Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Sharmie
Kandawgyi St 074 50108.
This Indian canteen serves a selection of excellent
halal curries Burmese-style with plain rice or biryani, soup and vegetables (K2000). The
owners manage to keep the restaurant spotless despite it being home to an exotic range of
pets.
Daily lunch and dinner.
Sut Ngai
Sinphyu Rd.
This Kachin restaurant and beer station just north of Theindawgyi
Pagoda serves a range of traditional Kachin dishes including
sipa
(steamed vegetables with
herbs) and chicken and pork steamed in banana leaves, as well as delicious barbecued skew-
ers.
Daily 9am-9pm.
DIRECTORY
Banks
Bhamo's banks are all on Sinphyu Rd near the police station. Ignore the KBZ Bank,
which has neither exchange facilities nor ATM. Head instead to AGD Bank or CB Bank,
which have both; the latter has a slight edge on exchange rates.
Internet
Sky Internet (daily 9am-9pm) opposite the
Friendship Hotel
has slow wi-fi and
wired internet access for K500/hr.
Bhamo to Katha
The main spectacle along the Ayeyarwady between Bhamo and Katha is the 13.5km
second
defile
where the river narrows dramatically from 2km wide to just 200m across, and flows
through a tight s-bend. Towards the western end of the defile a
parrot's head
is painted on
the rocky cliffs - when the water rises to touch the bird's beak, the river currents are judged
tobetoodangerousforcertaincraft,andlargerboatsstopandwaitdownstream.TheAyeyar-
wady defiles (there are three of them) are said to be extremely deep and the Burmese believe
that
naga
- the local equivalent of Scotland's Loch Ness monster - lurk in the river's depths.
The most interesting place to stop along this stretch of the river is at
Shwegu
where there
are a few simple guesthouses and an attractive island pagoda.
Shwegu
Spread-eagled along the Ayeyarwady River's southern bank,
SHWEGU
sees few foreign
visitors. Those who do disembark here are either on their way to
Shwe Baw Kyun
, on the
mid-river island of
Kyun Daw
where hundreds of pagodas in varying states of decay pictur-
esquely cover the island's southeastern tip, or searching for pottery workshops in the town's
dusty backstreets. Either way, it's a quirky place to break the journey between Bhamo and
Katha.Themainroadrunsablockinlandoftheriver,andthemain
potterydistrict
isfurther
inland again, although you'll need to look hard to find much evidence of it.
Shwe Baw Kyun Pagoda
Kyun Daw Island, 2.5km southwest of Shwegu jetty • Daily dawn-dusk • Free • Boat from near Shwe Andaw
K500 one-way
