Pindaya e Kalaw

24th, we left with plane from Mandalay to Heho, an airport that cover a vast touristic area, but in the village there was nothing special to be seen. We were in the state of Shan, one of the states that form Union of Myanmar. We directed with car toward north west.

The first stop was in a marketplace on the road for Pindaya. If you are interested in the prices, one chick costs 0.20 US dollars. There was a feast because some girls from 10 to 12 years old were going to live in a monastery for one week, to taste the monks'life.

  The market is full of people   Freshly caught fish   They also sell small ducklings   Preparing to go to the monastery   Photography with the celebration   An impressive choreography

Pindaya's cave is a big natural cave with more then 8000 statues of Buddha, of all types, made in alabaster, bricks, wood, but in concrete, too. Many statues have a tag with the name and nationality of the person that donated statue. In the cave there is a little room for meditation where one must almost crawl to enter in.

View from distance   Panorama of the valley with a lake   Spider protects the entrance from intruders
Be careful, he bites   Cave Pindaya   Black Buddha curled in a scarf
Only four paws can be accessed   Here is how the hell is divided   In the distance there are lot of pagodas

Near the cave is a village Pao, where we've visited a shop where the locals produce typical Shan's parasol. We assisted to production of some kind of material, used for parasols, done from bark of one wood and petals of flowers.

The paper produced by the tree bark   Flower petals are also added   Workshop that produces umbrellas   Next to the workshop is the shop

After the lunch in a restaurant, near the cave, we left for our hotel in Kalaw. During the journey, the rain begun, and immediately after our arrival to the hotel, the rain became a really cloudburst. A half hour after stopped raining and the appearing of the sun gave as a suggestive landscape. That was the only rain we had during our tour.

Kalaw after rain   The magical atmosphere of the sunset   The sun through the clouds

The day after, 25th March (it was ninth day of our tour), we saw an old colonial hotel with a presumed spirit (we didn't see it). We've visited a little catholic church in Kalaw, with orphanage.

A colonial style hotel   Catholic church   Tomb of Italian missionaries

Once we've finished the visit to Kalaw, we left for the lake Inle.

Burma
Start page

Yangon
At arrival

Bagan

Mandalay

Pindaya & Kalaw

Lake Inle

Golden Rock

Yangon
At departure


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