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Discover a "lost" monastery, deep inside a teck forest north of Myanmar.
This is journey outside the usual tourist place in Myanmar. You will discover real Myanmar forest, sleep in a remote monastery, top of a granite mountain above the jungle.
It is a travel in time in Myanmar, far from the flock of tourist.
What to see - to expect ?
The main idea about this journey is to make the road. It is a road trip that will bring you to a remote monastery, in a teak forest, you will discover real Myanmar forest, remote vllage, animals (still have monkey and small panthera - no danger).
You will use a boat to go upstream the Irrawaddy river (and sleep on the boat), the car,(bad road...), train (very slow and shacky), motobike and you will have to walk at least 7 hours in the forest to reach the monastery.
You will also walk upstream in the jungle..
When going to Ban Mauk ?
You must avoid the rainy season (moonson from May to end of September). It is raining a lot in that part of Myanmar.
Many roads are still dust road and when it is raining... it is becoming at best a swimming pool of mud... very difficult to drive, even with a 4 wheel drive.
We recommend to go from middle of October to May.
How to go ? Authorization ? Guide ?
You must have a guide to go in this area. We need to apply for a special permit at least three weeks in advance.
We take care of all the red tape...
Two main way to reach Ban Mauk :
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Starting at Mandalay (either by car, train or boat)
- starting at Mogok, in that case you will have to add the Mogok trip before.
For who ?
This road trip should be only for people:
- in good physical shape (6-7 hours walk during two days and it is going up....)
- without any gnee or back problem.
- who are agreeing to sleep on the floor of a monastery or in very simple local guest house
- who do not care to have hot water or normal bathroom (or even a bathroom at all).....
- who are agreeing to drive long time car, spend a lot of very slow motion time in boat, are agreeing to take motobike, train (not confortable...)
- who are agreeing to eat local food in local restaurant or even street food.
and more important, people who understand that we go in remote place in Myanmar, so everything can be late, everything can happen.... this is part of the trip.
Tentative program if you start by Mogok:
You can start your trip to Ban mauk forest and monastery from Mogok (more info on Mogok
- Departure from Mogok to reach the Ayerwaddy river(after deux or three days visiting Mogok and the mines)
- Night on a public local boat (very simple) - it is a two days one night trip with a local boat.
- Night in a local village (very very simple local guest house)
- Drive to Ban Mauk, night in a confortable guest house.
- Jungle and forest trek (6-7 hours, going up),
- Night in the monastery, sleeping on the floor (bamboo mat)
- Jungle trek to go down, car and night in guest house.
- Night train or day train (depending if the train is late or not...) for Mandalay.
- Free day in Mandalay.
We need to have a free day in Mandalay for security. Train and boat schedule may change a lot, we can not have a thight schedule....
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( Ban Mauck monastery - sunrise
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Forest walk to reach Ban - mauk monastery
Ban Mauk monastery
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