From Sukhothai, it took us around 4 hours to get to the Thai-Myanmar border in Mae Sot. Today would turn out to be our ‘travel day’. After 4 hours of being stuck in a 12 seat minivan which actually seated 18 + backpacks, we easily crossed the border on foot into Myawaddy, where we switched to another, slightly more comfortable minivan. However comfortable that car was, the road toward Hpa An was not. There is only one mountain road, so narrow that traffic goes one direction every other day. Before leaving to Myanmar, I had read other blogs and travel fora and found out that the government is building a highway which would allow traffic to go in both directions. Rumor was that it would be open in August; when we were there. Praying for the good road to be ready, we hopped in the van and took off. In front of us, I could see the beginnings of a highway and as we were getting closer; there it was; a shiny new road… yet closed for traffic because of an official ceremony that would take place the next day to inaugurate it. And so we took a right turn, into the mountains and into the clouds while our driver was obsessively chewing his beetlenuts. The entire drive to Hpa An took around 8 hours for about 200 km distance. Our driver kept honking and overtaking trucks and other cars while we were holding on to our chairs, trying not to be too worried and enjoying the, admittedly, breathtaking views over the valley. This has been one of the most scary yet beautiful rides I’ve ever taken.

And so, after an exhausting and quite intense car ride, through flooded rice paddies, green, lush hills and a beautiful sunset, we arrived in Hpa An, in complete darkness. We were lucky to get a room at Soe Brother’s Guesthouse and while what we needed was a nice hot shower and bed with fluffy pillows smelling like roses, we got a very basic (albeit decent) room with makeshift bathroom and amazing color palet 🙂