Setting off from Kalaw

Leaving Bagan, I took a bus to Kalaw in Shan state. Just 160 miles east of Bagan although again the roads made this a long journey. I can never get any sleep on buses so they are not much fun for me, too bumpy to ride the only thing I can do is listen to my iPod, I had it stocked full of podcasts to keep my mind occupied.

Kalaw, marked by the blue pin.

The town is small and there's not much to do here so most people here are starting a trek. The most popular one was a 3 day 2 night trek to Inle lake, I wanted to trek to Inle but because I wanted to maximise my time I asked about a 2 day 1 night trek covering the same route. It didn't happen and it was probably just as well because I ended up getting horrendously sick on the first day of the trek.

I stayed in the Golden Lilly guest house and it was pretty grim - there must have been a lot of people sharing the same toilet as it was always in use and the flush didn't work!! I won't say anymore than that,.so I booked my trek as quickly as possible and headed off the next morning. I later found out that everyone in the group paid different prices, I didn't even think to haggle so of course I paid the most. For some reason I didn't think to haggle, I was still in holidaymaker mode and not switched on - after this I found you can haggle for everything in Burma and I found it really good fun bargaining, not like in somewhere like Vietnam where it can be really stressful. The Burmese people are so laidback it's almost like having a bit of banter and I think they respect you more if you haggle a bit, because they are used to doing it for everything.

The route from Kalaw to Inthein and then we took a boat across the lake to Nyaungshwe. Each day we walked around 25km.

 

 

The scenery was beautiful as we set off from kalaw. We walked straight into the surrounding hills and the views were great. The group was made up of myself; 2 Brits, 3 Spaniards and a Belgian - we ended up all getting on really well and having a great time. But for me the first day was pretty hard going, I started feeling ill about mid-morning, and it got worse. I couldn't manage lunch and had to stop pretty often for toilet breaks. I was thinking of turning back, but you know how determined I am so I just kept going, hoping it would pass pretty quickly. The scenery as well as chatting to the other folk in the group definitely took my mind off it. I threw up my breakfast around mid afternoon and felt a bit better after that. That night we stayed in a homestay and the food looked great - I just had plain rice :( We played cards and had a bit of banter, I was still visiting the toilet once an hour or so - it got harder to make excuses once the sun went down and there's only so many times you can brush your teeth! So I didn't get much sleep but I felt much better the next day, having some more rice for breakfast. I realise it's not nice reading about me being sick the whole time so I'll post some pictures of the scenery and people:

The view after an hour or so of walking from Kalaw.

A bit further into the hills.

A few kids in a village we passed through.

After he ran past he started asking for pens and money. I guess they get a lot of trekking groups coming through here so they are pretty used to tourists.

I didn't take many photos after this so here are some more from the same village.

This was our homestay for the night, it was pretty nice. Just wish I could have enjoyed the food!