By continuing to see patients on Saturday night until one o'clock in the morning, Doctor Hla Tun was left with around twelve patients still to see on Sunday morning. He started his consultations a little after 7.00 a.m. in the hope of being finished before noon but each patient always receives all the time they need and, with some complex cases, it was after 2 p.m. before we were ready to leave, with over 600 patients having been seen that weekend.
Bagan Clinic 6th May 2018: Doctor Hla Tun at work.
As always, I was sad to be leaving my friends at the Clinic which was now much quieter as patients started their often arduous journeys home.
Bagan Clinic 6th May 2018: A group of patients preparing to travel home.
By Sunday afternoon, a number of the retail stall holders had also packed up and left.
Bagan Clinic 6th May 2018: By Sunday afternoon, a number of the retail stall holders had packed-up and left.
At the Doctor's insistence, I'd been given lunch (yes, congee and a plain omelette with a can of Coca Cola). To prepare me for the journey, they also gave me soup and fresh fruit. The Doctor himself intended to skip lunch but the staff made sure he took something from the wide range of dishes available which he consumed whilst standing.
The Doctor takes a hasty lunch.
The Doctor and I were to travel in a monastery saloon car with a different driver who was familiar with the Mandalay area. An attractive young lady who works for Belmond with good English was to accompany us on our trip.
We left Bagan Medical Clinic and drove across the Plain of Bagan with its numerous pagodas which I always find magical.
Bagan Pagodas.
At Nyaung Oo we headed north on a good road I'd not travelled before towards Mandalay. We passed a deteriorating concrete bridge over a watercourse which was shared by a single line railway. Small toll stations were provided on either side of the bridge.
Bagan to Pyin Oo Lwin 6th May 2018: Deteriorating concrete bridge shared by a single line railway.
In the substantial city of Myingyan, the broad main road had the concrete poles for power distribution running down the middle, with the usual untidy festoon of cables to buildings on both sides of the road and various types of street lighting fittings strapped to the poles.
Bagan to Pyin Oo Lwin 6th May 2018: Myingyan.
The road turned east and intersected the Yangon - Mandalay Expressway which we joined, heading north towards Mandalay. At the toll station near Mandalay International Airport, we turned off towards Paliek and Myitnge. After about three hours travelling, we stopped briefly for sweet tea at a tea-shop near Myitnge then by-passed Mandalay itself to take the road to Pyin Oo Lwin.
The changes here since my last road trip to Pyin Oo Lwin were remarkable. The road, the 'Oriental Highway', is operated by a private company and massive road works are in progress at the Mandalay end of the route. Beyond Pyin Oo Lwin the road continues through Lashio to an important border crossing into China so the route carries immense amounts of heavy lorries. From the plains at Mandalay, the road climbs 3,500 feet to Pyin Oo Lwin so we were frequently passing crawling heavy lorries.
Pyin Oo Lwin was chosen by the Britsh at their 'Hill Station' (the term is still used in Myanmar) and called Maymyo, 'May's town' after a British colonel of that name. This gave the British somewhere to escape the heat of the plains in summer and older parts of the town still have the atmosphere of England, although modern rather nondescript development is less attractive, swelling the population to around 255,000. There's a Wikipedia article on the town here.
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:-
Bagan Medical Clinic 2nd weekend
Bagan to Pyin Oo Lwin 6th May 2018
All my pictures on this trip to Myanmar can be found at Burma 2018.
[Patient numbers and 'Next' link added 8-May-2018: Edits, pictures linked, pictures inserted 26-Jun-2018]
