We be Trekkin'

Finally some good luck came our way. After a day catching up on some sleep and exploring the little town of Kalaw we started our two day one night trek in a village that just happened to be celebrating the novice monk initiation which happens, oh, about every 22 years or so - when the harvest is good enough to sustain feeding about 1000 people from outlying villages that come help out. It's quite a production. Mass eateries, kitchens, and tea making facilities are all set up, sparkly pink costumes for the monks are rented, horses and chair carriers are rented to parade the little monks around and it's all just a big party with smashing gongs and big drums and the like. We checked out the scene for a couple of hours and were invited into each and every home for food and tea - food food food. Eat eat eat all the time! We did help ourselves to liters of tea and sweet sticky rice, Aaron indulged in the pork curry while I sat wishing I had hollow legs to be able to fit all the food in.

From the monk festivities we moved on past the village monastery out into the rural farmlands of Myanmar. The breeze and semi cloud cover made the heat a bit more bearable as we walked through sparse villages and ginger fields. Our guide Tun-Ti spoke fluent English which made for some great conversation and explanations when we had questions about everything. He also brought along a cook who provided us with the best Myanmar food we had the entire trip - so good! Up some hills, down some hills we broke for lunch in a village where a family lent us their home to use the cooking facilities and Aaron became the big hit by playing a short video taken on his camera of that mornings festivities in a few villages over. A full belly of fried noodles later we trekked for another 3 hours to a remote village where is just happened to be the day they were completing the construction of a new house for a family - again a once in 40 years kind of deal! We helped carry a few of the last remaining items into the new house and joined everyone (an by everyone, I mean all the men - I made myself an exception) for more celebratory sticky rice and tea.

The people of the village rarely see many visitors so when an old old man we met stated :"People from Canada look different from people from Myanmar" it gave us a good laugh. We were asked what our houses were made of in Canada and if we had tin roofs or bamboo walls and if we ate betel or smoked cerroot cigars. They didn't know that Canada was a country or where to find it on a map or probably how to read a map at all but they were very inviting and honored to have us celebrate the completion of the new house. We spent the night with a local family where we enjoyed a lot more tea and shelling peanuts by the fire. That evening we slept under the watchful eye of the family Buddha and awoke in the morning to smoke and sizzling rice. Goodbyes were said and we were on the move again for another sweaty day of trekking.

While we walked Tun-Ti told us all about the local ways of farming, collecting wood, making bamboo mats and baskets, and just about everything to do with life in rural Myanmar. We learned that crab apple trees continue to grow even after you cut all their branches off, beetle larvae are good for eating, and some rocks you can eat for calcium - but not too much or else you'll have problems peeing. Around one o'clock we rested for lunch at one of the many canals leading into Inle lake. Our trek ended there and we were picked up by a boat which ferried us an hour and a half to the other side of the lake into the town of Nyaungshwe where we would base ourselves for the next two nights.

The experience in the hills, away from the dust and pollution of the cities was definitely a highlight of our time in Myanmar. The oodles of children that roam freely put it over the top because they are all just so cute. I don't know what it is...but so far they're winning the cutest kids award. With colourful matching turbans, the tribal peoples were so warm and welcoming that is was really touching to see such a preserved and tight community where neighbors actually help each other out. Rustic doesn't even begin to describe the living conditions of these places but somehow they are much warmer than any big city... ok, wah wah wah, gone off on the touchy feely stuff I know - but some people like that sort of thing.

Anyway, we be trekkin' and it be sweet.