A group of Chin children laugh and play at Wammathu Maung Stadium in Hakha, Chin State. Pic: Nyunt Win

I HAD been stranded with a group of other passengers by the side of the road for nearly 24 hours after our bus had broken down on the way to Hakha in Chin State.

I was beginning to wonder if the replacement bus we’d been promised would arrive and if I’d ever get to my destination.

The fading sun cast a pleasant glow over the hills that surrounded our incapacitated bus but a replacement was still nowhere to be seen.

Only then did we learn that our drivers had not actually rung their office in Hakha and asked for a substitute bus when they had gone to the nearest town, Gantgaw, that morning. Instead, they’d gone in search of a replacement in the town.

Several passengers were noticeably unhappy with the drivers and scolded them for our predicament, but they assured us that a bus was coming.
The temperature steadily dropped as night fell.

We huddled in a group around a small fire and a man passed around a mug of whisky for people to sip. The whisky was like my first experience in Chin State – harsh.

By 8pm the bus had not arrived and one of the drivers was about to go back to Gantgaw to investigate when we heard a vehicle approaching from a distant valley. Relief was visible on the faces of everyone sitting around the fire, especially when the bus appeared soon after.

By the time we had transferred the luggage to the new bus it was 9:30pm, but after nearly a day waiting by the roadside it was a relief to resume the journey to Hakha. My relief, however, was short lived as the road’s dubious condition quickly made itself known.

Passengers braced themselves against the person beside them. The young Chin girl beside me laid her head on my shoulder and went to sleep.

Despite our ponderous pace, by morning it was obvious that we had already ascended into the high mountains of Chin State. I heard other passengers say that we had passed Bungzung village before dawn, meaning that we had already entered Hakha township; apparently we only had about 40 miles (64 kilometres) to go.

But what a drive!
It was a daunting final leg, to say the least. Our truck went up and down the slopes of endless hills, on a road that curved like a snake. Sometimes I worried that our truck would overturn and we would fall off the edge to certain death.

Even though I had seen no other vehicles as we approached Hakha I knew that at some point we would come across the bus that leaves from the city every Monday morning.

I could not have been more correct: We did meet and it was a close shave indeed. Because neither driver had sounded a warning blast, as drivers usually do on such corners, a head-on collision on a blind corner was prevented only by luck.

By now I was extremely tired and running low on patience. My mind screamed: “Take me to Hakha quickly!”

But it wasn’t to be. Even though the final 10-mile (16km) stretch of road was in much better condition than the rest of the road, our bus still got a flat tyre.
At 2pm we rounded the crest of Mt Ruam and I had my first sight of the welcoming signs that read: “Hakha, 6120 feet (1865m) above sea level.”

And finally – a brutal hours after I’d left Mandalay – I entered Hakha, the “Switzerland of Myanmar”.

The weather at that high altitude was nothing like it had been in Mandalay. Every part of my body that was exposed to the wind was quickly numbed by the cold. After such a long and painful journey it was a relief to find the city so beautiful.

I was also surprised to find over the course of my short stay in the city that many locals hardly speak any Myanmar at all.

And the food is different too. A local favourite is sabuti – boiled corn and meat – and is as common as mohinga in Yangon or Mandalay.

All too quickly – courtesy of the delays – my time in Hakha was over and it was time for me to head back to Mandalay. I worried about what could befall me on the journey home.

I was still lost in thought as I took my seat on the bus, but the man next to me jolted me out of my reverie when he asked if I would return to Hakha.
“Perhaps,” I said with a grin, “if I can come by helicopter.”

This story – which started last week – is the conclusion of reporter Nyunt Win’s journey from Mandalay to Hakha.