Taungoo to Hpa An

5th Jan Taungoo to Nyaunglebin 139km

After  a day off in Taungoo I'm off heading south on the AH1, a busy main highway. I see another road on my map running parallel to the AH 1 and decide to use it. 

It's concrete, smooth and has very little traffic. I soon conclude that it's a motorway and my bicycle shouldn't be on it. The next exit isn't for another 60k so I press on and hope the police don't spot me. 

 

The road on the left is what I later found out was the Yangon-Mandalay  'Death Highway'. An easy mistake to make, no?

Death Highway

I've been confused by how the Burmese use their traffic indicators here (like, it's the opposite of what you'd expect so I thought I'd check it out online...........

Bear in mind they drive on the right and ............read on and see if you can work it out.......I still can't. 

The wrong signals

There’s a correct procedure in Myanmar for indicating when it’s safe for a driver to overtake but it’s widely ignored.

Accepted driver etiquette requires that the horn is sounded to indicate wanting to overtake a vehicle ahead and its driver will respond by flashing the left-turn indicator.

This can have two meanings: you cannot overtake because the driver ahead doesn’t want to move over or you can overtake. In practice, flashing the left-turn indicator means its safe to overtake but under the traffic law it is illegal. The traffic law says that if it’s safe to overtake, the driver of the vehicle ahead should flash the right-side indicator.

Yes, it’s confusing but the wrong signal has become accepted and that’s what most drivers use.

“I know that some of the signals we use are wrong but everyone is doing the same thing, so there’s no problem,” said U Kyaw Myo, who often uses the expressway and has been driving for six years. “But if someone doesn’t understand our driving etiquette and adheres to the traffic law it can create a big problem.”

???????

Early morning departure from Taungoo

 

Still lots of oxen and water buffalo at work in the fields

 

 

I'm in Bago state heading SSE

The school bicycle shed needs to be pretty big here. 

I take a back road on the map and end up on 20km of red dirt. 

 I stop at a restaurant and randomly bump into the first cycle tourists I've seen since Inle Lake. Guigui and JB are French backpackers who switched onto bicycles at the border. They bought me beer and told me about all the things to see in Hpa An. Very nice couple. 

 

 

How do you scaffold a conical object.......Like this of course!

6th Jan - Nyaunglebin to Hpa-An  93 km

Another early morning departure from Nyaunglebin

 

From the iron bridge I get my first view of Mount Zegwabin which I plan to climb. 

On the run in to Hpa An

 

A cargo of water melons is about to be unloaded

I  decide to climb Mt Zwegabin at dawn the next day. Unfortunately I bump into  Ron, a Dutch cyclist and later that evening we sank far too many beers. 

 My mate Ron, who wouldn't let me leave the bar......it was terrible as you can see. 

However, I'd set my alarm for 0500 and miraculously, in a 'seize the day' moment, I manage to stumble out of bed and pedal the 12km, in the dark, to the start of the climb. 

Approaching Mt Zwegabin as dawn breaks. 

There's only the steps to get to the top so these bricks are here for climbers to carry up for the monks who are building up top. I self-consciously pick up a couple. 

The sunrises and I'm about halfway up. 

 

Me, earning merit with my bricks. They made my shoulders ache!

 

 A resident monk takes photos for visitors. In truth I felt they should have spent more time cleaning the place, it was filthy....and there was a real litter problem, rubbish everywhere. It is a national monument after all.  I'm glad I decided not to spend the night up there. 

 

I spend some time watching the antics of the resident monkeys. 

 

Back at ground level and I cycled off to see another tourist attraction, the pagoda on top of the rock in a lake that is Kyauk Kalat conveniently pronounced 'chocolate'. And all this before  breakfast!

 

My photographer manages to balance it on my head!

After all this exercise it was time to head back to Hpa An and work out where I was going next...... followed by another beerfest with Ron, who was supposed to be in Yangon but missed his bus this morning....... I wonder why?  : )

 

The cycle tourists meet up from dinner. L to R - Olga from Ukraine, Ron from Holland, and Patrick and Rachel from USA. The Americans have already cycled round the world and are now "just filling in the gaps".  I'll add links to their Crazyguyonabike journals later.