Day 42 - To Hsipaw - Antique Train and Gokteik Viaduct

Plan for the day was to go to Hsi Paw, a hill town in northern Shan state...



in part by a train ride that crosses a 318 ft high viaduct for over the Gokteik gorge. When it was built in 1901, it was the second highest in the world.

The day began inauspiciously, with our inexperienced (one month) guide Yan arriving a bit late to tell us the train we were planning to take was going to be one and one-half hours late - apparently its modus operandi, unknown to Yan who had never ridden it. I'll try to avoid dwelling on Yan's foibles - we're adopting a tolerant training mode with him.

Since we had planned to skip the first part of the ride anyway, we headed out in the car, planning to catch the train at Naung Cho. Since we had extra time, we made a detour to a cave temple (yes, another one - Myanmar not only has the most pagodas in the world, it likely also has the most (and best) cave temples).

Once again the cave (Maha Nadamu) had real stalactites and stalagmites, and some cavernous rooms.



It also had a lot of water...



including on the paths, making walking a bit tricky.

There are supposed to be over 1000 Buddhas...



including this disturbingly voluptuous one..


and one with what appear to be scales.


There also were a number of fake trees, something we'd not seen elsewhere.




A short walk away from the cave was a rather nice waterfall...



that the local tourists were enjoying, particularly the folks of Indian heritage, of whom there are many in the area, due to the use here by the British of Indian soldiers.

Having used up much of our extra time, we took off for Naung Cho, only to have to wait there another hour, at the rather humble station.



Finally the train arrived...



and it didn't take long to understand why it has delays. It was really beaten up, and the cars swayed wildly, although that was probably due mostly to the track being in even worse shape. But it did have the inexplicable appeal of a train.



The viaduct came into view quite soon...



and everyone commenced a gross over-photographing of it. I opted for some videos.





When we reached the viaduct we were side-railed to allow an oncoming train through...





and then we crossed as well.





There was a tunnel on the other side, and it sounded like we were scraping the sides as we went through.



We got off the train at an even humbler station...



where we were picked up by our driver and taken to Hsi Paw, to check into the Mr. Charles Guest House with all of the other tourists, who, like us, had come here to trek - but that's tomorrow's story...


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