Three of the 582,357 Buddha images at Thanboddhay Phaya, 10 kilometres southeast of Monywa. Pic: Thomas Kean

MOST visitors to Mandalay don’t look west when planning their next move, unless it’s a day-trip to nearby Sagaing or a flight to the Rakhine State beach resort of Ngapali. They also generally don’t travel by motorbike, mostly for practical reasons.

Both of these are oversights; less than 140 kilometres to the northwest lies Monywa, the capital of Sagaing Division. Monywa is a booming industrial town that flanks the Chindwin River and is a centre of trade with both India and the upper Chindwin region.

The Mandalay-Monywa route is well serviced by express buses that make the journey in about three hours, and for the adventurous (or perhaps the foolhardy) the town can allegedly be reached by train as well. Hitting the road on a motorbike, though, affords travellers a kind of freedom that buses or trains can’t match – and leaves you with a better sense of what living in lower Sagaing Division is really like.

As well as being a regional centre, Monywa is close to a number of cultural attractions, including the largely intact Pho Win Taung caves, Thanboddhay Phaya and Maha Bodhitataung. None of these are in Monywa town so a motorbike is particularly handy for exploring the area.

Bullock carts are as numerous as cars and buses between Mandalay and Monywa.

But there are highlights even before leaving Mandalay Division. With my Myanmar travel companion at the controls of our Chinese 125cc motorcycle and me sitting at the back, we crossed the 3983-foot Inwa Bridge, which was a literally hair-raising experience, even in calm weather – the crosswinds, coupled with the sheer magnitude of the Ayeyarwady River below, made for an unforgettable experience.

After Sagaing, the landscape hardened and became seemingly inhospitable, a feeling amplified by the late morning sun beating down. Closer to midday, I began to wonder how anyone can live out here. The dry creek beds, short scrubby trees and sandy soil reminded me of another unforgiving place, the Australian outback.

But then a shady copse of trees appeared like an oasis, forming a canopy over the road and providing temporary relief. And, apart from a few stretches, the land was almost always being cultivated, with peanut and sesame crops as well as the occasional flooded rice paddy.

Beside the road ran a deeply rutted bullock cart track and there seemed to be more bullock carts plying this path than modern vehicles on the highway.

That being said, the highway was in relatively good condition and getting better. We saw repair works going on in several places but the road deteriorated the further we travelled from Sagaing. This was most noticeable where we first broke our journey, in a village – really, a bunch of houses clustered around a teashop-cum-restaurant where sleeping dogs seemed to outnumber people – just past the junction town of On Daw.

Here the road split – traffic heading either west to Monywa or north to the ancient capital of Shwebo.

Every bump was felt and amplified sitting on a motorbike but the fun and freedom of making the journey on two wheels was part of the attraction – even if, like me and my travel companion, you’re on a shoddily built Chinese 125cc that threatens to overheat at the sight of a small crest. We had to break our journey three times to give our beleaguered motorbike a breather. This gave us the chance to stop and look around ramshackle villages as well as bustling transit towns like Myinmu, where the main road was lined by parked motorbikes that seem to stretch the length of the town.

Myinmu serves as a centre for the local agricultural community, where many of the villages’ shop owners buy their goods and most of the produce is sold. Locals say the town will develop further when the project to upgrade the Mandalay-Monywa road is completed in the next three years.

Along this highway, an approaching town is not heralded by a sign or advertisement (don’t expect to see “McDonalds Chaung Oo, just 5 miles!”) but by the ubiquitous fuel stations with their hose and bucket setups. At one of these petrol shacks, the owner urged us to visit the local pagoda festival just up the road. We were more interested in getting to Monywa (and out of the sun) but contemplated stopping when, a mile or so up the road, we passed a group of pretty young things walking up the path to the pagoda, laughing under the shade of their umbrellas.

Then in the distance loomed Maha Bawditah-taung, at the western edge of the Po Khaung Hills. The 550-foot standing Buddha image towers so high over the flat terrain that it’s almost overbearing, always there in the corner of your eye. It’s like driving near the ocean: Once you spot it for the first time, you wonder how you didn’t notice it earlier.

