Wayu's Place: Travel Diary - The first nightbus

Our time in Yangon was up, so when we woke up we packed our bags, ate some breakfast and walked to the bustation.

Before we left the hostel we got simple instructions on how to get to Inle lake; Go to a intersection close by and wait for a transit bus to come between 2:30 and 3pm, to take us to a big busterminal where we would catch a nightbus. When we finally arrived at the intersection we got painfully aware that this was by no mean an easy feat. One, two or sometimes three buses a minute came to that bus stop, and all had one person shouting at the top of his lungs something in burmese. Half of the busdrivers didnt know english and the rest just shook their head when we asked about Inle lake. Robert then went to look for help and found a lovely little lady who showed him a couple of travelagencys, meanwhile Syrena sat and waited over 30 minutes at the busstop and watched the buses pass with growing panic, thinking "where is Robert? Ohmigodohmigodohmigod what if he's been kidnapped!?"

Robert then finally got back to the intersection with reservations made for a slightly more expensive VIP-bus and our own transit to the busterminal. Bags on and we were ready to go. Another bus stopped at the intersection and one of the guys who worked at it thought we were jumping onto his bus and sceptially asked us where we were going. We kindly declined his offer to get on the bus and started walking. Turns out it was the cheaper bus we were originally waiting for ^^

Then we went to our transfer bus, an old and tiny bus with gastubes underneath the seat and a constantly open front door with one guy leaning out in the crazy traffic to act as a kind of meddler with the other cars whenever the bus wanted to switch lanes. The same guy also prayed whenever he saw a pagoda (temple), which involved him standing in the dooropening, palms pressed together, head bowed and eyes closed, all the while we passed the temple at around 80km/h on a bumpy road. Crazy dangerous, but thankfully nothing bad happened.

Finally we arrived at the big busterminal and found our way to the bus. Robert had read about tourists being robbed when they put their things underneath the bus, so we insisted on taking our big backpacks with us onto the bus and cram them down underneath our seats. We got some weird looks from the locals :p

And then we were off to our next stop - inle lake.

The small transfer bus with the open front door...