A paradise called Hpa-An

As mentioned previously, we changed our original planning in Myanmar due to the Fire balloon festival.

We decided to hit the road towards Hpa-An, since we had to fil a few unplanned days before the festival. Even though not too many tourists go there, according to LP Hpa-An is known for its landscape and the great caves. It turned out to be one of the best choices we´ve made! It became one of our favorite places for several reasons. First of all, because of the friendly people. Over here people in general are extremely kind and do their best to make you feel comfortable. Secondly, the landscape. While we were riding our scooter to get to the caves, the view that you get to see is just breathtaking!

Streets of Hpa-An

Lumbini Garden or Buddha park

The caves we´ve visited:

Kaw Ka Thawng cave

The entrance was impressive! Warm welcome by the monks.

Sadan Cave

This cave is the biggest one in the area. It´s a bit further if you compare it to the other caves around, but you will be totally rewarded with the landscape. It is not necessary to get a driver, you can easily rent your scooter and hit the road. The infrastructure here is good enough.

The only thing that we found particularly annoying is the fact that you have to walk bare foot through the entire cave. It might be a better idea to ask the people to walk bare foot only in the areas where the buddha images are, and then afterwards wear your shoes again to cross the cave. The truth is that the floor is very slippery and there are some areas of the cave where it is really dark. It is neither comfortable nor safe walking on a wet floor with lots of bats above you, plus you are walking on their guano which is far from hygienic.

Once you have crossed the cave you will be rewarded though. It´s a stunning scene and place, where you can decide if you take the boat to go back to the entrance or you just walk back the same route through the cave again. We took the boat and the view was completely worth it! The dropping point is only a bit unpractical at some pointy rocks and a walk of 200 meters back to the entrance. Normally it would not be an issue, but without shoes and a hot floor the challenge is bigger.

Amazing images in this cave!

Finally we see the light!

Ok so here we realize, that it was worth the walk without shoes

Final stop

Almost back at the entrance to pick up our shoes again

Bat cave

During the sunset you should make sure that you are at the bat cave to witness a natural and impressive show! The sun is about to go down completely and suddenly you have thousands perhaps millions of bats flying out of this cave above us!

There was a man using a big plastic bottle and a stick as a drum. It was either to make some noise for the bats to come out or a ritual .