After Reeny and Kevin headed back home, we started to make our way toward Myanmar. The first step of the process was to get to Kanchanaburi, Thailand, from where we could head toward the land border at Phu Nam Ron, Thailand/Htee Khee, Myanmar. 

Kanchanaburi was meant to be a short stop along the way to Myanmar, but since it is a town of historical significance, we spent a little time learning about its role in World War II. Kanchanaburi is home to the bridge over the River Kwai, a bridge that signifies the start of a railroad line that the Japanese forced prisoners of war to build during the war. The Japanese, in their effort to gain control in Burma, needed a method for getting supplies to Burma. They were previously shipping stuff through a long path that went south through Singapore, but they were having trouble getting supplies through due to their ships being bombed en route. They decided an overland route through Thailand to Burma would make the shipping process easier, so they forced many of their prisoners of war (lots of British, Dutch, and some Americans) to build the track through the mountainous area between Thailand and Burma. This was clearly a difficult task in a tropical mountainous landscape, and many people died or got very sick in the process. The railroad line is no longer in use, and a lot was dismantled, but the bridge remains. 

 

The next day, we took a relatively uneventful minibus ride to the border town, Phu Nam Ron. The border crossing out of Thailand was simple and fairly fast, since not many people use this somewhat remote crossing. The only other people who were there were trying to renew their Thai visas and head right back to Thailand – few continued on to Myanmar. After crossing out of the Thai side, we bought a ticket for a minibus to take us to Dawei, about 5 hours from the border in Myanmar. The minibus driver then took us to the Myanmar entry station, where we were definitely the first westerners of the day and perhaps of the week. The “immigration officers” in their hilariously ghetto immigration t-shirts took their time going through our info and teaching the new guy what to do with a foreigner’s passport. Once they were done, they posted our paperwork on the wall clipboard of foreign entries, which was empty before ours were added. We were surprised that this entry was seldom used, because it is the closest to Bangkok, but we learned later that it may not have been the most comfortable route. 

Our friendly minibus driver got us situated and checked on us many times to make sure we were comfortable, then went about picking up more passengers and taking care of a list of tasks he needed to do around the border village. When he was finally done, we set off toward Dawei. Luckily Thom got a front seat, and I had the second row with a clear sight out of the front window, which really helped prevent us from getting too nauseous on the bumpy ride that was to come. The road, while in the process of being widened and upgraded, was unpaved, bumpy, and winding through mountains – a recipe for motion sickness. Our prime seats and the interesting scenery through jungle and rubber plantations helped the ride pass along somewhat smoothly.  

    
 Had our gas refilled by children using a pitcher and funnel. 
Once we finally reached Dawei, our kind driver took us directly to our hotel, Shwe Maung Than, so we checked in and found a nice beer garden to eat dinner and relax after a long bumpy ride. We spent the rest of the night fighting the wifi and trying to get pages to load for what seemed like forever as we tried to research out next moves in Myanmar.

The next morning, we had to spend some time resolving a confusing situation with the hotel. When we checked in, we asked to book for three nights. They said they only had the cheaper room we wanted for one night, then we would have to change rooms for the next two nights. Which was not really a problem for us, we would have preferred the cheaper room but whatever, we needed a room and this was the best hotel in a small town. After the first night, we went downstairs to check in to our more expensive room, and we were told they were fully booked for the next night. WTF?! We had asked for 3 nights and the same woman had said it was fine! Thom nearly stormed off but I convinced him that we needed to at least use their wifi to find where else in town we should stay, so we sat on the couch for awhile researching where we could go. Just when we were about to check out a crappily reviewed hotel around the corner, the hotel lady said she found a room for us! And it was one of the cheaper ones! I definitely wish she didn’t rile us up like that when we were fairly certain from looking at her sheet and the keys on the wall that they were not fully booked, but at least it was resolved. 

Dawei is near a bunch of really nice undeveloped beaches, that are anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours away on roads that range from pretty good paved roads to terrible rock/sand paths. Our first full day in Dawei, we rented a motorbike and spent some time exploring, and headed to Maungmagan beach, the closest one to Dawei on a paved road.

   
    
   
It was a nice beach for walking and looked like it would be nice for a swim, but it turns out I didn’t exactly have the proper swimming attire for Myanmar. Despite there being a number of souvenir stalls/restaurants on the beach, there were no other foreigners around, and the local women who were swimming were wearing at a minimum shorts covering the knees and short sleeved shirts; some were wearing a lot more clothing in the water. I decided that despite my one piece bathing suit being conservative in America, it would be too attention grabbing here and I didn’t want to swim in the outfit I wore on the motorbike, so we skipped the swimming. Which was a bit of a shame because it was blazing hot out and would have been a nice refresher. We walked around for awhile instead and found a place to eat lunch. We got a whole fish in a sort of sweet and sour sauce, though not your typical cornstarchy thick sauce, more runny and with a bunch of veggies as well. It was really delicious and was nice to eat with a great view of the water. 

