Page 120 - Experience Thailand and More

NEARBY

ATTRACTIONS

Gokteik Viaduct
54.4 Kilometers northeast of Pyin Oo Lwin, Myanmar

If you don’t want to drive, the railway from Mandalay to Pyin Oo Lwin and
then on to Hsipaw is quite extraordinary, a hair-raising adventure. It leaves
each day around 4.00 a.m., arriving about four hours later in Pyin Oo Lwin
after dozens of switchbacks climbing to the Shan Plateau. Then, it’s on
to Hsipaw after crossing the Gokteik Viaduct, a man-made wonder. The
highest bridge in Myanmar and largest trestle in the world, Paul Theroux,
in his 1975 The Great Railway Bazaar, described it as “a monster of silver
geometry in all the ragged rock and jungle”. And before this, what did
Orwell think when he served in this area as a member of the Indian Imperial
Police in the 1920s? It’s hard to fathom that this was built at the turn of
the twentieth century with steel shipped from the US so the British could
continue to extend their empire. This isn’t a journey to be made by someone
suffering from acrophobia as, if measured from the surface of the river to
the rails, it stands over 250 meters high.
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