Kyaukme is considerably larger than Hsipaw, but with a fairly compact “downtown” and just the one hotel that accepts foreigners, you’d barely know it. The sole place to stay has a range of options that cover most budgets. All the local guides congregate here, so there is little point in shopping around for trekking info—there’s nowhere to shop around to!

Aside from the trekking, Kyaukme town has three decent hilltop viewpoints though we only managed to get to one of them. It also has a distinctly interesting cottage industry making noodles, bamboo paper and, oddly, lead paper. Any guide who you engage for trekking will most likely offer a visit to these cottage industries as an add-on (our guide actually refused extra money, till we insisted) and it is worth the few hours it will take to visit them—they fit in well before a train out of Kyaukme.

The trekking options are quite varied, with one- and two-day treks the most popular, though friends have trekked for five days out of Kyaukme. When you see the trekking map all the guides use, you’ll see the options are considerable. There are a couple of well known guides who have built businesses off the back of guidebook mentions and while they may trek from very close to town, in our case we rode by motorbike for an hour to get to the ... Travelfish members only (Full text is around 500 words.)