Monday, 7th May 2018
I took breakfast in the Dining Hall on the 5th floor of Hotel Maymyo then checked out ready to be picked up by the Doctor at 7.40 a.m. to catch the train from Pyin Oo Lwin station across the Gokteik Viaduct.
Breakfast at Hotel Maymyo, Pyin Oo Lwin, 7th May 2018
The Gokteik Viaduct, opened 1900, is a steel trestle bridge on the railway line from Mandalay to Lashio almost 700 metres long which carries a single track at a height of over 300 metres above the ground. There's a Wikipedia article here.
The height and length of the viaduct make it a ‘must see’ for many tourists and the travel website ‘The Man in Seat 61’ has more information here.
Train 131 from Mandalay to Lashio was scheduled to leave Pyin Oo Lwin at 08:22, pass over the Gokteik Viaduct and arrive at Nawngpeng at 11:58. It was arranged that our car would go ahead by road to Nawngpeng using the Oriental Highway, pick up the Doctor and the writer on arrival by train then drive us via Pyin Oo Lwin to Mandalay Airport. The Doctor had booked tickets for us to Yangon on separate flights to keep the cost down.
Well, all the arrangements worked well and the viaduct is certainly impressive. There were a number of European travellers on the train who also seemed to enjoy the experience and many photographs were taken. You’ll probably be relieved to learn that I’m deferring the technical railway stuff to a later post (but you can find it at Gokteik Viaduct Notes then use the 'back button' to return here).
By train over Gokteik Viaduct 7th May 2018
The car collected us at Nawngpeng as planned and we set off on the Oriental Highway towards Pyin Oo Lwin. The amount of lorry traffic was astonishing, mainly 8-wheel fixed wheelbase and 10- and 12-wheel articulated rigs. Via a series of spectacular zig-zags, the road descended into the valley then, using a similar technique, climbed up the opposite side of the valley.
Nawngpeng - Mandalay Airport by road 7th May 2018: View of zig-zag road from opposite side of valley.
As I’ve previously reported, Myanmar drives on the right (despite the fact that many vehicles, like the Toyota Crown I was travelling in, have the driver on the right). However, the bigger lorries need space to turn so, even if they should be driving on the inside of a hairpin bend, they simply take the wrong side of the road so as to be on the outside of the hairpin. Drivers of smaller vehicles travelling in the opposite direction, with admirable pragmatism, simply also adopt the wrong side of the road until they’re clear of the offending lorries and so the traffic keeps moving (though it looks frightening).
Nawngpeng - Mandalay Airport by road 7th May 2018: On the hairpins, traffic informally adopts the wrong side of the road to allow lorries space to turn.
Having reached a plateau, our route continued on easier gradients. We stopped at a large, obviously popular, tea-shop. The floor was littered with empty water bottles and debris from a busy morning but I was amazed when the place setting for each diner (plate, bowl, tea cup and cutlery) arrived packed in a plastic bag and looked clean. Fearing my foreigner’s delicate digestion, the Doctor often washes cups or cutlery again before letting me use them but on this occasion there was no need.
We carried on to Pyin Oo Lwin where the Doctor and I enjoyed a cup of heated milk (a sort of informal Pasteurisation) at a roadside shop.
The roadside shop in Pyin Oo Lwin where we drank heated milk.
As we left Pyin Oo Lwin, the Doctor made some purchases at a group of roadside stalls (Pyin Oo Lwin is famous for strawberries).
Although parts of the road descending to the plain were already dual-carriageway the last time I was on it, massive road improvement has occurred since. This construction project is ongoing - as we came nearer to Mandalay, the Oriental Highway became one vast construction site with traffic in both directions rushing across a dusty, unsealed surface with no markings or verges and poor visibility from the clouds of dust. The speeding vehicles were sharing the space with dozens of excavators, graders, road rollers and tipper lorries all oblivious to the traffic and operating within inches of the passing cars, pick-ups lorries and tankers. It was an amazing, anarchic scene. There were also a number of rather alien-looking tracked vehicles, each attached by an umbilical cord to a large, wheeled packaged unit. I assumed that they were pneumatic rock drills.
Road improvements in progress on the Oriental Highway.
At last, we returned to the relative discipline of a dual carriageway, paid at a couple of toll stations, passed through Myitnge and took the road to Mandalay Airport.
The Doctor had little time to catch his flight to Yangon and dashed off to check-in, encumbered with various shopping carriers of his purchases. I said farewell to our driver and the young lady from Belmond as they set off on the long drive back to Bagan. I then had a couple of hours before my own flight to Yangon. A little after 9.00 p.m., I arrived at Mingalardon Airport to find the Doctor and his wife waiting for me. We returned to the Doctor's house by taxi and, tired but thrilled by our various explorations, I slept well with the promise that the following day was a day of rest for me. For once, I was disinclined to argue.
Related posts on this website
This is one of a series of posts describing my 13th visit to Myanmar.
The post Travelling again is the first post in the series.
Clicking on the 'Next report' link will show the post describing the next events. In this way, you may read about the trip in sequence.
Next report
Alternately, clicking on the 'All my Burma-2018 reports' link displays all the posts on this trip in reverse date-of-posting order.
All my Burma-2018 reports
My pictures
Where necessary, clicking on an image above will display an 'uncropped' view or, alternately, pictures from may be selected, viewed or downloaded, in various sizes, from the albums below:-
Hotel Maymyo, Pyin Oo Lwin, 7th May 2018.
By train over Gokteik Viaduct 7th May 2018.
Nawngpeng - Mandalay Airport by road 7th May 2018.
All my pictures on this trip to Myanmar can be found at Burma 2018.
['My pictures' links added 4-Aug-2018: Pictures embedded 23-Aug-2018]
