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…
Local Village Kids in Katha, Myanmar
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 town. The first one seemed a bit expensive for how basic it was and so we carried on to the next. Unfortunately the second hotel seemed not to allow foreigners to stay here and the last hotel claimed to be full. So being not really spoiled with choices, all of a sudden the first hotel option looked quite ok after all and we decided to stay…
We didn’t really intent to stay for a long time anyway, but at least we wanted to see Katha, which became famous after George Orwell based his novel here, and we needed to figure out our onward boat connections. Going upstream even to the next village Shwegu seemed out of question and taking the government ferry from here downstream appeared equally pointless. The boat was leaving Bhamo in the early morning and arrived by the evening in Katha which meant from Katha on, down to Mandalay, it was going through the night without any views of the river…
Typical Bamboo Huts in Katha Village
So once more, not being spoiled with too many choices, we fixed everything for an early morning departure on a more expensive fast boat instead. After that we could finally enjoy some local Mohinga for breakfast and dive into the local village life. The best thing to do seemed simply to walk around town and explore all the local markets. It really seemed that half the village must have owned a little market stand somewhere on the streets to sell everything they either harvested or produced on their own at home…
For us this was more than interesting and even if we could not communicate too much with the local people, at least everyone seemed to be happy or at least amused to see us. After sampling, touching or shaking the head about things that we had no idea about what they actually were, we finally went back to the village center to get some lunch and look for a rental bike. It really seemed like a nice idea to explore a bit more the surrounding area on wheels, but there was no bike rental to be seen anywhere in entire Katha…
British Colonial House in Katha
Finally, with the help of the our hotel we managed to find a family that was willing to rent out their old bikes for a much too high price. And for a third time we felt left with no choices, walked off and then finally gave-in and took the old overpriced bikes. Even if overpaying was always something that bothered me, especially when it was obvious, luckily the stupid feeling vanished rather quickly as we were greeted more than warmly by all the local village kids of the greater Katha area…
While all the kids came running out of their bamboo huts or light wooden houses to say hello to us, we not only forgot about the bike deal but also our initial intent to look for George Orwell’s house, the police commissioner’s residence and the British Club. In fact we did see some British colonial houses along the way, but it was much more fun to take photos of the excited children and to wave mingalarbar to their smiling families. This was definitely the best cultural experience we had in Myanmar so far and the lack of tourists in combination with the unspoiled local people really made for an amazingly great day in Katha…
Find all Katha Photos here.
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