After eating, we thought about heading to another beach but quickly decided against it because the next beach was at least 30 minutes away and we didn’t know what the roads were like to get to it. And it was hot. Really really hot. Probably over 100 degrees out, and while riding on the motorbike on the hot black pavement directly in the sun, we were starting to get too hot. So we headed back to town, turned in the motorbike and got some iced coffee and “strawberry juice” that was probably the worst drink I have had so far. Despite the shop selling various fresh fruit juices, this one was just strawberry syrup and water, with too much strawberry syrup and it was just not what I wanted unfortunately. 

We spent the rest of the evening trying to find dinner in the small town that was Dawei, which proved fairly difficult. We even had a “food map” that listed the various restaurants in Dawei and what to order at each, but many of the options looked terrible when we walked by. We have come across many restaurants in Myanmar that serve cafeteria style food, or food that is cooked ahead of time and sitting out, ready to serve. I really dislike eating at places like this because we really have no idea how long the food has been sitting out or when it was cooked – my stomach is never happy with me when I take such risks so we have learned to avoid them for the most part, even though it is probably a good way to get a taste of the local dishes. We eventually found some Chinese noodles that were pretty good (Thom’s favorite fried noodles so far, which says a lot because we have had a lot of fried noodles on this trip!).

The next day we decided to try to check out one of the other beaches that is a little farther from Dawei, on San Maria Bay. We rented the same motorbike again, and headed off. Unfortunately, when we got about 20 minutes into our ride, we got a flat tire We were luckily not all the way at the beach in the middle of nowhere, but we were not that close to town or any shops. We started walking the bike back towards town, when a random guy stopped and offered to at least drive me to the motorbike tire fixing shop. We figured what the heck, at least one of us can get out of the sun, and then we will know where Thom will need to go, so off I went. Right after I was dropped off, a few girls stopped by and started talking in Myanmar to the shop owner. I couldn’t really understand what they were saying, but from their gesturing, they seemed to have found Thom and were giggling a lot. A few minutes later the girls came back, one driving our motorbike with the flat tire, and the other brought Thom back! They must have been asking if it was ok to drive on the flat tire. We had always learned not to drive a car with a flat for fear of tearing up the tire, but maybe the rule is different for motorbikes. Or maybe the rule just doesn’t matter in rural Myanmar. Regardless, we were so grateful for the help of these kind people, who stopped whatever it is they were doing to help us random foreigners!!

Within 10 minutes, the shop owner’s wife took the tire apart, found a small hole in the inner tube, patched it, and put it all back together. For a mere 500 kyat, or about 45 cents. We didn’t understand at first and tried to pay 5000 kyat, or just over $4, but she corrected us and only took 500 kyat from us. We would have happily paid 5000 for her help but she was honest. A testament to the character of Myanmar people.

 

The tire shop’s child playing with his dog. 

 
After getting the tire fixed, we headed off again in the direction of the beach. We drove a long way over bumpy roads, through rubber plantations, and past interesting housing to get to the bay. 

   

  

  

When we finally got to the bay, we ended up on a spit of land with water on both sides – a bay with fishing boats on one side, and the beach and bay on the other side. The children of the fishing village excitedly came out of their huts to say hello and practice the few words of English they knew, and continued to spy on us as we headed out toward the beach, though they were completely harmless. It seems they do not see many white people out here and were excited to see what we were doing. 

  

We went for a walk on the beach, this one with whiter sand than the last one but again not a great place to swim with lots of children watching. After the walk, we checked out a small pagoda at the end of the spit of land we were on, that was on a small island off the end of the land. It was a beautifully tranquil place.

  

We then got a soda before deciding to head back to Dawei. Along the way, the bike started rumbling again, so we stopped and of course had another flat tire. It seems the patch didn’t hold with all of the bumpy driving we had done. And this time we were in a much more remote spot; it would take hours to walk the bike back or have one of us ride it to a shop and the other walk. I am not sure how we got so lucky, but right after we stopped and assessed the damage, a man with his wife, child, friend, and a monk in a pick up truck pulled up behind us; they were heading into Dawei. They saw we had a flat and offered to take us and the bike to a shop in his truck! We lifted the bike into the bed of the pick up truck, the man had his friend sit on the bike in the truck bed while driving to keep it upright, and they offered us seats in his wonderfully air conditioned cab. He drove us to his friend’s shop all the way in Dawei, where we were staying, a 30+ minute drive from where we got the flat! Actually he shifted the gears of the truck and his young son, maybe 4 years old, steered the wheel all the way there (with a little help here and there from dad). These kind people helped us out so much when we really didn’t know what to do. We couldn’t thank them enough. We bought a new inner tube for the bike at this bigger tire shop for 3000 kyat, or about $2.50, and the family and monk went on their way after snapping some photos with us and the young boy. 

