Why would we want to leave Pyay?
Trip Start
Sep 18, 2004
1
29
69
Trip End
Jun 05, 2005
Pyay, Myanmar
Friday, December 10, 2004
Written from Mandalay on 12/17/04
Myanmar Bus rides
Since our last entry, we've made our way from Yangon to Pyay, Bagan and finally Mandalay via long distance buses. For reasons unknown to us, the bus stations are always a good four to five kilometers outside of the city and the buses don't always seem to drop you off at bus stations either. These "fancy" long distance buses often boast of AC, but the windows are always left open, instead of using AC. We assume it's because December is considered the "cold" season here. These buses are mostly public buses retired from Japan. We gathered that the Japanese must drive on the left side of the street since the doors on these buses are always on the wrong side
01. Pyay from above
. ( In Myanmar they drive on the right side of the street).Out of the three buses travelled on, two of them had TVs mounted up front, with speakers wired through out the bus. On the first bus, with loud speakers blasting, we watched a live Burmese pop concert made into a karaoke video, some really sappy Burmese movie and drama, and also some terrible Las Vegas magic show recorded from the 80s. All those big hairdo's was a dead give away.
The subsequent bus rides, we had the pleasure of listening to the same pop Burmese concert again (twice in a day on our last bus to Mandalay!). At this point we can recognize most of the songs. There was the polka song (It was polka tune dubbed with Burmese lyrics), the one-two one-two song, the left-right left-right song, the rap song, and the go-go song. These songs seem to be fairly popular because we hear them walking down the streets in Bagan and Mandalay as well.
The buses stop every few hours at some tea house for people to use the toilet and have something to eat. Whenever the bus stops, there will also be people touting fruits, eggs, and other snacks, carried on their head.
02. Giant Buddha in Pyay
It's fun to watch people carry big bamboo tray of goods on their heads and walk around with such grace. Hmawza and more
Pyay was our first town after Yangon. Pyay was deemed a worthwhile stop because of Hmawza, the ancient site of the Thayekhittaya (Pyu) Kingdom, 8 km outside of Pyay. There are some old payas (pagodas) and some archeological sites dating from the 5th to 9th centuries AD. Not much is known about this kingdom, since not many records survived.
We took "line cars" from Pyay to Payagyi (means big paya), which is one of the first historical sites. Line cars are trucks with benches in the back and a tarp over a steel cage as a roof. While we were waiting for the line car, a man approached us and asked us where we were going. He ended up accompanying us all the way to Payagyi via two line cars, paid for our fares and wanted to have coffee with us. So we sat down at a tea shop across the street from Payagyi and started communicating. I said communicating because he had a hard time with spoken English, but he can read English very well. We conversed with him via writing. It turned out that he is a professor at a nearby university, and he really wants to go to seminars abroad but he has no opportunity or money to do so.
After parting with our professor, we took a trishaw and made our way to Hmawza. Once there we took an ox cart around to see all the sites. The sites are surrounded by farming villages and fields. Kids from the villages were so friendly, they waved and said hello to us. The ox cart was a wooden cart with no suspension whatsoever, and we were tossed left and right in the cart since the dirt road is uneven, at times one side of the cart is good two feet higher than the other side
03. Shwesandaw Paya in the day, Pyay
. The ox cart driver kept yelling and poking at the oxen with a stick to get the oxen moving. Most of the sites were payas or small temples, some of them still had the original statues, but most of the sites were either looted or badly deteriorated.Holy water
Our last night in Pyay, we were sitting in a Bamar restaurant. A car pulled up to the restaurant, out came a Burmese family accompanied by a military guy. The father and the son of the family approached us and the father asked us where we were from. Then the son started talking to us with a wicked Aussie accent! It turned out that the parents moved to Australia when they were young. They were travelling in Myanmar for a month on vacation. The jolly father proceed to invite us to drink "Holy Water" with him to celebrate the holiday seasons. For holy water, he means the dirt cheap Burmese Rum. Unfortunately, we had to decline since we didn't want to feel ill on the bus to Bagan the following day.
How do we leave Pyay?
Lonely Planet said that Pyay is a good stop between Yangon and Bagan and assured us that you can either leave for Bagan via a ferry, train, or bus. We got to Pyay, and a Burmese man, Mr. C, claiming that he wants to learn English was hanging around the guest house we were staying. Mr. C followed us everywhere and asked us where we were going. He told us that there is no direct bus to Bagan, and his friend can arrange an overnight bus ticket from Yangon to Bagan for us and the bus will pick us up in Pyay. We decided to do a little bit of investigation on our own. Under the blistering heat, we walked down to the water jetty and located the ticket office (more like a thatch shack by the river with no signs)
04. Shwesandaw Paya at night
. We were told that the boat to Bagan is "broken". We then went to the train station, and were told that there was no train going to Pyay. Finally we made our way to the highway bus station, a good 3 km outside of town. There we were told that we had to buy a bus ticket to Mandalay instead, but get off in Kyaupadaung at around 2:00 am and transfer to Bagan at 4:00 am in the morning. We finally just let Mr. C and his buddy made their commission and bought the tickets from Yangon to Bagon for us. As soon as we did that, the ubiquitious Mr. C (in tea shops, in restaurants, in front of our guest house), disappeared altogether. We later found out that our guest house would have made the same reservation for us but we would have to pay for the long distance phone call. This direct bus to Bagan of course doesn't stop at the highway bus station. We had to wait in front of some clinic in town at around 7:00 pm for the bus, Mr. C and his buddy showed and waited with us. There were quite a few of these long distance highway buses stopping in front of this special clinic along the road while we were waiting for our bus. They just don't bother to use the bus station which is a good 3 km away from the highway. Our bus didn't show up until 9:00 pm since it had a flat tire and it also had to stop at some restaurant for people to have dinner. Bus ride to Bagan
We got on the bus, and it was dark because a Burmese movie or drama was playing on the TV. We started falling asleep, only to be awaken with a flood of lights and loud speaker around 2:00 am in the morning. It looked like we pulled into some tea shop. We were all ushered off the bus, even though I was sleepy. We sat at the tea shop watching people eating and drinking. We got back on the bus again about thirty minutes later
05. Us on a trishaw
. Around 5:00 am in the morning, we arrived Kyaupadaung, and a whole flood of people got off the bus. We were thrilled now that we can each have two seats to sleep in. I fell asleep, only to be attacked by some local woman who decided she wanted to sit next to me, since her friends sat in the seat in front of me. She physically woke me up and then started shoving my legs off the seat she wanted, even though the bus is practically empty. I decided well I'll just move to the next two empty seats. I would have not been so annoyed by the lady, but in the process of getting out to the next seat (she of course refused to move all together), my favorite summer pants were caught by the seat and the pant leg received a good one-foot rip. Now I had to arrive Bagan looking disheveled from the lack of sleep and like some dumb foreigner in dirty and ripped pants! 
