266
NORTHERN MYANMAR
THE FAR NORTH
route but as yet this is a public charter with no
fi xed schedule. Yangon to Lashio costs around
$135, Mandalay to Lashio $70. Air Kanbawza has
announced plans for Lashio fl ights in future.
On arrival don’t panic if your baggage doesn’t
appear in the tiny terminal building while you’re
being quizzed by immigration offi cers: in fact
bags are disconcertingly delivered to a shed
outside the airport compound gate. Bus
Long distance services use the Main Bus Sta-
tion (Pyikaungsu Rd) opposite the Great City Ho-
tel, about 1 mile north of centre. Services include:
Mandalay Air-con buses depart at 8am and
6pm (K5000, eight hours), travelling via Pyin
Oo Lwin (six hours) and Kyaukme (three hours)
Mu-se Regular buses (four hours) and a good
road but foreigners are never allowed.
Nay Pyi Taw Departs 6am (K9000, 14 hours).
Taung g yi Departs 7am (K15,000, 15 hours).
However, most long-distance bus companies
are highly reluctant to sell tickets to foreigners,
citing the dangers to the driver of your presence
(should he crash he faces a serious backlash).
The local bus station, 300m west of Daow-
adengda Pagoda, is a series of shophouses
doubling as bus offi ces. The fi rst one on the right
off ers useful services to Hsipaw (K1500, two
hours) at 9.30am, 11am, 12.30pm and 2.30pm.
Ideally buy tickets a couple of hours ahead. Ta xi
Shared taxis wait in front of the main bus sta-
tion (mostly before 10am), charging K35,000
per person to Taunggyi, between K13,000 and
K15,000 per person to Mandalay (eight hours)
depending on the season (assuming four in a
car). There’s no discount if you get off in between
at Hsipaw (two hours), Kyaukme (three hours) or
Pyin Oo Lwin (six hours). By arrangement most
will pick up at your hotel. Train
Lashio’s miniature train station is 2 miles north
of the market, a K1500 pick-up ride. At 5am the
one daily train departs to Mandalay (ordinary/up-
per class $6/12, 16 hours) via Hsipaw ($2/4, four
hours) and Pyin Oo Lwin ($4/8, 11 hours). Ticket
sales only start at 4.30am the same morning.8 Getting Around
From the Theinni Rd–Bogyoke St junction, shared
three-wheeler pick-up trucks (K300) shuttle
down past the bus station and Mansu pagodas,
terminating at a major junction (‘Lashio Gyi’) half
a mile east of the airport. Occasional shared rides
from there run to the hot springs. Chartered three-
wheelers costs around K1500 per hop within town.
Taxis from the airport ask a steep K5000.THE FAR NORTH
Myanmar’s far northern range of Hima-
layan ‘Ice Mountains’ is one of the world’s
least-known ‘last frontiers’. Hkakabo Razi
(19,295ft), the nation’s loftiest summit, is
over a half a mile higher than Mont Blanc
and had never been climbed until 1996. Per-
haps that’s not surprising given that the trek
to reach its base camp took almost a month.
The surrounding Hkakabo Razi National
Park is considered a treasure trove of bio-
diversity. Landscapes here are similar to
those found in the Indian state of Arunachal
Pradesh – steep forests, ridges of peaks
bursting through the snowline and deep val-
leys carved by fast-fl owing mountain rivers.
Further south is the Hukaung Valley Tiger
Reserve (www.panthera.org/programs/tiger/
tigers-forever/Myanmar), which, at 6748 square
miles, is larger than all of India’s tiger re-
serves put together.
The far north has sparse populations of
Kachin, Rawang, Lisu and even a handful
of Taron, the only known pygmy group in
Asia. Set well back from the higher peaks,
the only settlement of any size is Putao , an
oddly diff use place that has a market but no
other real sense of a town centre. This was
the site of the isolated British WWII military
outpost, Fort Hertz, though there’s no for-
tress to visit.
Today the region still feels (and genuinely
is) entirely cut off from the rest of Myanmar.
This may change as the airport runway gets
extended and new tourism facilities are be-
ing developed. But for now, to get even the
briefest possible glimpse, you’ll have to do an
organised ‘tour’, costing from around $600
per person for the shortest four-day option.
That will get you to one or two photogenic
suspension footbridges and some unspoilt
rural villages, though the latter aren’t mark-
edly diff erent from similar settlements else-
where in rural north Myanmar. Unless you
trek for many days further, the Himalayan
horizon will remain fairly distant, and might
stay hidden altogether by rain clouds. So is
it worth the trouble? That really depends on
how you value exclusivity. If you’re compar-
ing tourist numbers, Putao makes Bhutan
look like a veritable Benidorm.
The best time to visit is from October
to April, when daytime temperatures are
quite pleasant and nights are cold but rarely
freezing.