Chaung Tha to Ngwe Saung: Motorbike ride on the Burmese coast

After a bit of a botched start, not finding at first where the first boat to take at the end of Chaung Tha to join the first part of the journey was, we finally boarded the first boat, pushing the motorbike and wedging it for this first crossing.

It is at the same quay where we had disembarked the day before to go to the village of Mose, our guide from yesterday, that we disembarked. We first crossed a first village, taking the same path at the beginning as the one taken yesterday.

Feeling of freedom

And when I arrived at this first beach, lined with coconut trees and no one in sight, I immediately saw myself breaking into a big smile.

What bliss, a deserted, wild beach!

This feeling when arriving on this beach leaves its mark (my wife still asks me when looking at the photos “I want to go back!”).
On the hard sand, I set off on this natural track with only one thought: "What bliss, a deserted, wild beach." Only a few motorbikes pass by from time to time, villagers from the surrounding area.

Meeting with fishermen

We cross the 2nd river without incident and continue, still on a large, long beach. The next one is not completely deserted since fishermen are at work. Net fishing by the sea. The fish are sorted directly on site, put in baskets and then spread out there on the sand. The women select their fresh fish directly.

Already used to going more or less straight ahead, the path not being marked, I was still going straight ahead even though there was still a river to cross.

I then find myself on a softer part of the sand, Jitima is forced to go down otherwise we can't move forward, but even alone it's a pain. I arrive at the river and see the boat to cross, but no dock...

They see us in the distance and wave to us. Not seeing how to get back to the boat, I start to turn around and go back to where the wheel tracks branched off towards the trees.

And indeed, further on after a passage between the trees, we arrived at the last crossing point.

The last area is between a village, a countryside area with a temple that we will visit quickly on the way back, and above all, an area on a bumpy and winding path, because we pass a small hill, before arriving at Ngwe Saung.

Arrival at Ngwe Saung beach

At the entrance to Ngwe Saung it is possible to turn right and join the beach and continue like this by motorbike.

Not knowing too much, in our case we continued on the road which became tarmacked again in places. We then discovered an area radically different from that of Chaung Tha. Here we quickly understood that there were only luxury hotels with gardens.

We will stop on a road between 2 hotel complexes (one under construction) in order to see this Ngwe Saung beach in person. A beach where we had hesitated to stay for a night. We do not regret our choice of staying only in Chaung Tha.

In principle, we will go and sit where the restaurants are grouped, set there in the middle of the beach. We wanted to have a little snack, but they didn't have what I was looking for, so we settled for a drink.

In any case, we had to return before 15 p.m., which left us little time on site.

There is indeed a small temple located on the edge of the beach similar to the one we saw not far from the beach of our hotel on Chaung Tha, but we can see that the atmosphere is different.

There is no one on the beach, which is not a bad thing, but it is definitely not the same feeling of a deserted beach as the one we came across on the way here, already because it is surrounded by hotels, even if the coconut trees are still clearly on the horizon.

Passing through a small temple

It was with this time imperative in mind that we made the reverse journey to return to Chaung Tha. As mentioned earlier, we still had a little time to stop and see the small temple on the hill just after the bumpy path, which really shook my arms.

Back to Chaung Tha, watch the timing…

Afterwards, I would keep up the pace without practically stopping. We had a longer wait than usual when we reached the 2nd boat, other people as well as a tourist with a motorcycle taxi were waiting for the boat to deign to cross.

Finally we will arrive well on time at the last quay. On the way just before, we will meet our guide, Mose, who was with a group of 7 people and had just returned from his village.

He had originally offered to rent his own motorbike, but we thought the price was high and ended up saying that we would "think about it"... We felt a little embarrassed to come across him with a motorbike we had found elsewhere...

Besides, the bike in question was a bit annoying, because of a completely rusty exhaust, it stalled quite easily in addition to having a slightly faulty starter, but at least it was really not expensive.

If that doesn't tempt you, the walk!