After such an eventful day, we headed back to the hotel and got iced coffees next door. For dinner we decided to be lazy and eat at the hotel, which turned out to be a good decision as we met another pair of travelers who had just travelled around the parts of Myanmar where we were headed next. We hung out with them for awhile and drank some Myanmar beers, and they gave us so much helpful advice on the good and bad parts of where they had stayed. We were so glad to have their advice later on in the trip!

We had thought about going to Mawlamyine as the next town on our trip around Myanmar, but we heard the bus ride was 12 hours long on really crappy bumpy roads, so we decided to break it up a bit by stopping in Ye, about halfway between Dawei and Mawlamyine. The bus ride was indeed bumpy and we were stuck at the very back of the bus, which was incredibly nauseating. The road from Dawei to Ye is in the process of being upgraded, especially the part that goes over a bit of a mountain pass, so perhaps it will be better in the future. But it wasn’t great for our journey. 

Ye was a pretty small town, but we saw it had a guesthouse run by an American and his Myanmar wife, and we had not stayed at hotels with good English speakers in awhile, so we were glad to have someone to ask our random questions to. Though for some reason he only let us have coupons for an hour worth of wifi at a time, and we only got one for the two of us, which was annoying because we needed to figure out what else we wanted to do in Myanmar. 

After arriving in town and letting our stomachs settle down, the owner pointed us in the direction of a bar called Dream that had a really good fish dish. So we went and the fish dish was really good, with a delicious sweet and sour type sauce, though it was very bony river fish and was super hard to eat, especially when the power went out and we were eating by candlelight. 

The next day we explored the area around Ye on a motorbike we rented from the hotel. We went to a monetary with several large religious structures, including a reclining Buddha that was under construction and a structure with 4 Buddhas facing the cardinal directions with a 9 story building in the middle. It was really nice to walk around and climb the 4 Buddha building, which had great views of the empty areas around it. And Thom got to wear a longhi! It is a skirt of sorts that is traditionally worn by Myanmar men; he was required to wear it in the 4 Buddha building. 

   
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
   
In the evening we went out for drinks at the same bar as the previous night with the hotel owner, his 7 year old daughter, and another guest from Australia who is teaching English in a nearby town. We had a great time chatting with them, and ordered “circle chicken”, or bits of fried chicken. We weren’t sure if this was the real name or something the 7 year old made up, but we called it circle chicken for the rest of the night. We were also introduced to our newest favorite dish, tea leaves salad. It is a cold salad made of pickled tea leaves, peanuts, some sort of beans that are crunchy like peanuts, sesame seeds, tomato, and a few other things we still need to identify. Super tasty and really hit the spot. 

The next day we continued our journey toward Mawlamyine. This time the road became less bumpy, and we had front row seats so it was much less nauseating, which was good because I woke up with some terrible heartburn from something we ate the day before – maybe the mystery red spice on the circle chicken? Still not really sure, but maybe because it seems that really red things like rich tomato sauce (but weirdly/luckily not tomatoes) seem to be giving me heartburn more and more. 

We picked a hotel in Mawlamyine based solely on the recommendation of the Australian woman from the night before, but it did not have wifi, which was really unfortunate as we had a bunch of trip planning we had been trying to do for days. We decided to break down and get a SIM card, because we kept getting stuck in situations without wifi and we couldn’t keep putting off the trip planning forever – we didn’t even know what town we wanted to go to next, and we weren’t particularly excited about Mawlamyine. The SIM card was only about $10, and ended up being money well spent. It turned out that the hotel we chose, despite it not being in the middle of town and without wifi, was the best in town based on the reviews, so we were glad we didn’t try to find somewhere else. 

We ended up only staying in Mawlamyine for a day before heading to Yangon. Mawlamyine was not a huge town and didn’t seem to have a whole lot to offer to tourists aside from the “colonial architecture” that everyone seems to love; it is mostly a bunch of old dirty breaking down buildings that are not in any process of being restored or loved, so while it is interesting to see, it becomes boring really quickly for us. We did catch a nice sunset on the riverfront and got some good bbq skewers from a restaurant that actually had the uncooked meat skewers in the fridge (unlike basically all of the street vendors that we refuse to eat at). 

 
Next stop, Yangon!