Rangoon to Inle Lake on the JJ Express overnight bus

It’s time to leave Rangoon (or Yangon, as it is now known) for Inle Lake by an overnight bus, twelve hours bus terminus to terminus. The bus station is manic, sellers everywhere. If I was in the market for children’s clothes, there are women laden with brightly coloured clothes on hangers. People wandering around with plastic baskets, peddling all sorts of wares. There are some fruit stalls – the black grapes are almost the size of golf balls and look delicious, but there is nowhere to wash them. The travel staple, bananas, curiously not for sale. 

I quite fancy a beer to take with me – third day in Burma and no beer thus far: it was Gordon’s gin and tonic last evening. The restaurant the previous evening served no alcohol. The mini market with the beer is about three minutes walk and I am nursing a knee injury so decide this is not such a good idea as I’m not really up for weaving through the crowds and do not want to leave the comparative luxury of the JJ Express (JJ stands for Joyous Journeys) waiting room. The plethora of staff are working hard, selling and confirming tickets, all transactions conducted manually and efficiently, inspecting US dollars for any damage before accepting them, putting large luggage items into areas according to destination, someone making hot very sweet coffee and offering it in paper cups to waiting passengers. The loos are not the worst by a long stretch for Asia either, not award winning, but loo roll and running water for hand washing score well. 

This is the VIP bus. Large seats, a fleece blanket on each seat, foot rests, a bottle of water in the seat pocket and a snack box of a cheese pudding bread (think baked brioche/doughnut, filled with a small dollop of sweet vanilla custard) and a moon cake (think small round thing with artificial red glazed topping). 

The bus terminus is near to the quietish international airport: I see one aircraft land. Small. Propeller. Like all the domestic flights here. No thanks, and hence the bus. 

We leave at 6pm. It’s been chucking it down with rain most of the day and now it’s a dull grey dusk. There will be little to see along the way as night falls sharply here, and early. 

After three hours, state highway I think, the LED interior lights of the bus play a little wake up pattern for those dozing and we pull into a service station for a thirty minute break. We race for the loos, grab some food, or in my case just a beer, a can of icy cold Myanmar beer. First of all, I use it to help cool my knee injury, then glug it down. Divine. Almost as good as the, no doubt authentic, Louis Vuitton Damier Ebene upholstered chairs in the service station. 

We don’t speak a word of the language, it is dark, we don’t know whether the bus will be crossing mountains or travelling along minor roads to reach our destination. We don’t know when the next loo stop will be either. 

We stop a few more times along the way for ten minutes or so at a time. Forget corporate themed service stations of Europe or the 7:11 shops of the rest of Asia. There are plenty of spotlessly clean loos, but a strange assortment of items for sale. Huge bags of onions, anyone? 

The drivers sit out front for a cuppa and a quick fag. I notice that there are cigarette boxes with lighters on each table. You must be able to buy cigarettes individually if that floats your boat. 

We carry on through the black night. There is nothing to see. 

Eventually, dawn breaks and misty hills come into soft misty focus. This looks like imagined Burma. 



The light increases and the hills dip away behind us. We stop at a checkpoint where all foreigners have to pay US $12.50 or 12,500 kyats to enter the Inle Lake area. 

Everyone is half asleep. But it is good for everyone to have been woken up here because in about ten minutes time, it’s the end of the bus journey and a swarm of taxi drivers and boatmen will noisily descend upon the new arrivals to offer their services to reach hotels dotted around the lake. Prices are high. This is a bit of a local cartel and our first experience of feeling like cash cows. Meanwhile, on the other side of the street, young Buddhist monks are walking to their school, serene in their carmine coloured robes, looking at us all, overladen with things we don’t really need.

We get a taxi to Inle Resort and Spa, a nice drive along a country road, lots of agricultural workers in pick up trucks heading out to the fields, bison carts, scooters, bikes, cars, signs pointing to the various hotels along the way. 

We are warmly welcomed and the room is waiting for us. Overlooking a natural pond, set back from the lake. It’s a nice room and a totally relaxing place for the next three days. I do not actually leave the hotel for these three days because of the knee injury so no messing about on a boat for me nor seeing the lakeside villages. 

 But a sun lounger is set up on the jetty and I get a great view over the lake and the hills behind right until sundown. 

L

And then dinner, garlic herby fish parcels cooked in banana leaf with a cone of steamed rice. It is sublime and quite delicious. The ice cold beer is good too.