Rygsækrejsen 2015-2016: Hpa-an to Pathein with local busses

mandag den 14. marts 2016

Hpa-an to Pathein with local busses - a very long day on the road

Alarm set for 5 AM, we left the hotel at 5:45 and walked to the corner of the road and waited for our 6 AM bus. No traffic this early in the morning except for the odd scooter or local bus passing by. And so we waited, and waited and waited some more asking the few big buses that passed by if they were "Lion bus for Yangon". No luck

Eventually the Lion bus showed up, we got our seat (no mattresses this time) and enjoyed the equivalent of water boarding - being stuck for 6 hours in a local bus in Myanmar. AC set to "frozen" and the TV showing the DVD with monks chanting for the hour of our trip. Not being on the local-local bus which stops to pick up everybody we actually made good progress on our route. After the first hour the DVD was changed to local Karaoke and later to some version of Myanmar "The Bold and the Beautiful". It truly was a long way to Rangoon. But we made it.

Arriving in Yangon wasn't as bad as expected. Traffic was busy but no gridlocks, the bus station - one of them - is located a bit outside the city so it was relatively easy to get there and then we just had to get confirmation that the bus for Pathein left from "the other" bus station. And find a way there. The taxi drivers started with their usual crazy prices but we found one who would take us across town for around 8000 Kyat. Starting price 15000. He started the taxi, we loaded the bags, got in on the back seat and then the driver ran away. We waited for 5 minutes, then left the taxi, found another driver, haggled the price, got in his taxi and the same happened. He left to find another customer.

After some 20 minutes we finally left for our 45 minute drive across town, experiencing a bit of crazy and crowded Yangon traffic. The taxi driver made it to the Western bus station just before 2 PM, dropped us off right in front of the bus to Pathein, we bought tickets and the bus left about 2 minutes later only to stop after some 300 metres of driving and then wait 15 minutes for two extra passengers. You have to muster your utmost of patience in this country when travelling around.

The drive to Pathein wasn't as bad as feared. We had estimated some five to six hours but we made it there just before 6 PM before sunset. For the first time in a while we didn't have a hotel room reserved in advance so we had a couple of guys taking us on mopeds to the city centre and then walked around looking for a room which we found after a short while.

Check in and then we headed out for late lunch/early dinner right around the corner before walking a bit around town. There was a small nigh market at the river and by coincidence we bumped into a guy - James - who was local and relatively fluent in English. After chatting with him for a while we agreed to be picked up in the morning at 9:30 outside the hotel and he would show us around town. Great start to our visit in Pathein.