Day 1
5:30am we jumped into the awaiting Taxi and sped off for the
Bus Station through the darkness. I say sped but after we encountered road
works blocking off a road, hit a major traffic jam and then passed a nasty
accident with a taxi and a lorry (nothing to do with the Jam) our driver
started to get worried about the time (which in turn worried us) however the
hotel had allowed for this and after the driver found an alternative route, we
arrived at the Bus Station 30mins before we were due to check in.
Much more organised here, a little waiting room and our bags
were taken, labelled and stored so we headed next door for coffee. Coffee was
interesting, nothing like coffee but nice all the same. You get a cup of hot
water and an all in one sachet consisting of a blend of coffee dried milk and
sugar. Not liking either milk or sugar I opted to pretend it wasn’t coffee at
all and it went down okay.
Whilst sipping our brew, a number of beggars came by,
interestingly quite a lot of them only went to the local people, leaving us
alone. If they do come to you they are not persistent and soon move on.
Included in this were pink monks, have we told you about pink monks yet? We first
encountered them on our drive from the airport in Yangon. Stunning, all walking
in a line dressed in pink and white, made you really feel like you were
somewhere different and special!. We
haven’t managed a photo opp yet so can’t share. It turns out that these are
female monks, Monkess’s? Although difficult to tell from a distance, heads
shaved the same etc. We understand that they don’t get the same privileges as
the male monks and not as highly regarded, there’s a surprise!
We set off on time in an air conditioned bus (too air
conditioned, was freezing!) with lots of leg room so managed to nap and read.
After a couple of comfort breaks and a 5hr journey we arrived at our
destination an hour earlier than predicted, RESULT! We were met at the bus not
by taxi’s but by a bunch of young lads with bikes who asked us if we wanted a
taxi bike. 2 great big bags plus Glenn and me, I really didn’t see how this
would work. It did! Before I knew it I was thrown onto the back of a bike
behind the driver with the bag lodged In front of him (god knows how) and Glenn
hurtling off in front on a 2nd bike. Pretty hair raising stuff given
I wasn’t prepared, holding on for dear life to the back of a bike whilst
carrying water bottles and back pack.
After calming down from our bike trip, we checked into what
was a pretty shabby reception area, we wasn’t too fussed as the reviews said
this, it’s mainly used by locals, electricity only switched on in the evenings
and cold showers but it was in budget and it was by the beach!. Our beach hut
although shabby was large and smack on the beach with a veranda AND, right next
to the restaurant bar. Think we are going to like it here!.
It was to be the first debut for our mosquito next and after
a few failed attempts trying to put it up (opting for our clothes pegs over
tape) we set off to explore along the white sandy beach, passing two rocks with
Pagoda’s on them. it was very VERY hot
so we stopped at a beachside cafe for lunch. Glenn has been desperate to hire a
bike since we left Heathrow so spotting one he ran off to find out the prices.
Coming back and after some discussion and realising it was only £5 per day we
went back to hire it.
All I’m going to say here is that a mixture of the bike
being built for Asians (pedals too close for Glenn’s feet… so I’m told J) and Glenn not riding
a gear motorbike for a while led to very erm…interesting afternoon of
kangarooing down the road, nearly going over the top of Glenn, hitting some
major bumps, me burning my leg on the exhaust after hitting said bump. However
it didn’t take him long to master the gears and we were soon off speeding along
the 13 mile beach (you can do that here) soaking up the sun and exploring our
new home for the next 3 days.
After getting back to our beach hut we went for a dip and
then got a couple of cold beers from the bar (turned out our hotel did the
cheapest beer!) and retired on our veranda to watch the sunset which was
stunning! and the Gecko’s running around the celling, only moving to grab a
bite from the almost empty restaurant next door before bed, big day tomorrow on
the bike!.
Day 2 – Fishing Village?
