Travel Day 1150 – Mandalay to Katha, MYANMAR
Initially the intent was to go all the way up north to Myitkyina and then take a slow boat back to Mandalay, but there seemed to be a few problems with that idea…
Travel by Trishaw from Naba to Katha in Myanmar
First of all to reach Myitkyina there were only two options, catching an expensive flight for some 120 dollars, or taking a 24 hour train ride, but so far everyone had warned me of the train system in Myanmar. Also after talking to some local people and a travel agent, it turned out that there were currently no boats allowed to make the distance between Myitkyina and Bhamo because of ongoing fighting and the resulting severe security risk for passengers…
So starting the river journey in Bhamo seemed to be only sane thing to do, but unfortunately it was not quite as easy to get there since there seemed to be no road or rail connection. The only option would have been another 110 dollar flight or taking an upstream boat. But taking an upstream boat, which was significantly slower, only to take another boat downstream again seemed quite pointless as well, especially since the government boats only left every couple of days and nobody could agree which these day actually were…
Ordinary Train Class on the way to Katha in Myanmar
Since being stuck in tiny villages with no boat connections for days at a time seemed not to be making the best use of the limited time in Myanmar, we finally opted for the safest, cheapest and shortest option of all. So we decided to simply travel by train to Katha and then catch a slow boat back to Mandalay, even if it meant missing Myitkyina, Bhamo and Shwegu. But at least we still got to see a little bit of the Ayeyarwady River and instead of spending much money on a flight; we rather had the chance to see some nice landscapes from the train…
This was obviously the best solution, but again it came along with some minor hiccups. First of all, when we were buying the train tickets we realized that the train would only travel to Naba and we would have to take bus from there to Katha. The second thing we realized was that there was only one train leaving per day and it was departing as early as 4.30 am, meaning we had to be at the station at 4 am already and the third thing was that the train was already fully booked out…
Landscape during Train Travel from Mandalay to Katha
Luckily after some back and forth at the tourist counter of the train station in Mandalay, we were finally offered to buy more expensive tickets for the sleeper class. While it seemed unnecessary at first to have a bed in a day train, considering that we had to rise at 3 am in order to get ready and make our way to the station, having a little nap was actually quite a nice thing, especially on a 12 hour bumpy train ride. How bumpy the ride actually was and how much the train cabin was moving sideways once we pulled out of the station was actually plain crazy and beyond all warnings we had received prior to our departure…
We literally had to stand with hands and feed spread out while desperately clinging to anything fixed in the train cabin, just to avoid being tossed around in the technically slow-moving vehicle. It was actually beyond believe how much the train car was swaying left to right and then jumping up and down in-between. This was something that I had never experienced before in any other country and I really could not understand how it was possible to have such a poor and probably dangerous train system. The moving cabin literally made it impossible to even read during the ride and so we simply rested and enjoyed the landscapes until we finally reached Naba in the late afternoon. A long trishaw ride on seemingly endless dirt roads finally brought us to Katha just as the day was ending. It really had been a more than and long crazy train travel day, but we finally reached George Orwell’s famous village Katha…
Find all Katha Train Ride Photos here.
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