Nyaungshwe Transportation

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Best transport to fly from Bagan to Heho, it is fast to reach your destination and to avoid over crowded bus. Heho airport is the main airport in Kalaw district, from here you can go to Kalaw, Pindaya, Nyaungshwe and the ever beautiful Inle Lake, one of the top tourist destinations of Burma.I am just glad to be able to see the most wonderful view of Burma from above. Heho is such a old fashioned airport, just see my pictures. Hope it stays this way, if bigger and better airport, that means more and more tourist to come.

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From the hotel to take a boat to Inle Lake, will take about 20mins walking. Our Tour Guide Mr Zen, suggested to take the horse-cart. Wow..that's what I am looking forward - to ride on a horse-cart. Yippeee......

A trip cost 1500Kyat, I think its a very reasonable ride plus the best ride in my life. Can't find any horse cart in Malaysia.

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We are already tired from our trip to Inle Lake. Walking will take us about 20mins to the hotel. Lucky us, there were 3 trishaws waiting for customers. So all of us jump into the trishaw and had the most wonderful ride in Nyaungshwe.

1000kyat per trip.

Oh, the sitting arrangement on the trishaw - whoever weight more should sit in front,
if not no balancing. hehe..

Running rapidly out of time, and having budgeted fairly well, due how inexpensive I found Myanmar, I decided to allow myself the luxury of an internal flight from Nyaungshwe back to Yangon / Rangoon. I booked the flight at one of the numerous travel agents in town for 75USD. Despite the fact that it was the height of tourist season, I had no problem getting a booking two days before departure.

The flight was delayed by only a few minutes (good going in Myanmar) and was very pleasant with friendy staff, comfortable prop aircraft, and they didn't lose my baggage! The flight takes a little over an hour and the views of the Shan Hills are quite stunning.

Be sure to factor in about an hour to get from Nyaungshwe to the delightfully named Heho airport. I must admit, when I heard the name I couldn't get a small jingle of "Heho and away we go" out of my head. Obviously, taking photos of airports and planes in Myanmar is a big no-no, so you'll have to make do with my ticket instead.

When I was leaving Nyaungshwe, I flew back from nearby Heho airport to Yangon. The airport is quite a trek from the town, so allow about an hour to get there. I booked the taxi through Novelty Tour services (one of many in town). They are situated on the main road about two blocks South of the market on the other side of the road. the price was 12USD, which is quite a lot, although split between three people (the most that owuld have fitted in the taxi) it's not so bad.

The taxi, like most in Myanmar, was an ancient machine, although it got us there all right, and the driver spoke a bit of English, so he gave me a sort of running commentary as we went.

I didn't actually manage a photo of the taxi so I have included one of a venerable old Ford Consul from the 1960's which I saw in town. I suspect my taxi was about the same age!

To get from Nyaungshwe to Shwenyaung there arent' many options. Truck was the best option. It is about 11 Kms. As far as I know there aren't any local buses that go all the way to Nyaungshwe. The morning of our departure we went to the truck stop around 10 am so we wouldn't miss our 12 Noon bus in Shwenyaung.
Well we show up and find where the trucks are leaving from and I talked with the driver about the departure time. And I got the typical Myanmar answer "When the truck is full" There didn't seem to be many passengers at this time of day! Then a dutch family of 4 showed up and a gal from Colorado. We all waited for a while and there weren't any local passengers and we were getting nervous about missing the bus. So the Dutch guy asked how much it would cost to charter the truck and the driver said 3500 Kyat which was quite reasonable as it worked out to 500 Kyat each. (US$.55cents) We made it to Shwenyaung with plenty of time to spare as our bus was 45 minutes late!!
The picture is my son waiting for other passengers to show up.

If you are out in one of the villages and want to get all the way back to Nyaungshwe it is possible to catch a long boat. I'm not sure of the times that travel so you would have to check for yourself.

If you were feeling lazy you could take a rickshaw around Nyaungshwe. They must be very inexpensive although I didn't ride in any here. The rickshaws here are the same as I saw in other towns of Myanmar with the driver then seats for 2 passengers that sit with their backs to each other. It probably would be best to establish the price before you get in to avoid any problems when you get to your destination.