We woke up around 8.00 to the sound of the ocean and headed
onto our veranda for the first fag of the day before heading for the restaurant
for breakfast. Being honest the
breakfast wasn’t great unless you like cold noodles or cold fried eggs. However we managed to get some coffee,
almost-toast and plateful of water melon, but just sitting there watching the
waves 30 yards away we are not going to complain.
After breakfast we decided to go in search of the fishing
village (a local attraction), so we headed off on the ‘Harley’ down the road,
by now I was more confident on it as I had worked a way of putting my foot to a
right angle which enabled me to go back down the gears instead of stopping the
bike in forth and then doing this whilst stationary.
We travelled about a mile or so down the road
until we hit a little village as this was not on the beach we figured it was
not what we were looking for so we carried on. We turned left at a junction and followed a
dirt path thinking that as this ran pretty close to the beach that this would
be the way, going over a make-shift bridge along the way (Shell got off just in
case!) then the going got a bit worse as the dirt track turned into a soft sand
track which meant it was like driving on ice.
A couple of times Shell had to get off as the bike was digging in to
deep to the sand. A few miles along we
decided the going was getting too much so we figured the village wasn’t that
direction, so we followed a couple of local people on scooters back the way we
had come (they seemed to have as much trouble in the sand as I did, which made
me feel better!)
Emptying the tonne of sand from my shoes as I had been using
them as temporary stabilizers in the soft sand we headed in the opposite
direction and passed a few fancy hotels and yacht club before coming to a dead
end at a beachside restaurant. So we
gave up on the fishing village and went for a beer at a riverside bar in the
first village we went through..
After this we stopped off at a petrol station (Well a
roadside stall with litres of petrol in used water bottles) and then headed
back into the local town at the far end of the beach where we purchased some
beers for our beach hut and after a bit of Myanmar charades, some Mosquito
coils for the veranda (we’re settling in!!). We then returned to our
resort, firstly we went to reception to
enquire the best way to get to Mandalay and this appeared to be by coach and
the receptionist said she would get back to us with the times. Then back to the beach hut to pack some stuff
for the beach including the Go-Pro Camera Daryll had bought us as a leaving
present and headed off once again.
Quickly stopping off at the bike hire place to rent the bike
for a further day we then went down to the beach. As I was now pretty confident
on the ‘Harley’ we started buzzing up the beach even getting into top gear and
then we stopped so Shell could break out the Go-Pro for its debut on this trip. Shell sat on back of the bike shooting
video’s as we drove past the Rock Pagoda’s, Lovers Island and our beach resort,
I’m sure passing the camera round the front of my face isnt in the highway code
though!
We then headed for the furthest point of the beach, getting
more confident now skimming the edge of the water to cool us off in the process. At the very end we found a little tented bar
right in the corner with little tiny stools in the sand, so we thought it would
be rude not to park up the bike and have a cold one.
For the rest of the afternoon we spent our time buzzing up
and down the beach trying to get better and better video’s, Shell now turning
into a video director before returning to our beach hut for a refreshment.
However when we got back to the hut I could not find the Key
to our hut (I had finally lost something!!).
After some thinking we came up with a list of places where I could have
dropped it taking out my wallet to pay for things, riverside bar, beer shop,
coil shop, bike rental, petrol stop and bar at the end of the beach. But after taking an hour or so retracing our
steps no one had found the key where we though it may have been, the only one
good point was that we found a shortcut up from the beach bar – straight up a
sand dune (without Shell on the back) which took us back to the main road into
the town. So after returning to the hut we
asked the receptionist for a spare key and so she got one of the staff to open
the room for us – only to discover that I hadn’t lost the key but locked it
inside the chalet when we returned during the day – Doh!!! (At least I am still in credit – loss wise).
Sitting out on our veranda we had a couple of ice cold beers
whilst watching another beautiful sunset (yes we have to many sunset pictures
to bore you with when we get back!) we decided to go to a restaurant outside of
the resort. It was only just around the
corner but when we got there we found it was part of the resort and had exactly
the same menu as the night before, but as we were pretty tired from all the
day’s biking and fresh air we decided to stay anyway.
