I miraculously made it to the Viewpoint Guest House. After that dramatic episode of throwing up during this hike in Kalaw, I literally had to drag myself to the midpoint of our hike for a much needed rest. The View point Guest House is located along a ridge which provides an amazing view of the surrounding area of Kalaw. I believe a lot of travellers come to make this their stop in the Kalaw to Inle trek, in fact, there were two foreign ladies treking and they will be spending the night here. What was amazing is that they even brought along a little girl with them to their trek.
The Viewpoint Guest House is basically a small wooden hut along the side of the mountain. There were a few beds inside the hut and a couple of huts for eating and relaxing. The view from the huts was amazing and if I was feeling good, I would have really apreciated it. However, having suddenly been taken ill, I could only lie down and rest. Naing-naing my guide was worried about me and ordered some chappathi for me. Unfortunately, I wasn’t really in the mood for eating and I really just wanted to rest. I had to pass the chappathi to Naing-naing instead. It looked good however, the guide books say Viewpoint Guest House makes a mean chappathi.
After thiry minutes of resting, Naing-naing started to nag me to move on. We had a schedule to keep and if I keep lying down we won’t be able to make it back to Kalaw before dark and worse, I might not be able to make it to Nyaungshwe. Feeling a little better now, I managed to hike all the way back to Kalaw in one piece. But not before passing through some impressive scenery. I had a little more strength to take photos now.
At the bus stop at Kalaw, I paid Naing-naing the agreed seven thousand Kyats for the guided tour, I was kind of hoping he would give me a little discount because of my unfortunate circumstances but no. He told me to get on the pickup heading to Shwenyaung, if not I would have difficulty finding transportation back to Shwenyaung later in the afternoon. I thanked Naing-naing for looking after me and I head back to Shwenyaung in the pickup.
What followed was one of the craziest driving I have been to in a long, long while. It was made all the more perilous since the highway to Shwenyaung is along the mountain. What took us two hours to cover going to Kalaw, the driver only covered in one and a half hour of crazy driving. At the junction of Shwenyaung, I was hoping to be able to get another pickup to Nyaungshwe, but the locals there kept saying there is no more pickup going to Nyaungshwe owing to the late hour.
It didn’t really help their credibility that they were all motorcycle drivers waiting for passengers. After around fifteen minutes of waiting I decided that the pickup might not be coming after all. I hired a motorcycle taxi to bring me to Nyaungshwe for 1700 Kyats. I considered walking but i think it was a bit too far. The motorcycle taxi passed by a small store to purchase some petrol and we were on our way. It was already quite dark now that the sun has set and it seems the insects also use this time to come out. There were a ton of insects literally slamming into my face because of the motorcycle’s speed. My driver didn’t have any problems since he had helmet on.
When we were nearing the checkpoint of Inle Lake where there was supposed to be inspections and payment of the tourist fee, I told my driver to just go straight and ignore the checkpoint. He literally drove on the wrong side of the road and just went past the checkpoint. That saved me another 3,000 Kyats. Whew! However, he couldn’t seem to find Bright Hotel and we kept making wrong turns even after asking several times. Eventually he found the hotel and I paid him the agreed amount. He then said, through an interpreter, that I agreed to pay 2,000 Kyats, of course I protested and I of course never paid the 2,000.
The staff at the Bright Hotel was frantic upon seeing me since they thought I would not be able to make it back to Nyaungshwe that night. They told me that they had made arrangements with their partner in Kalaw for accomodations in case I needed them and they would temporarily check me out of Bright Hotel for that night. But since I managed to make it back in time, it was no longer necessary. I felt really good about that gesture and how they were very much concerned about the welfare of their guests. In these parts of the world, maybe money isn’t really that big a deal.
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