Page 247 - The Rough Guide to Myanmar (Burma)

PINDAYA INLE LAKE AND THE EAST 245
pizza and pasta plus real mozzarella, frittata and warming plus bakery items, home-made yoghurt and ice cream.
bowls of minestrone perfectly suited to chilly Kalaw, plus Tues–Sun 9am–7pm.
good coffee. Daily 11am–10pm. Thirigayhar Union Highway T081 50216. Fun
Sprouting Seeds Thidar St T09 767 472 669. Cute restaurant in a creaky and enjoyably time-warped old
little good-lifer vegetarian café, with soothing hill views wooden house next to Pyae Pyae. The menu features an
from the attached garden. Food features a small but well- eclectic mix of Burmese, Shan, Chinese and European food
chosen selection of international flavours featuring “small (mains K6000–7500), including local dishes such as zat
bites” (K3000–4000) such as tea-leaf salad, guacamole and byat byat (spicy minced meat mixed with tomato and basil; 6
bruschetta alongside a few Asian-style mains (K5000– K4000) and the curious-tasting peanut soup with mustard
6000). They also do a good range of hot and cold drinks, leaves. Daily 10am–10pm.
DRINKING
Hi Bar Khone Thae St. A genuine (if tiny) Western-style whisky sours (K1000) and on most nights a battered guitar
bar. It might be rough around the edges, but it has cheap is passed around for entertainment. Daily 5–11pm.
SHOPPING
Rural Development Society Min St T081 50747. profits go towards development projects in surrounding
Fair-trade shop selling inexpensive locally made souvenirs minority villages. Daily 9am–5pm.
including jewellery, longyi and funky pompon hats. All
DIRECTORY
Bank There’s a branch of KBZ Bank plus ATM on Min Rd. (daily 9.30am–6pm).
Massage Soe Thein offers traditional Pa-O massage for Post office Union Highway, Mon–Fri 9.30am–4.30pm.
K8000/hr, from a first-floor room on the Union Highway

Pindaya

Few places in Myanmar make as dramatic a first impression as PINDAYA, as the road
from Aungban begins its swooping descent into town, suddenly revealing the serene
blue square of Pone Taloke Lake at the foot of the hills below, backdropped by a craggy
limestone ridge studded with stupas and stairways. It’s here, high up on the ridge above
town, that you’ll find one of the region’s most memorable sights, the spectacular Shwe
Oo Min Cave, a huge natural cavern filled with thousands upon thousands of gleaming
Buddha statues – like some kind of surreal Aladdin’s cave, Burmese-style. Most
travellers visit the cave on a day-trip from Inle or Kalaw, although staying the night
at Pindaya allows you to see the cave at the crack of dawn, before the tour buses arrive,
and also gives you the chance to spend some time getting under the skin of one of
eastern Myanmar’s most serene and scenic towns.
Pindaya itself isn’t much more than an overgrown lakeside village, and none the
worse for it, although the lively little market offers a modicum of mercantile
excitement. Centrepiece of the town is pretty Pone Taloke Lake, with the gilded stupas
and old wooden buildings of the Kantha Kyaung monastery at its northern end. Paths
around the lake offer beautiful strolls at any time of day, while after dark the waters are
attractively framed by the lights of the town.
Beyond here stretches a bucolic landscape of rich red earth and rolling hills, less
dramatically craggy than the landscapes around Kalaw but with its own more

PINDAYA ENTRY FEE
A K2000 entry fee was formerly levied on all foreign visitors to Pindaya (except those hiking in
from Kalaw). This was not being charged at the time of writing, although it’s possible that it
may be reinstated (and, if so, most likely increased) in the future.