We had one beer but then becoming bored of
beer we fancied something different and opted for a rum and coke, apparently
you buy bottles of rum here and when I purchased a litre of the local Mandalay
rum I found out why, £ 1 for a litre!! (It’s Daryll’s kind of place!!) We had a couple of these and then returned
for the night, taking the remaining rum back home with us.
Day 3
Another morning, another beautiful day and waking up slowly
watching the sea and people on the beach, before going to breakfast a
few yards away.
We thought about booking a couple more nights here as it was
so nice, but when we went to reception to check on the coach times we found
that they were fully booked for the weekend and instead booked a 15 hour
overnight coach to go to Mandalay the next day!.
Whilst there we caught up on our E-Mail’s and admin as they only had
Wifi in the reception area, I also
didn’t mention the rooms only had electricity from 6pm to 6am and we were back
to cold water showers.
Getting proper directions to the Fishing Village from the
receptionist, we again headed out on the ‘Harley’.
Once though the yacht club and through the
soft sand we faced a small estuary in our way so I asked Shell to check the
depth and as it was only ankle deep I blasted through it (at about 5mph!).
We then continued along a palm tree lined stretch of the
beach until we came to a small area with boats and a few shacks, we thought this
was a bit small and not long enough away to be the village so we continued
along the beach.
Eventually we came to another estuary which once tested by
Shell found to be too deep to get through, after scratching our heads for a
while we noticed bikes on the other side and when we watched them we saw that
there was a little boat/canoe with ropes ferrying them over the estuary. So we headed up there and
after Shell dismounted I scrambled through the soft mud and drove up the little
gangplank onto ‘the ferry’ and then almost came straight off the gangplank on the other side!. After paying the 25p fee (10 yard crossing) we continued along the beach until
we came to the end which was a whole stretch of rocks that were unpassable.
Well we still hadn’t found the Fishing Village so we deduced
that the first place we passed (with the fishing boats!) must have been it so
we headed back via the estuary crossing to a bar that we had spotted there on
the way past. We stayed for a couple of
beers and ordered a large plate of grilled prawns whilst taking in the
beautiful view. After refreshments we
thought we would try a bit of Go-Proing
around the village but this took all of 5 minutes as there were only a few
huts to video.
We then returned to the bike hire place as we wanted to see
if we could extend the hire so we could take in the sunset on the beach with
the bike, the guy said we could keep in until 10pm free of charge (which is typical
of the nice people in Myanmar). At the
same time Shell managed to get a lime (for our remaining rum) from the
restaurant next to the hire place.
As we had spent quite a bit of the time on the bike we
returned to our resort to go for a swim (the water is lovely and warm) and to
do a bit of sunbathing (Shell got about ½ hour before I got bored!) and a rum,
coke and lime on our veranda waiting for the sun to get low in the sky.
Once low enough we sped out on our bike down to the point in
the road where you can access the beach and then Shell got into video director
mode again and she did some filming as we rode up and down the beach using the
sunset as a back drop – glorious!!
Once the sun had set we then headed out in search of a
restaurant for an evening meal, the first one we went to was a little too posh,
although it looked good it was double the price or what we are used to, so
after making use of their conveniences we made a quick exit and headed for the
village as we had not eaten there. We
checked out a few restaurants through the village then plumped for the one
which seemed the busiest i.e. more than two people in it. The food we had was fairly reasonable and
they did a pretty wicked long island iced tea.
During dinner a live band came on, although this did sound a bit like
bad Karaoke, so instead of enticing us too stay there we made a swift exit
after we had eaten.
We returned the ‘Harley’ to the shop then had to take about
a mile stroll up the beach in the dark, the wind had picked up but it was still
warm. Eventually we got back to the
beach hut and finished off the remaining rum before going to bed fairly early
as we were on the move again tomorrow.
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