Mountain bikers take a break to admire the scenery near Kalaw in Shan State. Pic: STITT

THE town of Kalaw in Shan State has long been established as a popular starting point for treks into the surrounding hills, and for good reason – the scenery is beautiful, the weather is temperate and the area is peppered with dozens of villages that provide a firsthand look at the traditional lifestyles of local national races.

As the managing director of Sports Tourism International Travels and Tours (STITT), U Zaw Phang (Jessie) was well-acquainted with these attractions and saw the area’s potential as a destination not only for trekking but also for other forms of wilderness exploration.

“I founded STITT in February 2004 mainly to offer a range of sports tours. Kalaw seemed like a good place to promote outdoor activities like cycling and trekking,” he said.

To this end, last year he hired James Strange – an outdoor sports consultant from the United States – to assess the situation and see what could be done about becoming the first travel company in Myanmar to establish mountain bike tours in Shan State.

Mr Strange obliged by organising what he refers to as a three-day “shake-down cruise” of the trails and dirt roads around Kalaw with a small group of cyclists in November 2006.

He said he liked what he saw.

“That first trip went very well because Kalaw is such a beautiful area. The dirt trails are world class, the weather is fantastic and the local people are very friendly,” he said.

The next steps, Mr Strange said, were working out the logistics of making mountain biking excursions viable for tourist groups and – even more important – figuring out how to attract people to Shan State for cycling trips.

“As far as logistics go, Kalaw is fairly simple because it’s already open to tourists and there are unlimited trails in the area. We just had to figure out which ones can be ridden by bicycle,” he said.

To help visitors overcome the hassle and cost of transporting their bikes by air, STITT purchased a small fleet of high-end mountain bikes to keep in Kalaw for use by tour groups.

Another key decision was to focus on simple, inexpensive “base camp” style tours rather than point-to-point trips.

“We base the trips in Kalaw so we can go out and ride a loop, take some photographs and talk to people along the way. That way we get back to Kalaw mid-afternoon, shower, rest and have a great supper,” Mr Strange said.

As for attracting tourists to the idea of mountain biking in Myanmar, STITT has one of the hottest trends in the global travel industry on its side – the rapidly growing popularity of adventure tourism.

Last year the US-based Adventure Travel Trade Association surveyed 220 adventure travel companies in 35 countries and found that 83 percent of them had realised revenue growth between 2004 and 2005, with an average gross revenue increase of about 25pc and profit gain of about 22pc.

Meanwhile, a 2004 study of mountain bike tourism conducted by the government of the Yukon Territory in Canada concluded that “sport/adventure tourism is the fastest growing sector in the tourism industry” and that “mountain biking is one of the most popular adventure sports in the world”.

Significantly for the tourism industry, mountain bikers are generally well-educated people aged 25 to 45 with high incomes, the study said, meaning that they have the resources to travel the world in search of prime cycling spots.
And STITT is keen on touching on this moneyed and tuned-in group by reaching out to major travel companies in Myanmar so they can promote and sell the tours to foreigners booking trips from overseas.

But for starters, the company is content to rely on walk-in clients who just happen to find themselves in the Kalaw area.

“Our brochures are in the hotels so people can easily stumble into us. We also have a storefront set up near the Kalaw market among the other companies that offer trekking tours,” Mr Strange said.

He added that if mountain biking takes off in Kalaw, STITT plans to expand the tours to Bagan and other areas in the country.

“A lot of folks come to see pagodas but if we can establish a couple places in the country where you can do adventure-type activities, I think the potential is enormous,” Mr Strange said.

One of the participants in the November 2006 “shake-down” ride, US resident Randy Pierce, agreed that Kalaw was a good place to start.

“Shan State is very suitable for people who want to experience the realness of life outside of tourist centres,” he told The Myanmar Times by email. “I have and will continue to recommend Myanmar as an adventure destination. In fact, I’m making plans to come back once or twice this winter with some of my friends for more biking.”

“I encourage everyone I see to quit watching the news on TV and get out to see the real world.”