Collecting Moments

Today we took a 4am train from Mandalay all the way up into the mountainous Shan State which borders with China and Thailand. We chose ordinary class ($1.50 a ticket) to Hsipaw, the ride was twelve hours, and was very bouncy on the wooden benches and breezy through the open windows. Only local people usually travel by this class, it was packed with sacks of vegetables and fruits, baskets and bags. Our morning sleep was constantly interrupted by a cock which was apparently hiding from a conductor somewhere under the bench nearby. The upper class looks like this: All the Myanmar railways were built by the British in the XIXth century. The carriages are old and from China, they are large for the narrow gauge, causing the bounciness. A key landmark on the journey is the Gokteik Viduct built at an early point of the XXth century. Its silver legs extend deep into the gorge as it bridges the two sides of a dramatic canyon. We've witnessed a lot of beautiful moments during the trip: people

We took a local bus from the Mandalay market to Anamapura. And joined herds of tourists at U Bein's Bridge – an incredibly long teak bridge.

Somehow we managed to get a kind of VIP bus back from Mrauk-U to Mandalay for the same price of 25000 kyats ($20). The ride took 20 hours but was much more comfortable than the previous one. The chairs were softer and the air-conditioning worked all the way. We got snacks and a meal included in the cost of the ticket. The engine often caused smells of burning rubber though and the stuff kept checking it further adding to the fumes in the passenger compartment. The road winded through the mountains with a large part of sheer drop from one side. We saw a bus broken and abandoned, before coming across a fuel tanker jackknifed into the rock-face and blocking most of the road. We passed gingerly on the cliff edge side! Once we left the mountains the remainder of the journey was quite quick on the flat planes towards Mandalay.

Independent visit to Chin village Today the two of us planned to leave Mrauk-U and travel up the Lemro (Lay Myo, လေးမြို့မြစ်) River independently to a Chin village. We started at 11 in the morning from Mrauk-U trying to negotiate a fare to the river-side jetty. As always people were quickly interested in our need and we had offers of bicycle carriage for 5000 kyats and scooter (6000 kyats) and finally a safer motor-taxi (also 6000) as we knew much of the road was very poor. We arrived to Sin-O, a small village on the bank of the river which both local and tourist boats use, 8 km from town. Fortunately, there was some river traffic and a boat came in with cargo of firewood, which agreed to take us north to one of the villages. We sailed for 1.5 hrs and began to reach the villages our fellow traveler had suggested. We passed Paraghi and Kreischo and stopped at Sen-Shuew-Jew village. The driver asked for 2000 kyats (it seemed reasonable because we saw a local woman who traveled with us f