The walking speed train - Kalaw

The initial plan was to hike from Kalaw to Inle Lake (3 days). Unfortunately it was not possible due to the lovely clean Myanmar food and our European stomachs. But all well! We found another great way to get there. Not by bus, but by the local train in a village just outside Inle Lake. the trip is normally 3 days of hiking, 1 hour bus ride. But the train is a special thing in Asia, why? it takes 5 hours longer than the bus. But the ride is most of the time spectacular, and it surely was. We wanted to sit with the locals but they only let us in first class ("upperclass"), which we did not realize when we bought the ticket because it cost 50 cents.. the agony. At first we did not like to be first class (we were sitting there almost alone), but a small wooden bench for 5-6 hours is not everything.

The tracks were from WWII and made by the Japanese after England lost Myanmar as a colony.  It circles on walking speed around the mountains one so small tiny bridges that you do not even see the tracks beneath you anymore. There were a lot of train markets along the way. Train markets are right at the tracks, here you can shout of the window to someone what you want and you can buy it through the window. Very convenient as there is no glass in the window anyways.

Kalaw itself is quite high up the mountains, which makes the surroundings really cool. How I've missed normal cold weather. Sometimes I wish I was in Iceland, or iceskating in the Netherlands. All well, I miss the cold. To get to our guesthouse in Kalaw we had to find a taxi but there were none! A really old men came to us and asked: Taxi? We said yes and followed him to a place were only a horse stood. Tada, our taxi hahaha. I was in love right away with this place.

In Kalaw itself we walked around had some food and didn't do much as we were still recovering. But at one point we were walking to a cave which is said to be nice until 3 military people came to us and said NO NO NO, Go back, No way. Seemingly we walked in a restricted area were no touristst are aloud. While being escorted back into the umm Tourist ok zone? I wondered what was there. What is so horrible that no one can enter. Myanmar government is hiding more than half of it's country for the outside world and no one seems to really care. A shame