Mingalaba! It sounds like a magic spell, the Burmese "hello". Mingalaba! And as a magical, fairy-tale country Myanmar has been marketed worldwide in the last years. Top Destination 2017, crowned as a land of golden smiles, an exclusive destination: now you have to go, just after the opening, before the country loses its unique authenticity and becomes "modern". For us, such statements often act as a deterrent. Too often we have visited a "must-see" and then moved on with a "well, quite nice". For us, the charm of traveling is not collecting sights, but to see what is in between. And so Myanmar brings mixed feelings. Mingalaba! Carefully we lift the magic cloth.

But the door to Myanmar does not open easily and we need a bit more than only Ali Baba's "Open Sesame". Through a dubious travel agency we organize the expensive special permit in addition to the tourist visa, without which we officially can not travel by land from India. The whole procedure is devious and after entering the country we feel as if we had just been robbed from the forty thieves. Only that in our case the forty thieves were border officials in uniform, and a youth with red tinted teeth from betel nut chewing, who as our fixer, had greased with our dollars the right places. Mingalaba! The gate opens and we are in.

Twenty-eight days, more than two thousand kilometers we have to cover in this time. Seven-mile boots are in demand. When planning the route with satellite images, it quickly becomes clear that Myanmar is not blessed with exceptional scenic beauty. A wide plain, cut from the broad Himalayan river Irrawaddy, on both sides an endless carpet of rice paddies. In the west a forested mountain range and then the coast on the Gulf of Bengal. To the east the Shan mountains, still a restricted area. Nevertheless, we try to make up a route that is as varied as possible and also includes some small dirt roads through the backcountry. And as always these sections turn out the most interesting for us.

"He-he-he-he-he", it sounds through the dusk when we cross a small river on a bamboo bridge. "He-he-he-he-he", in a slightly ascending tune. We look around in amazement. On the opposite side of the canal, a young man walks in our direction, followed by hundreds of ducks in the goose-marsh. One behind the other, waddling, like Hansel and Gretel following an invisible bread-crumbling trail. "He-he-he-he-he-he," the train is increasing in speed, splashes into the water, and swims under the small bridge, aiming for an enclosure on the other side of a small pond. The young man raises a bucket of rice on his head and wades through the deep water. The ducks welcome him enthusiastically. Time for dinner.

Finding food, for us not as easy as for the ducks. If we only had brought a Wishing-Table to Myanmar. In silvery aluminum dishes, the various rice garnishs are standing in glass cabinets, at 35 degrees in the shade. What happens microbiologically with the steamed bamboo shoots and the chicken in the course of the day, we do not want to imagine. When we glance the first time in the bowls, the smell kills every appetite. Uaah ... - looks like straight out of a magic pot although the woman who lifts the lids does not look anything like a real witch. And so the food search is every day a new challenge. "Let's go hunting," we joke each time when we are looking for a restaurant. Armed with a picture of fried rice with vegetables and egg on the phone, we stray through the alleyways. We ask here, we ask there. From one end of the village we are sent to the other, from the left side of the road to the right, until finally a local man has mercy and shows us the way into a small kitchen. OK, we have passed the seven tests and if everything went according to fairy tale logic, we should now be rewarded with a big feast.

But Myanmar does not have much to do with fairy tales and we know it by now. So we show the cook our app "Icoons for Refugees", point to the picture for rice, onions, tomatoes and egg and also add one of our three wishes: "Please good fairy, make that it is edible." A plate of fried rice lands in front of us. Carefully we sniff. It smells neither sour nor fermented. Thank you good fairy! Today, we do not have to go to bed hungry.

It's the end of February, but the heat hits like the cudgel in the sack. Only in the early morning hours the temperatures are bearable and so we are often already moving in the first light. Like the monks who are walking along the road barefooted in their red robes, carrying their black bowls and begging for alms. We watch women filling rice into their dishes, while the first rays of sunlight illuminate the towers of the golden Pagoda in the village. There are more pagodas and stupas in Myanmar than people and many of them look like the children's dream of a golden fairy-tale castle.

For us, however, they are too pretentious, the Buddha statues with their flashing and blinking neon lamps too shrill, the teachings of the lamas, which are echoed by big megaphone speakers over the villages too obstrusive. It is a different kind of Buddhism than the one we know from the Himalayas. We miss the deep spirituality that we have experienced in Eastern Tibet. We also can not forget that in Myanmar, leading representatives of the peace religion call for violence against other believers. This culminates in the fact that mosques are burnt down and the Muslim minority of the Rohingya is being expelled brutally, so that the UN now speaks of a genocide. And what is about the plastic guns hanging between golden Buddhas and incense sticks on the Holy Market?

We ride over a ridge, sweating salt water streams before finally reaching the sea. Here we enjoy two beach days, swim in the bath-tub-warm water and relax in the shade of palm trees. The Kippling's Bay Guesthouse is quiet and cozy with a garden out of 1001 nights. The dream ends far too fast, the visa clock is ticking and we are already sitting back on the saddle. We bypass the old capital Yangon following small dirt roads again, only in the company of oxen charriots, grazing waterbuffalos and friendly waving people. We reach Hpa An, famous for its Buddha caves and the karst mountains in the area. Like all others, we hire a scooter and make an active rest day. For us as unfamiliar as Rapunzel with short hairs. And then the four-lane highway dragon grabs us and flies with us to the Thai border. Closer to a Happy End.

Mingalaba! Did we find the magic of Myanmar? We are not sure. We loved the smiles of the people, the encounters. But we have also experienced a country that is mostly poor and where the tourist's golden donkeys are tied up too often in the same three places. A country in which the military is officially withdrawn, but still very present in everyday life, and the word "democracy" remains a blurred term for most people. When we asked a tourist in Bagan why she liked Myanmar, she answered: "Because it's still so primitive. People are walking around in their traditional Lunghis and their funny hats, because that's part of their everyday life, not because someone told them to do so." Like the fisherman's wife, the tourists come here to get what they do not have (any longer). And who is determined enough, simply closes the eyes when kissing the frog. Then the charm of Myanmar will surely work. But for cycling you need open eyes. And so Myanmar remains rather a frog than a prince for us.