Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
at which time the lake waters are low enough for a walk along a seasonal causeway
to the pagoda. Boatmen ask K15,000 for a return trip to the pagoda; a day trip
around the lake will set you back K50,000 to K60,000.
During festival time you might be allowed to camp or bed down at
Nam Tay mon-
astery
. At other times, however, the only licensed guesthouse is 12 miles away in
Lonton.
Indawmaha
(per person K7000)
is near the end of the village close to the army
checkpoint and has eight very simple rooms in a stilt building right at the water's
edge.
Two doors north of the guesthouse, kayaks can be hired (K15,000 per day) from
the Inn Chit Thu Tourism Group, a locally run organisation that puts its profits into
community projects. The kayaks are a great way to explore the lake. You can also
rent bicycles here (K7000 per day); the picturesque village of
Lwemun
is a good
destination to bike to. Close by are a few teahouse restaurants where you can get
simple meals cooked on a wood stove; fish curry is a favourite here.
Three of the daily Myitkyina-Mandalay trains stop in
Hopin
, which is roughly
halfway between Myitkyina and Katha. From Hopin, overloaded pick-ups leave a
couple of times a day (last departure around 2pm) for the excruciatingly uncom-
fortable but scenically stunning 28-mile trip to Lonton (K4000, 3½ hours). The al-
ternative, chartering a 4WD for a three-day, two-night trip from Myitkyina, will likely
cost several hundred dollars. There's a very rough road that continues all the way
to Khamti via the casino-filled jade-mining boom town of
Hpakant
(Pakkan) but for-
eigners can't go anywhere beyond
Nyaung Bin
without very hard-to-score permits.
TOP OF CHAPTER
Myitkyina
074 / POPULATION C40,000
The capital of Kachin State, Myitkyina lacks much in the way of real sights. Nonethe-
less, it's an engaging, multicultural place, home to Kachin, Lisu, Chinese and Burmese,
and hosts two of Myanmar's most important 'ethnic' festivals. A low-rise town with a
fair scattering of part-timber houses, its residents seem keen to assist visitors, with local
Christians particularly eager to practise their English. Quiet at the best of times, the town
is especially sleepy on Sundays when the churches fill up. Few foreigners make it here;
those who do are mostly missionaries or NGO workers.
Sights & Activities
