The only planning we did before leaving for Burma (despite
my OCD and excessive excel files syndrome), was pretty much just booking the
tickets and the applying for the e-VISA. More than packing the right amount for
a 10- day backpacking trip, my concern was more regarding calming my nerves at
the lack of “detail”! Anyway, a day before we were to depart I called on the
number mentioned on the Golden Lily site to confirm if the rains were too bad
for a trek through the hills, and was greeted a very enthusiastic Ms Sheila whose enthusiasm went up a few notches on knowing I was calling from India (!!)
and assured me of a fabulous trek!
We landed in Mandalay in the afternoon, and after several
hilarious turns of events (not understanding the language or the signs and
almost missing our bus) we managed to get on to the right bus to Kalaw, which
we reached in the wee hours of next morning. And there in the middle of
nowhere, was a turbaned figure of warmth, charm and hospitality, Mr Robin
Singh! We were 5 of us who would going on the trek with him in a few
hours, a German, a Swiss, a Korean, a
French and myself an Indian and obviously Robin Singh ji took special liking to
me! Turns out, his great grandfather fought in Burma under the British empire
and since then his family has stayed back and started doing the trek for some
30 years back or so. Almost 57 now, never having visited his motherland, saving
every penny to be able to someday, it was incredible to see the kind of joy one
can give by just speaking in their tongue! It was incredulous to see how happy
the family was to be able to speak in Hindi and talk about achaar (pickle) and parantha (Indian
bread)!
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| And so it began.. |
After a few hours of sleep, we woke up the next morning, all
refreshed and excited to embark on our 2 day trek through the pristine lands of
Myanmar. Within a first couple of minutes, it was evident that not only will
the trek be a lesson for our physical strengths but also for our geography,
ecology and biology skills! After so many years of trekking through the same
lands, Mr Robin clearly had developed specialized knowledge regarding every
leaf, shrub, wild fruit we saw on the way! And to our luck, the lands of Burma
are extremely fertile, so within the first 30 minutes we crossed avocado trees,
coffee plantations, cauliflower fields, blooming sunflowers, rice fields! Yes,
all of this in the first 30 minutes! Then one of the local families invited the
always effable Mr Singh for tea (and hence the invitation very happily got
extended to us). Also the family and Mr Singh had never spoken before, but
apparently this is how all happy and friendly Burmese are! What should have
been a quick 15 minute tea sharing session, turned into a 2 hour story telling
session during which not only did we have cups after cups of tea, but all kinds
of fried fish, peanuts and vegetables, freshly plucked fruits and locally
brewed alcohol! A very heady and unexpected start to a trek!
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| The extremely hospitable couple, with a Polaroid of all of us together which we gifted them!
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| Trying so hard to eat, talk and sit in that posture all at the same time! |
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| look at the size of the cabbages! |
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| Mr Robin y'all! |
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Once we took leave from the extremely hospitable family, we
continued on our trek and our educational experience about the flora of the
Kalaw region. Next stop was for lunch and it was at a village monastery with
the locals working to repair the monastery and the head monk. Sharing our lunch
with them, playing
chnilone with the
young monks, talking to the head monk and him giving us locally made ointments
(!?) just made us think and believe how the next few days in Myanmar will
probably be one of the most warming and touching experiences we will ever have!
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| Quick game of chinlone with the young monks! |
Next couple of hours were spent in covering in around 15
kilometres around the lush fields, the rolling hills, extremely friendly and
photogenic farmers, adorable kids running behind us, tiny houses housing really
big cattle, and lots of bamboo making people! Our bunk for the night was one of
the village’s headman’s house, which he had very graciously given us to spend
the night in. Brilliant food, and too much of it, never ending kettles of tea through the night, card games
with people we had met a few hours ago, some Korean shows with the headman’s
daughters, we could not possibly have been more immersed in hospitality than
that!
Next day, with the crack of dawn we were treated to some
more amazing tea, instant Burmese coffee (yeah, that’s a trend there) and very
sweet and delicious French bread! While the first day seemed more about food
and expanding our ecological horizons, Mr Robin Singh seemed to be determined
to cover lost distance the next day. So it was almost 20km if not more in half
the time! So while Robin Singh went hop, skip, jump across the trail, as the
rest of us went stop, pant, huff a good 50 metres behind him at any given
point! Got to give it to him for that incredible stamina! The trek with all its
glory ended with steaming hot bowls of noodle soup of Shew InnThein, from where
we took our 1
hour long boat trip to Inle Lake.
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| them Burmese babies! |
