Epic Travel → Asia & the South Pacific → Myanmar → Shan Plateau

Location: Western Shan State, Myanmar

Time Required: 3 hours

Red Tape/Notes: None

What’s Nearby?: Pindaya, Kalaw, Green Hill Valley Elephant Camp, Cycling to Inle Lake, Inle Lake

I wish I had known how beautiful this area was while I was planning the trip. Unfortunately, information was pretty scarce at the time, so I’m happy we at least stumbled upon it for a short while, even though it was really just traveling between Heho and Pindaya and Pindaya and Kalaw. There were two unplanned and unexpected highlights on our little road trips. One was the wedding we stumbled across on the drive from Heho to Pindaya. Our guide had the driver pull over so we could see the way the house was decorated, and when we did the family came out of the house and invited us in (apparently whole villages are invited to weddings here, so it wasn’t that big of a deal to add some random foreigners). We joined some of the other guests in the upper rooms of the house, where the room was decorated to celebrate the bridge and groom (who hadn’t yet arrived). They shared their food with us and we chatted with them through our guide and it was an amazing impromptu experience.

The other unexpected highlight was the scenery on the drive itself. The area is absolutely beautiful, with rolling hills covered in bright colors depending on what’s being farmed on that plot, and idyllic scenes of groups threshing wheat popping up here and there. I only asked the driver to pull over one or two times, but I desperately wished that I could have spent an afternoon just wandering around taking pictures. Next time, perhaps.

Epic Travel → Asia & the South Pacific → Myanmar → Shan Plateau