Feeling rather pleased with myself finding a bus to Kyaukme (small town in northern Myanmar) direct from Inle meant bypassing the need to stop through Mandalay and change busses. Even though the booking agent wrote the destination on my ticket and apparently phoned the bus company, I had my doubts whether the bus driver would actually wake me at Kyoukme, as most backpackers would be expected to get off at the nearby Hsipaw which is a more tourist friendly town. Regardless of where I ended up, fate would determine my trekking destination and I was happy to go along with it.
Waiting for my bus at the junction around 10km outside of town I met Tom, another Aussie who was looking rough after a hard night on the local rum. He was suffering at the mercy of crazy cheap booze prices where a large bottle of rum at the bar can be had for the same price as a long neck of beer. We got talking and ended up having pre allocated seats next to each other for the 12 hour journey. As we were both keen to do some trekking it was decided that we should team up, after we manage to locate a guest house for a few hours sleep when the bus dropped us in town at 2am. I managed to wake a staff member at Lilly's Guesthouse who eventually let us in, following the bizarre discovery of a thriving local street market in the middle of the night and a kind lady who led us to the accommodation, at the wrong town of course.
Lilly was absolutely amazing at helping us determine where to go trekking, we decided on spending 3 days unguided exploring the mountain villages and she even contacted a couple of people who would be able to host us with their family for the night. We were given a rough list of villages we should pass through, although no map was provided so we hoped at least some locals could understand a little English or that we would not encounter too many cross roads. I spent the afternoon in town checking out some pagodas in Little Bagan, sipping on the best fruit shakes to date in Mrs Popcorns garden and a sitting down to a very interesting talk at the Shan Palace about the Shan state governing, especially the 50 year military ruling which has recently 'ended'.
Our trek began by opting for the initial 1.5hr detour to check out a waterfall which ended up being a little disappointing as it was full of local kids drinking and swimming at 10am, but still a nice view of the small stream curling down the rock face. Back on track we headed past the cemetery just outside of town that included many Chinese grave stones tucked amongst the tall unkept grass. The first part of the trek was relatively flat in the stifling heat as we walked amongst peanut, rice and corn fields, passing occasional stream bathing buffalo. As it was rather warm in the mid 30's we found ourselves perspiring rapidly, possibly with a little help from the previous nights beverages.
Climbing up towards the mountains I had the rather unfortunate experience with my feet starting to blister up and it was only the first morning! Given that not a single blister sprouted on the Nepal treks, it was both surprising and somewhat devastating, the next 60 kilometres were going to hurt. We were in the Shan State which is the largest division in Myanmar bordering Laos, Thailand and China. The land which comprises over a quarter of Myanmars land mass is predominantly rural and home to several ethnic groups.
Local Shan villages that we passed gave off an inviting feeling with their rustic unpowered homes and an abundance of fresh produce growing both in the wider fields and front gardens. Kids would constantly be running up waving and men shaking our hands wanting to know where we are from. Armed with our trusty list of villages we arrived at the town where Lilly had advised we should be able to get lunch and quickly located the most restaurntish looking house. Parched and having consumed most of our water supply, it was not reassuring to find out they did not have any water for sale and after not seeing any in the previous towns, we were slightly nervous about the afternoons hike to our first stopover. They must have seen the looks on our faces because a few minutes later, the young boy who had been sent off returned holding two bottles, our chances of surviving slightly improved. They were also kind enough to give us a couple of bananas and some green tea for lunch, before we set off winding up through the lush mountains.
By the time we arrived at our destination at around 4pm, we were both so stoked to have made it that we did the tourist photo shoot at the very tacky and out of place entrance monument. Not much further up the road more kids came running out to guide us to the family we would be staying with, all the time shouting 'bye' which we hoped was their attempt at hello. My feet had developed a few decent sized blisters, so ditching the hiking boots and kicking back with a pot of local tea was a perfect way to wind down from a tough first days hike. We were staying in one of two houses in the town that were allowed to accommodate tourists and our sleeping quarters was set above a small shop come living and eating area. The family spoke minimal English, though they all looked so excited to be hosting us with constant smiles and warm hospitality, even setting Tom and I a bed on the floor with two mattresses together, which we quickly separated as two days of knowing each other was a little too soon.
