Hpa-an part one
Hpa-an is a small town about three hours from Mawlamyine, a place where many people want to go for its beautiful surroundings. There are several caves, lakes, waterfalls and pagodas to visit and I was contemplating to go or not when Melissa and Cristine said that they rent car for the whole day to go over there and visit some of the places. I really wanted to go and see the Kawgun cave that holds wall paintings and carvings from the 7th century, so I joined them! Pictures below are from the first cave we visited that day called Saddan cave.
It was massive, the ‘roof’ was so high it felt like walking through a cathedral! I walked a bit ahead of Melissa and Christine and ended up walking through the entire tunnel alone! When I got a bit on the way, I started hearing the bats making noise and it only got louder. After a while I met a local man who turned around to go back and pointed at the bats. I got a bit nervous but still wanted to go on, then I saw to monks ahead of me so I called out ‘sir!!’ so they would turn around, I asked them to wait for me and ran after them and walked the rest of the way with them, feeling calm, haha!
The bats were making so much noise it was echoing in the entire cave, and the ground was filled with bat poo.. :P
When me and the monks had gone through the cave, we got out to these small boats that would take us across the small lake and then we had to walk the rest of the way back! I was nervous that Melissa and Christine would be worried, but it turned out that they were actually behind me and had gone the same way, screaming MATILDA until a local said 'looking for your friend? she went on boat already!' haha!
All these monks were very friendly and let me join them on the boat, together with a lovely lady whose name I didn't catch.. :(
