November 10, 2019
From Oke Shit Pin to Hinthada
From Oke Shit Pin to Hinthada
We discussed our situation and again we concluded that where we wished to go next was too remote to have guest houses, the road surface would be even worse and the heat/humidity hadn’t changed one bit. Adding it all up came to once again being stymied and we were basically forced to find alternative transportation to the closest town with a licensed guest house which was Hinthada, close to 100 miles away. We were counting on our guest house owner to help us. We were also counting on him to provide breakfast first.
When we showed our shining faces around 7AM he jumped into action to get us breakfast as he had promised. He came through! He gave us a delicious breakfast of fried noodles with veggies and eggs and coffee.
Then we began negotiations as to how to get to Hinthada. Our man went running out to the road several times flagging down vehicles including buses but none were going that way. He reported back to us that it was extremely difficult due to the big festival. He said there were no buses or small trucks available and the only way would be by car. He suggested we stay in his guest house for the next two days until the festival was over but Oke Shit Pin didn’t have a lot to offer and we wanted to move on. We opted for a rather expensive car ride to Hinthada.
Since Hinthada was a larger town on the Irrawaddy River we figured there would be more festivities there (and probably find a nicer/cheaper guest house). Hinthada looked promising on the map so we chose to go by car.
Our guest house owner got a guy with a car to come over and negotiations ensued with me getting absolutely nowhere. The car owner just laughed when I tried to bargain. I guess he knew we were stuck. He had the upper hand.
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There was a lot of wedging of cardboard between the bikes on the roof of the car and tying them down. Then we were off. The road was again with a horrible surface and under construction in places but the scenery was beautiful and we wished we could have ridden it. We went through an area where huge tracts of teak trees had been planted. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many plantings of teak, not even in Thailand. That was a positive note for Myanmar since the government cut down almost all the teak trees.
We were on the most major road in the area and not near the Irrawaddy where we had dreamed of riding. That road was most likely in much worse shape. Eventually we had to leave the main road and take smaller ones over to Hinthada and wow were they narrow, basically one lane. In fact most of the roads in Myanmar can be termed ‘one lane’ because when two large vehicles meet they have to slow way down and often one or both have to put tires off the road on either side. I’ve spent a lot of time on this trip getting mad at the government for the state of the roads alone. Even on a fairly good road we can’t go more than 5 miles per hour because of all the roughness.
I feel bad about the amount of cycling we have done so far since this is a cycling site! But we have done a lot of research and information is important too for others to make informed decisions about cycling in Myanmar. I’m sure conditions will improve but it will be many years before things change a great deal. The good thing is that Myanmar is an endlessly fascinating country with very helpful people and well worth not cycling at times but still getting somewhere.
We were delivered to Hinthada by 1PM, plenty of time to do some exploring of a city neither of us had ever visited. The adventure continues.
lovebruce
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