We left Kalaw in our squashy minibus - once again the only tourists on board and probably the only ones paying such a high priced ticket too! We should have known we had/were literally being taken for a ride when the bus pulled up 3/4 hr late, 3/4 full and with a Burmese hill billy driver who had all the charm of an army sergeant with wasps in his underwear! We were bundled into the back seats, our rucksacks squished into the back (only held in by the back door being shut) and off we went. The ride was extremely bumpy, hot and long - taking 5 hrs with only 1 stop for the loo/lunch (so we went easy on the water).
On arrival at Naypyidaw, we discovered that it's a bloody big place and we had been dumped a long way from the hotel district at a local market/bus station into the merciless grabby mitts of a flurry of taxi drivers. The designers of Naypyitaw (also known as NPT) decided in their wisdom that they would situate ALL the hotels outside of town either to the south or to the north with no public transport connections so you have to get a taxi there which is not cheap. The hotel was 10km away in the north zone 2 and after asking around a gang of taxi drivers we opted for the only one who could speak English as if we were going to get ripped off at least it would be someone who bothered to learn our lingo.
Naypyidaw is the new capital city of Myanmar, replacing the old Yangon in 2006. The locals know it as the empty city and it's a very appropriate name! We found smooth, tarmaced super highways (i.e 6 lanes plus each side), huge roundabouts, lots of National Parks (Herb, Fountain), hardly any traffic or people and more official buildings than you can shake a stick at! The government spent an estimated 4-5 billion on constructing the city and contracted 27 companies who all worked at the same time and works were only completed in 2012. We thought it had a very similar feel to our Milton Keynes but with a presence of those eastern block towns you find in Poland and East Germany that are grandeur in build and scale but like a ghost town in atmosphere.
Anyway, we got a taxi to our hotel and were pleasantly surprised to find it had a swimming pool, tennis courts and a gym (we only used the first one being lazy gits!). Our room was huge with a decent sized balcony overlooking some scrub land at the back of the hotel. The only downside was it was miles from anywhere (i.e restaurants, shops!) so we had to arrange to hire a motorbike from the staff at the hotel.
We were given a clapped out moped with no working front brake or rear light which we rented for 3,000 kyat per hour (about £1.67). Off we chugged down the super highway, just us and the wind and the darkening evening sky, looking for the super shopping centre where we could stock up. After getting lost a bit down some dark back roads, we eventually found an impressive huge shopping mall which housed a well stocked supermarket including alcohol!! We grabbed a trolley and dashed around as we were aiming to get the bike back within the hour. This became our little mission every evening for the 3 nights here. Every night we had a different bike depending on what staff member was bullied or desperate enough to lend it to us. We never got the same bike twice but all were equally in a hopeless condition and it was only the fact there is no traffic whatsoever that we avoided any accidents as most the bikes had no brakes. Well except for the one night we cut up a police van going down the one way the wrong way and they shouted at us!
The next day was Daz's birthday, 50 years old, so he could do what he wanted, he took the easy option of bumming around by the pool that he had to himself as the hotel like the rest of town was devoid of any guest. Evening turned into a rum binge (£1 a bottle) with our hard-drive plugged into the flat screen TV in the room for some music (we cranked the volume up to 11 just like Spinal Tap did) blasting out many a dodgey tune and dancing around our room.
I was nursing a nasty hangover next morning but Daz was OK. I must admit though I did get a taste for that rum and must of polished off over half a bottle, chased with a couple of beers. After a lengthy morning in the room we again borrowed a bike from another charitable staff member and whizzed off into what they call the town centre but it's nothing that we would recognise as such. You think it would be easy to get a bus to Bago as it is basically the next big town before Yangon. But this was not to be the case when we pulled up at the bus station. No-one spoke English, there was not an English sign anywhere and everybody we asked just shock their head and tried to get rid of us. Turned out there was no direct bus to Bago. We had to get a bus to Yangon and change to another bus and come back out again. Grrrrrrr! Luckily we found someone who spoke English who brokered a deal for us with a bus company to go to Yangon. We then went sight seeing and started off at the fountain park which they charged to get in a park which was weird then charged us to park the bike. We walked around for about an hour or so but found the musical fountain was not working. The park was delightful with quirky areas like concrete mushrooms and log flumes that you could ride or pedal a swan gondola around the lake.The day was so hot though all we could do is go from shady bit to shady bit and sit down. I think the night before had made us a little fragile. We hit the road again and were going to see a large pagoda which is the second largest in Burma but it was another 5km down the road (which is close for NPT) so again could not be bothered as we have already seen 238 pagodas previously so would not despair at missing this one. We did though go to the infamous 20 lane highway which is amazing in itself as it is huge. 10 lanes north and 10 south. The thing that makes it so surreal is no one uses it so it is empty. After taking photos we decided it was a good idea to ride it swerving from lane 1 to lane 10 without worry of upsetting any other road users. Rumour has it it was built so it could be doubled up as an aircraft runway in case Parliament had to be evacuated in an emergency. Very cunning. I also read that the capital was moved from Yangon to here as the military rulers were in fear of Yangon suffering an amphibious attack from an enemy so moved it inland. Talk about paranoid.
Anyway that sums up Nappyitaw, the empty town, not really a tourist destination but worth the trip just to see a massive, beautiful town with vast amounts of money spent on its construction and many an architectural gem to be seen but to be unused. All the roads were planted beautifully with flowering plants and had manicured gardens mile after mile on the roadside but no one to view them. Except us. Shame.
