I arrived from Bangkok in Yangon (formerly Rangoon) and wandered by rickety bus and stunningly bouncy train to Kalaw, trekked (by mototrbike!) to Inle Lake (over-nighting with a local family), meandered by horse-cart among the (more than 3 THOUSAND!) ancient temples at Bagan, and endured THE most jam-packed/cramped (knees-to-chin for 6 hours - ugh!) bus ride to... my favorite spot of all: Hsipaw (pronounced "see-paw"), a most lovely haven northeast of Mandalay.
Not surprisingly, there are preciously few geocaches to be found in Myanmar (presently - December '13, just 21) and NONE in this wondrously bucolic hill town (nice and cooool at 2,400 ft.). So, naturally, when I stumbled upon the serene little Black House cafe set along the Duthawadi river (with both "Latte" and "Cappuccino" on the menu!) I couldn't help but befriend the owner and ask if he'd kindly take care of a geocache to lure geocachers to this idyllic little town.
Happily, he agreed.
A bit tricky to cobble together a fit container from the local market, and even trickier to locate a hidey just outside of the cafe that's available 24/7, yet secure enough to dissuade (ever curious Asian) muggles AND keep the container under the watchful eye of the cache guardian "Pe Ba". Furthermore, in order to minimize drawing undue attention from the locals to the inevitable oddball antics of gargantuan foreigners lurking about fingering this hidey 'n that - I offer you a detailed description of the hide, along with a spoiler photo of what you'll be looking for, right here on the cache page.
The container is a small, screw capped "bolt" tightly secured to a metal band, further secured by a wire to one of the lattice openings in the decorative brick wall that runs along the front of the cafe. The placement is along the near-bottom row of bricks close to the northernmost corner of the wall. The container dangles behind the wall, out of sight of passersby.
The container holds only a logbook, enclosed in a small plastic bag. Please be sure to tightly close the plastic bag when finished logging, and make certain that the container is hidden from the street so that only the wire is visible to passersby (as in the spoiler photo below).
