After spending a few days in Yangon, we made our way to Inle Lake. The journey was long, but the wait for the bus at Yangon bus station was even longer.
Ok, I admit it. That was totally our fault. We actually made a huge mistake, which was not double-checking the departure time.
Let me explain.
I can’t say we were too excited about waking up early and spending twelve hours on a bus. We’d leave the hotel at 7 a.m. and take the bus at 9 a.m., we’d need to arrive at the bus station at least one hour before departure time. We’ve read that Yangon bus station is huge, messy and confusing, so we’d have enough time to find the bus company we travel with – That was the plan. But our day didn’t turn out how we planned it. Why? Because we missed our bus. By an hour!
Now what?
“Is there another bus scheduled for today?” I asked.
“There is one at 6 pm, but it’s already fully booked”, said the lady at the front desk.
How come Dimitri said that the bus was at 9 a.m. while it was actually at 8? At the same time, I should have checked to make sure. He sent me the confirmation email, and to be honest, I hadn’t even opened it.
Since we were still in the waiting room of the bus company we were supposed to travel with, we thought we should try to buy another ticket online at least we wouldn’t have to deal with the heat and all the scammers out there. But once again, everything was fully booked.
Now we have to show our teamwork skills
“I guess our only shot is to try and find another bus company that is not listed on 12go,” said Dimitri. I kept the backpacks with me while Dimitri went looking for a bus that has available seats. It was our first time ever being in such a messy bus station. We found it noisy, stressful, and the feeling of being constantly on grad was exhausting.
One hour passed and Dimitri still did not come back. At this point, I started to lose hope “maybe we should go back to Yangon, and take the bus tomorrow. The wait here feels unbearable,” I told myself
Almost two hours later, I saw him coming over. He looked tired and quite irritable, but he was holding something in his hand. Oh, Em, Gee, we were finally going to Inle Lake. Not only that, but we got the last two seats available on that bus!”
Ugh!
It was already 11 a.m. but the departure time was at 6 p.m. We thought we should do something to kill time. We had two options: spend 7 hours at KFC (the only place in the bus station that offers free wifi) or search for a place to visit nearby. Yangon city center was too far.
We both agreed that waiting at KFC would be too much. We searched for a place to visit in Google Maps and found a park that was only a few miles away from the bus station. We jumped into a taxi, I pulled out my phone and held it out to the driver. On the screen was the name of the park. We left the bus station, the traffic was quite heavy and the roads bumpy.
“Show me the address again”, the taxi driver asked.
Well, we could see that he has never heard of this place!
The further we got from the bus station, the more deserted the town was. On the road, the driver stopped a few times to ask people for directions, at that point, we started regretting our decision.
A few minutes later he braked and turned off the engine.
“We have arrived”, he said.
“We are not getting out, right?” I asked Dimitri.
We could bearly see signs of life in this place.
We both agreed that getting off the car would be another mistake. We asked the driver to drive us back to the bus station. We were tired, annoyed, and hungry.
Damn it. We were definitely having a bad day.
Back to Yangon bus station, the day seemed endless, we spent six hours snacking at KFC before finally boarding the bus to Inle Lake.
Ah, the bus was one hour late!
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