Moving on Again

The planning for the trip to our next destination, Kalaw, actually started shortly after we arrived here in Nyaungshwe a few days ago. As fate would have it, there is no direct means of public transport between Nyaungshwe and Kalaw, two of the more popular tourist destinations in Myanmar. So we spent a lot of our free time in Nyaungshwe trying to arrange a taxi to Kalaw. The most commonly quoted price was $25, which we considered to be a bit much.

01-Idyllic countryside of Kalaw

In order to succeed in negotiations, however, it is necessary to have options. In graduate school I took a course in negotiations and we learned that we always have to have a "BATNA" - which is a "Best alternative to a negotiated agreement". In this situation, the only way to develop a BATNA was to find out how to get to Kalaw by public transport. Specifically, it involved getting on the back of an overloaded pick-up truck very early in the morning, driving for an hour and a half to Shwenyaung, from which point it is necessary to change to a bus for the remaining 1 1/2 hours of the journey. The total cost of this option is roughly $2 per person. On the other hand, we were quoted prices ranging from $25-$30 for a taxi, which could do the same trip in an hour and a half. Our objective was to use our knowledge of the much cheaper public transport option to bargain down the taxi price - even though we had neither the intention nor the desire to go the public transport route.

02-All dressed up and somewhere to go

Well, after a couple of days of asking around, the guy who sold us our plane ticket from Heho back to Yangon (Note: the Heho airport is roughly equidistant between the place we were at the time (Nyaunshwe) and the place we were going (Kalaw)) - anyway, the guy who sold us the plane ticket was also a transport broker and was able to arrange a taxi for us at the bargain basement rate of $20. Late yesterday evening we met the driver at the plane ticket agent's office and Peter wanted to confirm the $20 price quoted by the middleman. So Peter said to the driver "So your price is . . .?", to which the driver answered "$30"! We then told him that we thought the price was $20 and he finally agreed to that - with the agreement that he would pick us up at our hotel at 8 this morning.

03-Downtown Kalaw

He arrived at our hotel promptly - just before 8 a.m. and we set off for the 1 1/2 hour ride over very rough roads. Upon arrival in Kalaw, he offered to drop us off at a hotel but we declined his offer, knowing full well that the room price would have included a commission for himself. So he dropped us off on the main road and we set off looking for accomodation. We started at the Winner Hotel, where Peter checked out the room. Upon finding the room acceptable, we negotiated the asking price of $10 down to $8 and then set off to see if we could beat that option. After looking at several other unacceptable options we came upon a rather nice looking hotel. Upon approaching, there is a taxi in front and Peter says "Isn't that OUR taxi?" I thought "How could it be? Our guys dropped us off an hour ago. What would they be doing here?" Then Peter said "I'm SURE it's them." Well, sure enough, our driver and his buddy were sitting in front of the hotel with big grins on their faces thinking "Ha - we're going to get our commission afterall." Well, even if the rooms would have been the best and cheapest in town, Peter and I are stubborn enough not to want to let these guys get away with getting a commission off of us for doing nothing - so we didn't even bother looking at the rooms there. (As a note, we came back the next day and as it turns out we wouldn't have stayed there anyway.) So in the end, we settled for the Winner Hotel.

The main attraction of Kalaw, for me at least, is its weather. Given its altitude of about 1,300 meters, the weather at this time of year is ABSOLUTELY perfect. We had sunny, clear skies and 22 degrees Celsius (about 72 degrees Fahrenheit) - something we don't experience very often in Bangkok. Combine that with clean country air, and you get the perfect conditions for a walk - which is exactly what we did. Some pictures are attached to show what we saw. We had hoped that the hotels we came across during our walk would have restaurants for our lunch but that wasn't the case. In fact few hotels in Myanmar have the capability of providing meals aside from breakfast. So we opted for another picnic lunch in the park - a pleasure given the perfect weather conditions. That was followed by an afternoon nap and more walking.

We had dinner at the "Seven Sisters Restaurant" where we met Cindy, the daughter of one of the seven sisters. Cindy could speak the best English of any person we had met in Myanmar. She was an English language graduate from university and had dreams of continuing her studies in America. She was even accepted into an American university but ironically, she was refused an American visa. Sad. Anyway, the restaurant was very nice although the food was rather average and a bit on the pricey side. But it was worth it for the nice atmosphere and the good conversation with Cindy.