We headed south along the Arrawaddy river for 15 km then asked at least 15 people for directions and the road to Bagan. You can never trust that they understand us but all pointed the same way. There were roundabouts and roads going in all directions which we negotiated and headed south for a number of kms. We ended up on this amazing enormous motorway that had no traffic on it, just the odd bus and car, not a single truck. ( photo) Eventually we started to get concerned as we could see a road way over to our right with local traffic and thought we should be on that one. We decided we would not go back the 20 km we had just done but take the very next exit... We continued and continued, nothing on either side of us just scrubby trees and dirt. There were no exits and our local road had disappeared. We were riding through a deserted plain. The motorway just went on and on. Flat and boring. Low on water, hungry, 4 hours later, at 89 km we spotted an exit and garage and found a place to eat only to discover that we had been on the main expressway between Mandalay and Yangon ( where bikes r not permitted) and still had 50 km to go to Myingyan. We had added 40km to our day!! It was soooo hot, about 39 degrees. We had no option but to keep going on the now very small road, so after a bite to eat we carried on.
Ten minutes later Trevor flagged down a welcome pickup, he was going part of the way about 30 km, great guy, very happy to give us a lift, what a life saver. We so enjoyed the trip in the back with his wife and sister. Rode the last 20, a guy stopped and handed us a bottle of cold water and then a young guy in town escorted us to a nice hotel that had more staff that customers. Enjoyed our best meal out at the just opened Family restaurant. Claypot chicken and ice cream sundae. The manager - a lovely young guy sat down and chatted with us. He had just moved from Yangon, 12 hour days, 7 day per week, no holidays, he was working hard and loving the opportunity tourism had given him. So great end to another big day.
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Hi Rosie and Trevor
ReplyDeleteI cant get my head around where your are , your last blog dated the 10th april
clearly shows you are in Asia somewhere, but an e/m from your to which I replied to says Moroco, I wondered if the last 3 asian blogs got held up anywhere, any way trust you are well and safe, well brendan is on his way home , I think he enjoyed himself here ,even went to the mutton bird island with jasmine for 3 days , kylie is close to having hers 1 week i think, the weather here is changing to the late stages of autumn, i believe ellie has taken the job and is on here way down soon, staying with sonia for a couple of weeks till she finds a flat. roger and darryl have done there fist 2 days in the film , and the unit is filming in town this week
thats it for now cheers mum and dad xxx,
A few weeks behind in my blog! Wifi not good in Myanmar and then busy all day but will try and catch up. Yes two weeks in Morocco and now In Spain
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