On arrival at Naypyidaw, we discovered that it's a bloody big place and we had been dumped a long way from the hotel district at a local market/bus station into the merciless grabby mitts of a flurry of taxi drivers. The designers of Naypyitaw (also known as NPT) decided in their wisdom that they would situate ALL the hotels outside of town either to the south or to the north with no public transport connections so you have to get a taxi there which is not cheap. The hotel was 10km away in the north zone 2 and after asking around a gang of taxi drivers we opted for the only one who could speak English as if we were going to get ripped off at least it would be someone who bothered to learn our lingo.
Naypyidaw is the new capital city of Myanmar, replacing the old Yangon in 2006. The locals know it as the empty city and it's a very appropriate name! We found smooth, tarmaced super highways (i.e 6 lanes plus each side), huge roundabouts, lots of National Parks (Herb, Fountain), hardly any traffic or people and more official buildings than you can shake a stick at! The government spent an estimated 4-5 billion on constructing the city and contracted 27 companies who all worked at the same time and works were only completed in 2012. We thought it had a very similar feel to our Milton Keynes but with a presence of those eastern block towns you find in Poland and East Germany that are grandeur in build and scale but like a ghost town in atmosphere.
 |
| It was not only Jesus who learnt to walk on water. |
Anyway, we got a taxi to our hotel and were pleasantly surprised to find it had a swimming pool, tennis courts and a gym (we only used the first one being lazy gits!). Our room was huge with a decent sized balcony overlooking some scrub land at the back of the hotel. The only downside was it was miles from anywhere (i.e restaurants, shops!) so we had to arrange to hire a motorbike from the staff at the hotel.
We were given a clapped out moped with no working front brake or rear light which we rented for 3,000 kyat per hour (about £1.67). Off we chugged down the super highway, just us and the wind and the darkening evening sky, looking for the super shopping centre where we could stock up. After getting lost a bit down some dark back roads, we eventually found an impressive huge shopping mall which housed a well stocked supermarket including alcohol!! We grabbed a trolley and dashed around as we were aiming to get the bike back within the hour. This became our little mission every evening for the 3 nights here. Every night we had a different bike depending on what staff member was bullied or desperate enough to lend it to us. We never got the same bike twice but all were equally in a hopeless condition and it was only the fact there is no traffic whatsoever that we avoided any accidents as most the bikes had no brakes. Well except for the one night we cut up a police van going down the one way the wrong way and they shouted at us!
 |
| Those magic mushrooms were seeking revenge on Kathy's subconscious. |
The next day was Daz's birthday, 50 years old, so he could do what he wanted, he took the easy option of bumming around by the pool that he had to himself as the hotel like the rest of town was devoid of any guest. Evening turned into a rum binge (£1 a bottle) with our hard-drive plugged into the flat screen TV in the room for some music (we cranked the volume up to 11 just like Spinal Tap did) blasting out many a dodgey tune and dancing around our room.
I was nursing a nasty hangover next morning but Daz was OK. I must admit though I did get a taste for that rum and must of polished off over half a bottle, chased with a couple of beers. After a lengthy morning in the room we again borrowed a bike from another charitable staff member and whizzed off into what they call the town centre but it's nothing that we would recognise as such. You think it would be easy to get a bus to Bago as it is basically the next big town before Yangon. But this was not to be the case when we pulled up at the bus station. No-one spoke English, there was not an English sign anywhere and everybody we asked just shock their head and tried to get rid of us. Turned out there was no direct bus to Bago. We had to get a bus to Yangon and change to another bus and come back out again. Grrrrrrr! Luckily we found someone who spoke English who brokered a deal for us with a bus company to go to Yangon. We then went sight seeing and started off at the fountain park which they charged to get in a park which was weird then charged us to park the bike. We walked around for about an hour or so but found the musical fountain was not working. The park was delightful with quirky areas like concrete mushrooms and log flumes that you could ride or pedal a swan gondola around the lake.The day was so hot though all we could do is go from shady bit to shady bit and sit down. I think the night before had made us a little fragile. We hit the road again and were going to see a large pagoda which is the second largest in Burma but it was another 5km down the road (which is close for NPT) so again could not be bothered as we have already seen 238 pagodas previously so would not despair at missing this one. We did though go to the infamous 20 lane highway which is amazing in itself as it is huge. 10 lanes north and 10 south. The thing that makes it so surreal is no one uses it so it is empty. After taking photos we decided it was a good idea to ride it swerving from lane 1 to lane 10 without worry of upsetting any other road users. Rumour has it it was built so it could be doubled up as an aircraft runway in case Parliament had to be evacuated in an emergency. Very cunning. I also read that the capital was moved from Yangon to here as the military rulers were in fear of Yangon suffering an amphibious attack from an enemy so moved it inland. Talk about paranoid.
Anyway that sums up Nappyitaw, the empty town, not really a tourist destination but worth the trip just to see a massive, beautiful town with vast amounts of money spent on its construction and many an architectural gem to be seen but to be unused. All the roads were planted beautifully with flowering plants and had manicured gardens mile after mile on the roadside but no one to view them. Except us. Shame.
 |
| It was hard to find a gap in the traffic to pull out. |
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