247MYITKYINA & THE UPPER AYEYARWADYSLEEPING & EATINGNORTHERN MYANMARSLEEPING & EATINGNORTHERN MYANMARSHWEBOcan shelter as many as 60 potters working at
hand-turned or foot-turned wheels. Visitors
are generally welcome to nose around and
you’ll also see kilns, drying yards and piles
of rough clay being chopped.
4 Sleeping & Eating
Kyaukmyaung has one ultra simple guest-
house (per person K1500) but it isn’t licensed
for foreigners so you’ll normally be expected
to sleep in nearby Shwebo, 18 miles west.
However, the plodding local police will usu-
ally make exceptions if your river ferry hap-
pens to arrive here at an antisocially late
hour. The guesthouse, unmarked in Eng-
lish, is down an alley just inland from the
main junction (riverside and Shwebo roads).
Almost at the ferry jetty, the restaurant
marked with a diamond graphic is run by
local character Sein Win who speaks some
English.
8 Getting There & Away
Southbound Katha–Mandalay express boats
usually get here midafternoon, arriving at a
central jetty three minutes’ walk north of Nondo
Zedi. IWT river ferries also stop here but tim-
ings can be highly erratic. Buses to Mandalay
(K2200, four hours) via Shwebo (K500, one
hour) depart at 5.45am, 6.45am and 7.45am
from the market area, just inland from Nondo
Zedi. Other buses and pick-ups to Shwebo leave
at least hourly until 3pm.
Shwebo
er ̄.ui
%075 / POP C40,000
Between 1752 and 1755, the leader of little
Moksobo village, Aung Zeya, revived Bur-
mese prestige by fi ghting off both Manipuri
and Bago-Mon armies. Rebranding himself
King Alaungpaya (or Alaungmintayagyi), his
short reign transformed formerly obscure
Moksobo into glittering Shwebo (‘Golden
Leader’), which became, until his death in
1760, the capital of a newly reunifi ed Burma.
These days Shwebo makes relatively little
of its royal history and few foreign tourists
bother making a special excursion to see its
recently reconstructed palace. However, if
you’re jumping off an Ayeyarwady ferry at
Kyaukmyaung, Shwebo makes a pleasant
enough staging point from which to reach
Bagan (via Monywa and Pakokku) without
returning to Mandalay. Shwebo is locally
famed for snakes and thanakha (see boxed
text) and some visitors consider it good
luck to take home some earth from ‘Vic-
tory Land’, as Shwebo has been known since
Alaungpaya’s time. 1 Sights
Shwe Daza Paya BUDDHIST TEMPLE
As you approach from the south, central
Shwebo’s skyline is given a very alluring
dazzle by a collection of golden pagoda
spires. These cluster around the extensive,
500-year-old Shwe Daza Paya and look
equally evocative when viewed from the
rooftop of the Win Guest House. Closer to,
however, the complex feels a little anticli-
mactic. Across the road, Chanthaya PayaIRRAWADDY DOLPHINSThe Irrawaddy dolphin is one of Myan-
mar’s most endangered animals. This
small cetacean has a short, rounded
snout like a beluga whale and hunts
using sonar in the turgid waters of
lakes and rivers. In the past, dolphins
and humans were able to coexist quite
peacefully – there are even reports of
dolphins deliberately herding fi sh into
nets – but the use of gill nets and the
poisonous run-off from gold mining has
driven the dolphin onto the critically
endangered list. A 2003 survey esti-
mated a population of just 59 dolphins
in the river for which they are named.
Yet sightings do still occur and since
2005 a 45-mile stretch of river south of
Kyaukmyaung has been designated as
a dolphin protection zone.SHWEBO THANAKHAWherever you go in Myanmar you’ll
fi nd hawkers selling thanakha, the
sandalwood-like logs that are ground
to a paste and smeared on the skin as
ubiquitous sun-block and moisturiser.
However, Shwebo’s thanakha is consid-
ered the country’s sweetest smelling,
forms the subject of a famous folk song
and if you want a gift to delight guest-
house grandmas elsewhere in Myan-
mar, you won’t fi nd better. You’ll fi nd it
sold on the southern approach cloister
to Shwe Daza Paya.