10/12/2019 – Encountering Elderly Elephants

After saying goodbye to the people I’d spent my time in Bagan with, I headed off east towards Inle Lake. It was a fairly straightforward ride and shouldn’t have taken too long but was looking forward to seeing more of this stunning country.

The first stop off was at Mt Popa. A stand-alone mountain in the middle of nowhere was the site of my first hike of the trip. An hour and a half walking in cycling shoes up a forest path was certainly worth the scenery and views from the top.

There is also a monastery located on a rocky outcrop which is extremely impressive when you consider how they got all the building materials up there.

Stopping off at a restaurant for dinner I asked where I could stay the night. They made some calls and a Government official came out to see me. This was slightly unnerving but it was all fine, she was interested about what I was doing and then escorted me to a hotel. She told them to allow me to camp in the garden in front of reception which they obliged to and then tried to help putting my tent up for me.

In the morning they made me a big breakfast and one of the staff came out and rode with me for the first half an hour on his road bike.

The rest of the day was pretty smooth and uneventful which was nice as I was just getting back into the swing of things and I checked into a hotel for the night, shovelled in a couple of plates of fried rice and went straight to sleep.

The destination for today was an elephant sanctuary so I set off early to make it for early afternoon but sadly they only had slots the next morning. As wild camping is illegal in Myanmar and the only hotel was in the next town, I faced a huge climb out of the valley to reach it only to have to do it again tomorrow evening.

Rolling down the hill in the morning I had a huge smile on my face. Having done a fair bit of research, this elephant sanctuary was a genuine one and looked after retired lumber elephants in their old age. The most impressive of them was a 69 year old female elephant with 2 gunshot wounds and was still going like a trooper.

Spending the day feeding the elephants, washing them in the river and learning about how they are cared for was eye opening, especially when you see how they are treated when they’re in work.

Having finished up for the day I had the task of getting to Inle Lake which meant going back up the hill. The surface of the road was dire and wasn’t looking forward to the rest of the ride being like this. Amazingly, once up and over the hill lay the smoothest road I’ve encountered on this trip so far. Yes, even beating the legendary roads of the Netherlands. Glorious hours passed with incredible scenery as the sun was setting behind me.

Reaching the town of Nyaungshwe I met up with a group of people I’d met at a previous hostel and got settled in for the night with a couple of drinks. This truly was one of the most rewarding days of the trip so far and made me excited for what was to come.