Trip 2015-16. Day 316. Myanmar, Mae Sot - Hpa-an - Mawlamyine - Yangon

Our first day in Burma started with a delightfully easy hitchhiking experience. We were very quickly offered a lift on the Asian highway from central Mae Sot to the border in a pick-up truck.

The crossing was smooth and quick at 7:30 in the morning.

On the other side of the Friendship bridge there were many “black market” money changers with indistinguishable piles of one thousand kyat notes and calculators. As anticipated, in every 100 thousand pack of notes some were taped or damaged. We changed 100 dollars each and got a pile of kyats back.

After that we started hitchhiking just from the middle of the town, still within sight of the Friendship bridge. Within ten minutes we got a lift with a gentleman in his Honda car. He spoke very little English (later it emerged he was fluent in Chinese and Malaysian) so his cousin confirmed on the phone his willingness to respond to our Burmese sign (explaining what hitchhiking is) that he would not charge us any money. Initially we were heading to Hpa-an and he was happy to take us there. He mentioned he was going to Mawlamyine and then Yangon.

We drove through the countryside and after an hour were offered an amazing lunch and quickly realised the wonderful richness and variety of Burmese cuisine.

We continued our drive, and after a while stopped to wash car at a place where our driver bought eight small birds for 12000 kyat, soon to be released in the forest a few miles away (in what was part of his Buddhist tradition of letting go and purifying his karma).

We passed through Hpa-an and decided it was not right for us to leave our kind companion when he offered so much more. Our next stop was a lake just south of Hpa-an.

We continued south for a short journey to Mawlamyine. There our host stopped at a small Thai masseur’s shop, his friend, but then drove us on to the main temple, Mahamuni Paya. There he left us with a man he knew who stayed glued to us for thirty minutes while our kind hitch-host went back to see his masseur. There were wonderful views of the river, the former colonial capital and the nearby prison.

Then we were summoned to go by motorcycle with our “guard” back to the masseur’s. It was a typical tiny unit divided for both massage and where the family lived. The room consisted of a massage bed, the couple’s bed and a small cooking area. We confirmed the masseur was thai from Chiang Mai! Why he had chosen to come to provincial Burma we didn’t work out.

We met his wife... and after our request he proceeded to play us the following song:

Soon we had to return to the road and after a couple of ours we were offered another delicious meal, before our very long journey to Yangon.

We finally arrived to the biggest city of Burma around 10:30 in the evening to meet our hitch-host’s beautiful wife who spoke excellent English. She arranged for us to stay in a nearby hotel for $30 dollars a night with breakfast included (half the typical price).

For the first day in Burma we’d the most outstanding, unexpected but then unique experience possible!