Dinner was set out for us in the middle of the lower floor, it was a mixture of dishes in various bowls containing eggs, potatoes, rice, green vegetables and beans. The food was a delicious representation of local produce, given it was not drowned in oil and the vegetables tasted like they had come straight from the garden. We felt like celebrating a successful days hike with a drop of rum, but it turned out the town could only provide warm beer, which we agreed would not quite hit the spot. Instead we relaxed on cane lounge chairs on the upstairs balcony with a cheroot cigar and caught up on some reading. By some uncanny coincidence, Tom pulled out a book the night before that he was about to start reading, the same book that was queued up next on my ebook reader!
The following morning breakfast was again set out in a similar fashion to the previous evenings meal, the omelets actually having some fluffy consistency compared to the thin oily crap that most restaurants had tried to pass off in town. We bid farewell to our gracious hosts and paid the $5 each which was to cover both meals and accommodation for the night. My intention was to take it a little slower this day, although we had a fair idea that it was going to be a decent hike until the next checkpoint, a map would have been handy had we been able to locate one. Most of the day was spent climbing up and around small mountains, many of them covered in tea plants perched on the severe slopes that looked to be painstakingly slow to harvest once the crops were ripe. Women worked away filling their baskets with tea leaves while men plowed the rice fields with buffalo. Nobody seemed to be in any real rush no matter what they were doing, leading such a simple lifestyle and peaceful existence. Many households seemed to have the whole family at home hanging around not having much to do with themselves, maybe it was because we had not seen the area during harvesting time when I assume the hard work might begin.
Not too far in to the morning we approached one of the furthest mountain villages of our trek, where men downed in army uniform were attending some sort of tea leaf processing machine.We tried to work out from a distance if these were the real deal and our assumption was confirmed when we got closer and realised they had some decent firepower slung around their shoulders, mostly a mixed vintage of M16 and AK47's. The town was bustling with soldiers, mostly sitting in small groups having an early morning tipple. We were welcomed to join them which we enthusiastically accepted, sharing in the rice wine and fried pigs ears while taking a closer look at their arsenal which they happily passed us to inspect. It turns out these soldiers are part of the Shan State Army which are a militia group that were formed in 1964 to resist the military government of Burma in the Shan state.
By mid afternoon my feet were really starting to give me grief and it was such a relief to arrive at what we assumed was the evenings destination, however we had somehow bypassed the village we thought we were supposed to be heading to and ended up at one further on. Not remembering any turn off that could have been missed, we begrudgingly followed the locals direciton to what we hoped would be the right village, our directions provided for the trek were quite roughly hand drawn and rather confusing to understand where the second night was to be spent. Arriving at Man Lwe we would have spent at least an our showing our directions to confused locals who didn't appear to understand a word of English, repeating a name we had been given that did not register any comprehension with them. One lady sort of understood a few words in English and tried to take us to a house with a telephone which did not work out, besides we had no numbers to call anyway. Just as we gave up and were slowly making our way to the edge of town to commence the 4+ hour hike back to Hsipaw (that would see us trekking past sun down) she registered on the word hotel and much to our relief showed us to one of the nicest houses in the village, where I think they were expecting us.
Much the same as the previous night, the welcoming family set us up a double bed (I'm not sure what sort of men usually arrive in pairs to these villages) which again we politely separated and accepted their offer of food since we again did not have lunch and were starving, though we must have miss communicated as dinner was not served until a few hours later. The time in between was spent watching the blacksmith across the road pounding out some local farming tools and washing in the same basic shower, a large bucket of cold water with a bowl to pour over ourselves, bringing only one pair of socks each we were beginning to stink!
Dinner was prepared in a kitchen that looked like something straight out of the early 1900's, with mum cooking and the kids running around helping somewhat. Food was again a mixture of local vegetarian produce and while the family sat in the kitchen to eat, we stuffed ourselves in the main living area, barely able to eat half of what was served.
The next morning we opted for the longer 4 hour route back to town where we descended from close to our high point of 1,350m back down to Hsipaw at 450m. Along the way we passed some very unusual front wall security comprised of broken glass built in to the cement, possibly more for decoration(?) as I cannot imagine there would be much crime in the area. Once the 4 hour mark had passed, deciding that we had seen enough farming land since leaving the mountain range (or sick of limping around) and the end was nowhere in sight, I grabbed a tuk tuk when we had reached the main highway, which turned out to be a brilliant decision as we had come out around 10km from town. With time to kill until the following afternoons bus, we treated ourselves to a few beers and a bottle of locally produced Royal Gold whiskey, at less than $2 a pop it actually went down rather dashing when poured over ice.
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