11/26: Nyaung Shwe: Bike Ride on Thanksgiving

Our hotel had free bikes for guests to use so we decided a bike ride through the countryside as well as seeing some more of Nyaung Shwe sounded like a fun way to spend the day. 

We stopped off first at the Sports Field, above, which was also the location of the Independence Monument below. It sure looked like both needed a serious infusion of cash.

I had written out lots of postcards that Steven had bought when we were at Ananda Temple in Bagan so I was thrilled to find the post office in Nyaung Shwe as it was high time to pop those in the mail.

We rode our bikes toward Maing Thauk, located about a 45 minute bike ride away from Nyaung Shwe. 

We learned that both the city's Mingala Market and all the schools were closed because it was a full moon day. That explained why we saw so many children playing in the streets.

Photos en route to Maing Thauk:

Living so close to the mountains for over 30 years made me appreciate so much more the mountains we saw that ringed the area around Nyang Shwe.

Roadside motorcycle gas stand.

Seeing all the sunflowers made me think of the fields of them you see while driving through Kansas on the interstate.

We saw a lot of unpainted cinderblock houses just like this as we biked along.

Photos from Maing Thauk:

I wish we knew why there were so often men driving through the streets of every city we'd been to in Myanmar in trucks with amplifiers blasting away music as the one did above in Maing Tauk.

 We saw a monastery there but nothing else of interest. 

A volleyball or badminton court beside the monastery in Maing Tauk.

Unlike any other town or city we had been in in Myanmar, I noticed a number of day care agencies and preschools in tiny Maing Tauk. One of them was below.

The guidebook described Maing Thauk as a village having a split personality. Half the village was set on dry land as in the previous photos. 

We’d planned on simply biking back to town but a local man pointed us down a side street, above, and told us there were ferry boats that could take us back across Inle Lake. That sounded more fun rather than simply retracing our steps even though it would entail a lot longer bike ride back to Nyaung Shwe from the western side of the lake.

The other half of the village sat on stilts over the water linked to the shore by a 450 foot long bridge. There were a number of  boats and drivers on the wharf but one very young man standing there told us he and his uncle could take us across the lake.

Photos of boat ride across Inle Lake:

It only cost us 8,000 kyat or $6.40 including our bikes for the approximately 20 minute ride with this young man and his uncle.

It was so much fun taking photos on the lake that day with the bright blue sky and the very photogenic stilt houses - just a magical sight for me. Even though we had had such a long boat trip just the day before on Inle Lake, this one went by far too quickly. 

 I had fun chatting with Aye Ko a good part of the way over to Kaung Daing as he spoke pretty decent English and was as friendly as could be. He said that he was the youngest of 6 children; I joked with him that his parents had saved the best for last!

Aye and I exchanged email addresses but unfortunately I lost his a couple of days ago.

Aye's uncle carrying off our bikes off the boat for us in Kaung Daing.

Back on the western side of Inle Lake, we started our trek back to the hotel from Kaung Daing about 12:30. 

Photos from our bike back to Nyaung Shwe:

An elaborate wall design.

It was quite hot out yet the man above was still wearing a woolen hat and coat.

As we biked along the fairly major road, we saw signs for one pagoda after another located down narrow lanes.

We stopped at this one that advertised itself as being an ‘ancient’ one but it sure didn’t appear to be ancient to us as you can see for yourself when looking at the photos that follow!

We stopped for a few minutes to look at this spa. I wished we had thought about bringing our swimsuits as it looked like we would have enjoyed ourselves so much if we had hung out at the spa.

Kids along the road saying ‘Money, Money’ as we rode passed. Steven’s very selective hearing came in handy there!

I had noticed this sign when our taxi driver had taken us on this road from the airport when we had arrived a few days ago. I've never seen a population sign that mentions the number of men and women!

Vehicles, including motorcycles, only slowed down on this narrow road when they came up to bridges and were forced to cross on the narrow slats above.

Photos from back in Nyaung Shwe:

We must have seen hundreds and hundreds of tractors just like this one pulling huge loads in small towns all over Myanmar.

This (public?) jetty was right across from where we had started our fun boat ride yesterday.

We got back into town about 2 and then rode around town for a bit. 

Roadside collecting for another monastery.

Buddhist prayer flags at a construction site.

Since we had entered the city a few days ago from a different direction, we had never seen this 'Welcome to Nyaung Shwe' sign.

One of the more unattractive sides to Nyaung Shwe. 

We stopped in at Yadana Man Aung Paya. Photos from there follow:

Yadana Man Aung Paya or Pagoda is the oldest and most important Buddhist shrine in Nyaung Shwe. The handsome, gilded, stepped stupa was unique in Myanmar. 

One of the surrounding pavilions contained a museum of treasures amassed by the monks over the centuries, including carvings, lacquerware and dance costumes. Some of the more bizarre things we saw though were these old LPs.

We saw obvious Hindu influence in the architecture of Yadana Man Aung Pagoda.

Family quarters, above, at the pagoda - had never seen anything like that before in all the pagodas we've seen this trip.

It was Thanksgiving so we had hoped to have a special dinner to celebrate the holiday as this was the first year we’d been away. Unfortunately my dinner came a full 15 minutes after Steven had finished his and the only edible part of my chicken burger and fries were the bun, lettuce and tomato slice. The chicken was tough as nails and the fries were way undercooked. But, on the bright side, I was thankful for the great company and most amazing travel partner.

Oh well, we’ll have to have a real Thanksgiving dinner in January as Zachary missed out on having a holiday meal too as he had to work at Target at 6. In an email I got from him later, he said we needed to be home next year for the holiday! I also got an email from Natalie, our 28 year old, asking me to call her right away even though we had just chatted earlier in the day. I would have worried but she said she had some good news. I couldn’t get through to her for hours but when we did finally chat, she told us that Adam, her boyfriend of almost 7 years, had proposed to her in Chicago the night before, i.e on the 25^th their time! We were absolutely thrilled to hear their wonderful news and knew this would be their best Thanksgiving yet.

Posted on 12/9 from Agra, India.