disappointment and went to go see the crumbly lion statues (which were very cool), a large temple built in 1790 that was cracked  by an earthquake, and now tourists were forbidden to enter (but for some reasons locals were not) and then a large bell – the third largest in the world. 

You could even climb under the bell (but that seemed like a bad idea to me, so I hung back while the others went inside to hear yet another story from our very informed and sweet guide). 

Finally, we got to the white pagoda, our starting point for the day’s biking. It was 10:30 and already hot. But today’s biking would prove to be my favorite day yet. We biked through rural streets on rolling hills, the scenery more green than in previous days. 

We biked along walled monasteries and passed the river and all the while the locals waved and yelled out greetings as we biked by. We stopped for water in the shade by what had been a lake and then an abandoned plan for yet another temple. 

There literally must be as many temples as people in this country. Finding a place to pray here is literally as easy as finding a place to get a beer in Spain. Walk two feet and you find a pagoda. Don’t like that one, go down the block. There’s another. And the monks and nuns are everywhere. Walking slowly, barefoot down the road, piled into the pick up truck taxis, taking selfies at the temples along side of all the other tourists. I don’t know if I have every seen anything quite like it. 

We biked through a busy section of town, got caught in a traffic jam and avoided a few stray dogs, a herd of goats, a procession of horse drawn wagons to celebrate a boy’s entrance into the novice stage of being a monk and a bunch of cows in the road that the children helped not to run after us. There were three and four to a motor scooter (which by now was a common sight), women with large baskets on their heads and water stations in case you were thirsty. We passed by stands that held disposable water bottles filled with gas, a man with a big strapped to the back of his moto and young women sewing side by side on sewing machines. 

We headed off the paved road into a small village and past some buildings that housed large, noisy machines. Chem It explained that they were looms being used for weaving and then we continued on past a large pile of plastic bags and other trash to the edge of town, along a river bank. Wooden stands held brightly colored cotton threads hung there to dry. Red, purple, blue, pink. Every color imaginable and row after row of it hanging under the huge climbing trees, next to the river bank. 

We biked until we reached the largest teak, wooden bridge in the country. There we had finished biking for the day. It was only 1:30, but we were hot and sweaty and the beer, while not frozen, was cold enough to feel refreshing. 

We wandered slowly over the bridge. 

Stopping to allow local tourists to take our picture, to snap our own pictures and just to take in the absolute, breathtaking beauty of the place. The bridge seemed to go on for miles over a bank of green fields and murky water. Boats lined the eastern shore and a fortune teller named Mr. Owl lay sprawled out under one of the roofed areas waiting to tell us our future. 

Of all the places we had been until now. All the temples, the cities, the towns, this was my favorite. 

This was Myanmar. A country only re opened for tourism for the last ten years. A country that according to Chem it, didn’t really know what it was they were missing while under military rule until the borders opened and they began to see via internet and smart phone how the rest of the world lived. 

Women were dressed colorfully, men in lunghies and boys sagging their pants, just as if they were walking the streets in the Mission. This was a country in transition and change was happening right before our eyes in the hot afternoon sun in the town of Amarupura on the U Bein Bridge