Day 8: We leave Mandalay and board yellow bus for a three hour ride, crossing the border into Shan state. The journey brings us higher and higher into the mountains on very windy roads but our guide tells us it’s very safe as where we are going is deemed one of the safe towns by the military government.. what!!!! I’m having flashbacks of that movie Babel (you know the one with Brad Pitt where they’re in Morocco on these remote roads and his wife gets hit by a stray bullet out of nowhere)… yikes!!! The scenery is lovely though…
After lunch our bikes are waiting and we cycle fifty miles to a town called Pindaya.
It’s a really tough day cycling with many hills and some terrifying downhill. We stop to get a quick photo of this cool spot called Brave Womans Mountain:
At the end of our bike ride we arrive at our very cool accommodation for the night – The Conquerer Resort hotel.
After a quick shower it’s time to head out for dinner and we go to a really nice restaurant called “Green Tea”. It’s gorgeous and, per the guide (and lonely planet) the best in the town, but we are the only people there! The good news on arrival is that they have wine… we haven’t really been anywhere that has wine so we check it out and settle on a bottle of Myanmar rosé from Inle lake. It’s actually really nice and goes with our peanut curry, mine with butter fish and Suzanne’s with butternut squash. We have great fun chatting with our group over dinner and then we walk home chatting about all sorts. So apparently the majority of Austrians and Germans haven’t seen the Sound of Music – I’m totally horrified and insist everyone watch it immediately upon their return home! 😀
Day 9: We have an early wake up call (whats new!) to go to the Pindaya caves. Wow is this worth it though. Pindaya is named from the story of a prince who killed a giant spider to save seven sisters. You can’t miss the spider at the entrance!
I thought I’d seen the most Buddha’s in one place I was ever going to see at Shwedagon pagoda but here there are row upon row, shelf upon shelf reaching the length and breath of the cave. Apparently 8,004 in total and they just stopped accepting more in 2015.
Among the Buddha’s are some stalagmites and stalactites but this cave is all about the statues.
We return to the resort, have some breakfast and it’s time to get back on the bikes. Today we are cycling 57km to Inle lake…..
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