After a couple of days of heavy travelling and no internet, I am back in the land of living.
Reporting to you from Pyin Oo Lwin (City of Flowers)
Yesterday was spent all day in the national park and visiting the pagoda at the bottom of the mountain.
The trip from Monywa took about 4 hours and the roads were really dangerous as the people coming down and coming up share the same road.
So, I would suggest leaving Monywa early (I left around 6:30) but I got to the top of the mountain at 10:00 and it was already 30+ degrees. So, ideally you would like to leave Monywa like at 4:30 to get to the top by 8:30-9am.
Examples of the roads are shown below.
Suggest you travel with an off road express as the roads are really only made of sand and hard rock and really dusty.
I didn't really see any foreigners going to this place, so I assume it is a bit difficult for them to get to. Or I might be wrong and I just went there at the time when there was no foreign visitors.
The roads are bumpy and it will take its toll.
And there is no real place to stay. You will have to sleep in the car or maybe drive back down and sleep in Monywa.
The pagoda itself is still 2-3 km from the car stop. and it is a very steep road towards the pagoda.
You might ask why the people are coming even though there are so many issues,....Because this pagoda is one of the most powetful according to legends. And the magical thing is that every year at certain times the pagoda statue at the second last photo on this set opens up slightly to allow for visitors to go further into the cave and more pagodas are in there.
Then, it closes again for the rest of the year.
Unfortunately, it was closed during my visit so I could not see the inside.
Again, note that there are steep hills leading to the pagoda and needs caution.
You can use elephants for the last mile, and I went up the hill with an elephant but came back on foot to see the sights and scenes.
So after this, we came back and rested up until the morning but as I suggested before, maybe go to Monywa and sleep there.
Anyway, I left around 6:30 and got back to Monywa at 12 noon. This was a very slow trip as there was a lot of stops in between.
After this, we went through Mandalay and finally ended on Pyin Oo Lwin at around 4pm.
So, not much to report today as it was all driving to get to another city.
A very tiring day indeed and so I will be resting up for another day of travelling tomorrow.
Cheers
Tin
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