Pyin U Lwin, Burma

On February 5th I left Mandalay en route by pickup to Pyin U Lwin, formerly called Maymyo. This area of Mandalay Division has great strawberries, and February is strawberry season!

Leaving Mandalay:




On the way there, as is the norm in Burma (more so than in other developing countries I've visited), there were all sorts of random vehicles.

These little Honda trucks are half a century old and are tiny! They're about the size of a Smart car:




These old (1940s?) buses are still used all over Burma:




A very common setup in many countries in Southeast Asia is to take a simple engine and connect it to a wheeled platform somehow, with a long steering column. Easy to fix, but slow as anything, and difficult steering. This is a bit more advanced than most of those, but still fairly simple:




Horse-drawn carts are also quite common in many parts of Burma today:




To cool engines at the half hour rest stop between Mandalay and Pyin U Lwin, hoses are left running cold water onto the engine blocks:




I only spent one night in Pyin U Lwin, and while I was eating at a restaurant (and drinking several glasses of tasty fresh strawberry juice!) I took this photo of the typical mode of transport in that town:




The next day I took off by train to Hsipaw, a route which included passing over what was once the second highest rail bridge in the world... photos coming soon in the next post.