Let's go to the beach!
Travelogue: September 10th
"No...sleep...til Yangon!"
This was our battle cry, being the light bus-sleepers that we are, as we got on the 14-hour long bus from Bagan to Yangon. When we finally arrived in Yangon, (after four hours sleep) we realized that we still had four days left in the country. So, what did we do? Decide to spend it restfully wandering round the city? No way! We booked another bus journey for the following morning waking up at 3:45am to depart for a seven-hour bus trip through the delta to spend two days on the coast. Foolish, you may say...ok, in retrospect we'd probably agree with you.
One more bus journey
It seemed like a good idea at the time: see the delta area that was so hard hit by Cyclone Nargis last year and spend a couple of days on the beach relaxing. But the reality played out slightly differently. The bus ride through the delta was indeed beautiful. And seeing how people live in huts balanced over watery marshes and the various types of bridges, both large and small, which they construct over these bodies of water to their homes was very interesting to see. However, the early morning bus drove along some of the slowest, roughest roads I've ever experienced. The last couple of hours of this were along a tedious, single-lane, densely-forested mountain road.
To make matters even more challenging, throughout most of the journey torrential rain pounded down on our porous bus, which one Burmese passenger joked had 'water-con, not air-con' because there was water raining down from the a/c vents. Some people stuck t-shirts, towels or bags in and around the vents and windows to keep the water out. One man even used his open umbrella to cover himself from the rain as he sat inside the bus.
The bus itself was a local bus: the type that use the last quarter of the bus for transporting large bags of grain, cement or vegetables, livestock and whatever else passengers need to haul. Additionally, these are the types of buses which are never full. They pick up people along the way, village after village. The new passengers sit on stools in the aisleways when the seats are full and, when the stools are full, they stand at the front of the bus. And, being Burma, throughout the entire journey most of the men and some of the elderly women are chewing betel nut and spitting out small cupfuls of red liquid into baggies every few minutes. (It's about as lovely as it sounds.)
Unlike some rainstorms in the rainy season, this one didn't stop and start like a cloud burst. It poured to biblical proportions more or less for two days. Never the less, we found a lovely guesthouse whose owners, regardless of the conditions, smiled like things couldn't be better. There was no electricity in the town of Chaung Tha during the day, only from sunset to sunrise, and few restaurants or hotels were open - closed for the rainy season. (No one in their right minds would come out to the coast in this weather, right?) Still, we napped, read and even swam in the Bay of Bengal, when it wasn't raining too hard. It was really quite funny, though it did feel kind of like you were enjoying a post-apocalyptic beach experience - deserted and disheveled, but still as beautiful as can be.
The last night we were there it rained harder than either of us could remember. We were up before dawn to pack up and leave. However, in the middle of our packing, the power went off. (Just what you want at that hour.) So, in our wordlessly sleepy state we finished our packing by flashlight. At 5:30, our ever-cheerful guesthouse owner appeared, fetching us from our room with a kerosene lamp and led us to breakfast, which she must've prepared using the same lamp.
Although I was sure the road would be impassable after all the rain, the bus arrived just 30 minutes late and, slowly but surely, managed to make its way through the slow, rocky roads back to Yangon. This was lucky for us because our flight out of the country (which we'd already changed once) was to leave the following morning bright and early.
"No...sleep...til Yangon!"
This was our battle cry, being the light bus-sleepers that we are, as we got on the 14-hour long bus from Bagan to Yangon. When we finally arrived in Yangon, (after four hours sleep) we realized that we still had four days left in the country. So, what did we do? Decide to spend it restfully wandering round the city? No way! We booked another bus journey for the following morning waking up at 3:45am to depart for a seven-hour bus trip through the delta to spend two days on the coast. Foolish, you may say...ok, in retrospect we'd probably agree with you.
One more bus journey
It seemed like a good idea at the time: see the delta area that was so hard hit by Cyclone Nargis last year and spend a couple of days on the beach relaxing. But the reality played out slightly differently. The bus ride through the delta was indeed beautiful. And seeing how people live in huts balanced over watery marshes and the various types of bridges, both large and small, which they construct over these bodies of water to their homes was very interesting to see. However, the early morning bus drove along some of the slowest, roughest roads I've ever experienced. The last couple of hours of this were along a tedious, single-lane, densely-forested mountain road.
To make matters even more challenging, throughout most of the journey torrential rain pounded down on our porous bus, which one Burmese passenger joked had 'water-con, not air-con' because there was water raining down from the a/c vents. Some people stuck t-shirts, towels or bags in and around the vents and windows to keep the water out. One man even used his open umbrella to cover himself from the rain as he sat inside the bus.
The bus itself was a local bus: the type that use the last quarter of the bus for transporting large bags of grain, cement or vegetables, livestock and whatever else passengers need to haul. Additionally, these are the types of buses which are never full. They pick up people along the way, village after village. The new passengers sit on stools in the aisleways when the seats are full and, when the stools are full, they stand at the front of the bus. And, being Burma, throughout the entire journey most of the men and some of the elderly women are chewing betel nut and spitting out small cupfuls of red liquid into baggies every few minutes. (It's about as lovely as it sounds.)
Unlike some rainstorms in the rainy season, this one didn't stop and start like a cloud burst. It poured to biblical proportions more or less for two days. Never the less, we found a lovely guesthouse whose owners, regardless of the conditions, smiled like things couldn't be better. There was no electricity in the town of Chaung Tha during the day, only from sunset to sunrise, and few restaurants or hotels were open - closed for the rainy season. (No one in their right minds would come out to the coast in this weather, right?) Still, we napped, read and even swam in the Bay of Bengal, when it wasn't raining too hard. It was really quite funny, though it did feel kind of like you were enjoying a post-apocalyptic beach experience - deserted and disheveled, but still as beautiful as can be.
The last night we were there it rained harder than either of us could remember. We were up before dawn to pack up and leave. However, in the middle of our packing, the power went off. (Just what you want at that hour.) So, in our wordlessly sleepy state we finished our packing by flashlight. At 5:30, our ever-cheerful guesthouse owner appeared, fetching us from our room with a kerosene lamp and led us to breakfast, which she must've prepared using the same lamp.
Although I was sure the road would be impassable after all the rain, the bus arrived just 30 minutes late and, slowly but surely, managed to make its way through the slow, rocky roads back to Yangon. This was lucky for us because our flight out of the country (which we'd already changed once) was to leave the following morning bright and early.