On the scale of objects that are just impressive because they are so big, I would put Maha Bawditahtaung up there with the Eiffel Tower and maybe Ayers Rock. Standing at the Buddha’s feet and looking up at the rest of the body was enough to induce vertigo and its nostrils look big enough to crawl through (or, more scarily, fall out of).

The road that leads to Maha Bawditahtaung is well signposted (in Myanmar language) from the main road, as is the paved way to Thanboddhay Phaya a few miles further along – another place well worth a visit. While the pagoda complex and monastery are pleasant to wander through, the main attraction is Thanboddhay Phaya, home to more than 500,000 Buddha images (582,357 to be exact, according to engravings on a stone tablet in the pagoda). The pagoda is relatively new; construction began in 1939 and finished about 20 years later. It was meant to ward off famine, disease and war, so it’s fair to say 1939 was an inauspicious year to begin construction.

Continuing on, we eventually reached the outskirts of Monywa and I spotted a lake, with the tips of submerged trees breaking the surface. Only, it wasn’t a lake – it was the Chindwin River, which had recently flooded again. So common is this flooding that riverside residents frequently keep their chairs on top of their tables. Four years ago there was a major flood and it’s not hard to imagine the waters rising up the walls the way local residents describe. From Strand Road I watched the river surge ferociously with a force I’d never seen before, idle boats tugging on their moorings threatening to break free.

It is here you can take the ferry across to the village of Nyaungbingyi and then continue the 15 miles to Pho Win Taung. However, every local we spoke to said we would be crazy to attempt a river crossing at this time of year. Instead, we crossed the imaginatively titled Chindwin River (Monywa) Bridge, about 6 miles north of town. The 4650-foot bridge – locally designed and constructed at a cost of about US$10 million – opened in April this year and is part of the government’s plan to enhance transport links to the Indian border and the town of Tamu.

Pho Win Taung is another 18 miles west, past the Ivanhoe copper mine and the mining town. It’s a bit hard to find; a guide or someone who can speak Myanmar – to ask for directions – is highly recommended. Don’t be put off by the difficulty of reaching Pho Win Taung as it’s certainly worth the effort. The 492 caves cut into the 965-foot mountain are filled with hundreds of Buddha images, some intact, some cracked and some worn away almost completely by floodwaters.

The cave complex, which was built from the 14th to the 19th centuries, is home to three different clans of monkeys, who have also been known to knock over a Buddha image or two. On the next mountain – Shwe Ba Taung – there are 46 more recently built caves but we decided to save these for another day.

There are several places to stay in Monywa. At the upper end of the scale is Win Unity Resort Hotel, about 1 mile north of town on the road to the airport. It’s a luxury villa complex with nicely appointed rooms, some set on a small lake.
Closer to the action is the very reasonably priced Shwe Taung Tarn Hotel and Restaurant. The rooms are basic but have air con and the restaurant is a nice addition. The food might be a bit average, but the garden and rooftop dining area are perfect for a Myanmar beer or three. A better option is Su Restaurant, which is similar to Mandalay’s Too Too Restaurant – Bamar curries with a table full of side dishes and condiments.

The return journey revealed a softer side of the Sagaing landscape that was previously unimaginable. We departed Monywa’s sleepy streets at 5am and watched in the early morning light as the countryside came to life, with farmers tilling fields as the sun rose over the standing Buddha and clusters of green and white-clad children rode their bikes to school.

A breakfast stop in a nameless village brought another surprise, this time culinary: sa kaleh gyaw (literally, small fried sparrow). While not unpleasant, the flavour really took a backseat to the sensation of the bird’s bones crushing in my mouth (the sparrow is eaten whole, except for the beak). My companion told me they’re much nicer when they’re fresh – these ones were probably yesterday’s leftovers.

Minutes later we were on the bike again, heading back to the hustle and bustle of Mandalay.

MONYWA

What to see:
- Pho Win Taung caves, 25km west of Monywa, admission $2.
- Thanboddhay Phaya, 20km southeast of Monywa, admission $3.
- Maha Bawditahtaung, admission free.

Where to stay and eat:
- Win Unity Resort Hotel, Bogyoke Road, Yone Gyi Quarter. Single $18-46. Double $24-54, both including breakfast.
- Shwe Taung Tarn Hotel, No 70 Station Road. Foreigner $5, local K3800, including breakfast.
- Su Restaurant, Station Road. Dishes K2000.