I am a little late in finishing this post as we got a bit distracted along the way, but better late than never! 

Hpa An was our last stop in Myanmar. We had skipped it on our way north from Ye, and we heard that there were a number of interesting caves to check out around town, so we were determined to stop there on our way back to Thailand. It turned out to be a fairly small town with a sort of wild feel to it, and not a lot to offer tourists in the town itself, but the caves made the destination worthwhile. 
We had heard from another pair of travelers that the Galaxy Hotel was the best in town, and our online research seemed to agree with their recommendation, as it had a #1 ranking in town on TripAdvisor. So we called ahead to book a room before our nearly 24 hour long adventure from Inle Lake to Bago to Hpa An, and finally arrived around 5pm. 

This was one of the few times that our research completely failed us. The room, while relatively reasonably priced compared with the other overpriced options in town, was a dump. The walls were dirty, the bathroom fixtures were all dirty, the shower head was broken, the wall to wall carpet was barely attached to the floor. And there were some seriously long power outages. While power outages are relatively common in Myanmar and can’t really be blamed on the hotel, the hotel was the only one in town that did not have a generator to at least provide us with lighting. Even the crappy hostel down the street that was supposedly worse to stay in had a generator. 

Luckily we only had two nights in town before we were set to leave, so we did what we could to try to make the most of it. We met up with our new friends from the bus journey from Inle, and they mentioned that they were going on a day-long tour of the caves that was set up by the Soe Brother’s Guesthouse (the crappy hostel down the street). It was only 5000 kyat per person, which was less than $5 each, so how could we resist? We signed up in the morning and headed out on a tuk tuk with 4 other people, with two other full tuk tuks following along. 

Our first stop was one of the caves, but I am not entirely sure what it is called – it is not #1 on the map because we didn’t have to pay an entrance fee. It was filled with a number of interesting religious artifacts and cool cave formations. 

The second cave we went to was the sacred Kawgun cave. It had a ton of wall carvings/paintings/sculptures and was quite tall. We had to pay a small entrance fee of 3000 kyats ($2.50) and some of the hostel people didn’t want to pay the fee, but we did and thought it was worth it. 

Some of the tour group posing with monks, carefully trying not to touch them because monks are not allowed to touch women. 

The next stop was a precarious looking rock formation that I think the guide and locals called the chocolate pagoda. It was sort of on an island, or at least it will be when the rainy season starts again and the lake is filled with more water. 

We kept getting photo bombed by locals. The locals love taking photos with foreigners so much in Myanmar, we can rarely go to a single attraction without being asked to take a photo with someone and their kid. This time we got a photo too!

We stopped for lunch at a local restaurant and spent a long time waiting for food and chatting with our fellow travelers on the tour. Afterwards, we went to this field with something like 1032 Buddhas in it. It was really hot at this point of the day, around 42 degrees Celsius/ 108 degrees farenheit, so we didn’t feel like walking around the Buddhas much. But they were definitely cool to see!

Our tuk tuk driver gave us ladies these pretty flowers he plucked from a tree. They were so intricate and waxy and weird and cool. We tried to put them on our ears but they had really short stems and were kind of heavy, so we had to hold our heads really still so they wouldn’t fall off before this pic was taken 🙂 

Next, our tuk tuk driver took us on a long drive to the next cave, about 40 minutes away. The roads had been fairly bumpy all day, and this one was certainly no exception. What made it worse was this path was the one that the tuk tuk drivers liked to race each other on, and kept trying to pass each other while driving at top speed on relatively narrow dirt roads with a several foot drop off the side of the road. Somehow we made it to the cave with everyone on the tuk tuk and no broken tailbones!

This next cave was pretty cool; it was quite big and had some interesting art on the walls, with Buddha stamps making up several images of animals and religious sites. 

My favorite pagoda: 

Inside the cave there was this weird large rock formation that had a hole in it that people could crawl into. My stomach was bothering me at that moment and I didn’t feel like going in, so Thom did for me and took pics. He told me about the cool patterns in the rock on the walls, but he didn’t tell me there was graffiti carvings all up in it! At least it isn’t all words in English this time.

There was an opening at the other end of the cave that led to a small lake. 

On the lake, we took a small boat ride through another cave, to a walking path on the other side. The guy in charge pointed us toward the monks to pay our fee, and off we went. 

Of course, when we got to the other side, the boat driver wanted us to pay him for his services. It turns out the monks were just taking religious donations, not the fee for the boat ride. Luckily it was under $2, but we were still annoyed that we were tricked into paying twice. We should have known better, we pretty much always pay for transportation after the service is rendered. 

After the cave with the boat ride, we had to go back on the same long road that took us there, and the drivers were racing again. Maybe they were taking bets on who would win? It didn’t really matter which tuk tuk got to the next site first..

Next we went to a weaving center. Unlike the one in Inle lake, this one seemed like it actually produced fabric! There were probably 40 looms and it seemed like the women working did not just do it for our entertainment. 

Worker housing:

After the weaving center, we stopped at one last cave before heading back to town. This one had a number of monk statues that were really well made. 

It also had a huge dragon sculpture! Thom’s favorite! 

More religious artifacts inside.

We finished the tour in the evening and headed back to Hpa An for dinner and some rest in our crappy room. The restaurants in Hpa An are not much better than the hotel rooms – we read a review that called eating out in Hpa An ‘subsistence dining’, which was a great description of our options. So we ate at the same not so great Chinese restaurant as the previous evening before turning in for the night.

We were a bit disappointed that Hpa An was our last town in Myanmar, but we were definitely glad to get back to Thailand the next afternoon. We took a private car in the morning to the border with Mae Sot, and crossed over without any trouble. Once we got into the town of Mae Sot, several km from the border, we settled into our hotel room before heading to 7-11. We bought as many cold drinks and snacks as we could carry – consistent refrigeration and air-conditioned shops were so rare in Myanmar that we were actually excited to be able to shop at a 7-11! We also got amazing iced coffee at an air conditioned coffee shop – two more rarities in Myanmar. 

Next stop, Chiang Mai!