Travel Day 1156 – Pyin Oo Lwin to Hsipaw, MYANMAR It would have been really great to spend more time in Pyin Oo Lwin with its colonial charm and Indian culture, but unfortunately it was already time to move on… In this case moving on meant catching a train to Hsipaw, further north-east and right […]
Botanical Garden and Horse Buggies
Travel Day 1155 – Pyin Oo Lwin, MYANMAR The exploration of Pyin Oo Lwin had been great yesterday, but besides its British colonial architecture, this small town was famous for something else… Pyin Oo Lwin was also famous for its vast botanical garden and the picturesque, classical horse buggies. In Bagan I had already seen […]
Surreal British colonial Pyin Oo Lwin
Travel Day 1154 – Mandalay to Pyin Oo Lwin, MYANMAR Visiting Shwebo had been a very special experience, but arriving in the British colonial hill station of Pyin Oo Lwin simply felt outlandish and surreal… After my extremely nice lunch invitation yesterday in Shwebo, I had left town on the last bus departing for Mandalay. While […]
Local Family Day in royal Shwebo
Travel Day 1153 – Shwebo to Mandalay, MYANMAR In fact, as I had to notice again today, Shwebo was a really interesting place to visit, even it wasn’t quite worth a trip for its touristic sights… It was almost hard to believe that Shwebo had been once the royal capital of Myanmar and nowadays only […]
By Boat to Shwebo via Ayeyarwady
Travel Day 1152 – Katha to Shwebo, MYANMAR After such a refreshingly nice day yesterday with all the friendly village kids, today we were already off and down the Ayeyarwady River… Unfortunately we were already off at 5am and in complete darkness, but since there was only one fast boat leaving per day, we simply […]
No Choices but a great Day in Katha
Travel Day 1151 – Katha, MYANMAR Katha was actually quite an interesting, unspoiled local place and how untouristic is was we came already to realize once we arrived yesterday evening… When the trishaw dropped us off by the Ayeyarwady River, we found ourselves in front of three house-like hotels, apparently the only three hotels in […]
Crazy Train Travel to Naba and Katha
U Bein’s wooden Bridge in Amarapura
Travel Day 1149 – Mandalay and Amarapura, MYANMAR My exploration of the Mandalay area continued today, but I went even further south and instead of using a bicycle, it was time to use a pick-up… So far I hadn’t used any pick-ups at all, although they were probably the most common means of transport in […]
Mandalay Temples and Monasteries
Travel Day 1148 – Mandalay, MYANMAR Since riding a bike through Mandalay had been a great experience yesterday, I decided to continue exploring more on two wheels today… There were a few listed monasteries and temples further south in Mandalay and it seemed easy enough to visit them while pedaling along some other neighborhoods of […]
Shwenandaw and Mandalay Palace
Bus Journey to mysterious Mandalay
Travel Day 1146 – Bagan to Mandalay, MYANMAR After spending so many wonderful days in Bagan, it was unfortunately time to move on and see a little bit more of Myanmar… Instead of going towards Inle Lake first, as most travelers seemed to do, I rather opted for going north to Mandalay. For some reason […]
Buddhist Nat festival at Mount Popa
Bagan during Sunset and at Night
Travel Day 1144 – Bagan, MYANMAR Seeing all the temples of Bagan inside and out was definitely an amazing experience, but they were actually also impressive at night… By now I had spent four days in Bagan, exploring all the temples, and if time would have permitted, it would have been nice to stay even […]