Stalactites and Buddhas - Caving in Pindaya and Kalaw

Jan 14 Pindaya

Pindaya is famous for it's 10,000 Buddha cave (so far it's only 8096 Buddhas in the cave, but more on that later). Pindaya is also roughly 70km away from Nyaungshwe on Inle Lake and a good three hour drive. Now ponder that for a minute. 70 km, 3 hours. And then picture the road conditions. Apart from the fact that it was going uphill the road was mostly paved. Badly paved but nonetheless paved. It continued holes of various sizes so it was b..um..py. Very bumpy. The unpaved parts of the road will for sure be paved soon. Regularly you will see a big group of men and women working on paving parts of the roads, mostly financed by investments from foreign companies. Everything goes by hand, except the flattening. Heating the tar, distributing rocks of all sizes, placing them in shape, pouring the hot tar. It is fascinating to watch. Incredible hard work. On the more remote road stretches they even set up tents beside the road, one for males, one for females, so the work can go on without too many interruptions. I wonder how the road will look in a few years from now. It also seems that only patches are being paved or maintained. The patches that foreigners pay for. Other patches remain bumpy dirt tracks.

While there is not much traffic on the roads, the air nonetheless is full of particles and seems extremely unhealthy to breathe in. The vehicles available are all bad polluters. Mucus turns black after breathing here for a while. You definitely wouldn't want to work at the roadside day in and day out in these conditions. Over here they would have closed everything down already to protect people's health. Different countries, different measures. Here they are just happy they have vehicles at all, whether they be donated from Japan, China, Thailand or Korea. It makes a merry mix of left or right-hand drive vehicles, although they do drive on the right side of the road.

Back to the caves. After a seemingly endless drive uphill we reach the caves of 8096 Buddhas. We share a minibus with 3 others from the guesthouse. 2 Taiwanese, 1 Chinese, Udo and I and negotiated a price of 70,000K for the full day for all of us.

It is a natural cave and Buddhas have been placed here for thousands of years, with more being added regularly. The site itself is famous in Buddhism but it's remoteness and the road conditions keep it under the tourist radar. In peak season less than 500 people visit per day, only a handful of which foreigners.

The cave is much smaller than I expected which results in Buddhas being stacked on top of each other. Impressive sight. 2 $ entry (for foreigners only) seems reasonable here.

After the caves we visit an umbrella making factory. The make their own paper from mulberry tree bark, color it naturally, sometimes add flowers and make sun umbrellas or lamp shades. I especially enjoy that they freely explain their trade without any obligation to buy. Very rare these days.

Like all other foreign visitors we are being shipped off to the same overpriced restaurant for lunch before the long ride back starts.

We visit another cave near Kalaw, which to me personally is more impressive. There are no visitors here at all. The cave is long, stretching through a whole mountain with a narrow alley passing through, Buddhas on either side and stalactites and stalagmites lining up along the way. The stalactites and stalagmites are still growing so it is a wet cave. This makes the other four in the party turn back when they encounter the wet ground. Unbeknownst to me I suspect them still behind me and end up crossing through the whole cave by myself. No worries, the path only leads one way anyway and comes out on the other side of the hill just a few minutes walk back. I really enjoyed this. A little cave, tiny adventure and no tourists around. So should you take the difficult road to Pindaya, definitely stop at the Myin Ma Hti /Yevin Cave Pagoda as well.

We pass by Kalaw on the request of the Chinese but since the drive was quite long, once we reach the Pagoda there it is closed already. Since it's been a long day already we are happy to be heading straight back and I am looking forward to – you may have guessed it – my Avocado salad.