I was awoken about 4 on the morning on the 4th in Pokokku by loud amplified Buddhist prayers that went on for an hour and a half, proving that Buddhists can be just as annoying as Muslims. I got up about 6 and had breakfast prepared by Mya Mya. I talked with her some more until about a quarter past 7, when she dispatched a neighbor to take me to the bus station on his motorcycle. I watched the small bus (maybe only 30 seats) get loaded with cargo. An already battered dresser was hoisted onto the rack on top and wedged between the metal bars. On top of that some sort of metal rack was tied, along with bags and boxes.
We set off at 8 and I was given a roomy seat right in front, opposite the driver. It is, i think, about 90 to 100 miles to Mindat in Chin State, and I was told the trip would take six hours. We headed west on a sunny, cool morning, but about 8:30 we stopped and then turned back to pick up some other passengers. On our way west again, we got a flat tire about 10. Surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly, the bus carried no spare tire. The driver and his assistant pulled off the tire and removed its tube and then inflated it and two other tubes they had with them with a compressor located under the chassis of the bus. They then deflated them and the assistant took off on a passing motorcycle. He came back, having patched up one of the tubes, I imagine, and they replaced it in the tire. The whole thing took about an hour, and then we were off again heading west.
The countryside was pretty, with some hills. I saw quite a few bullock carts along the way. We stopped for lunch about noon and I ate some cookies and hard boiled quail eggs I had brought with me. About 2 we stopped again, this time for about an hour and a half, at a tire repair shop where more work was done on the tire. I didn't mind the stop, in a pleasant little village. I walked around a bit and then sat on the main street, watching the people and bullock carts pass.
After what I hoped was the final tire repair, we set off again, still heading west. By late afternoon we had risen to about 1200 feet elevation, by my altimeter (which hadn't been set to a known altitude since Katha, so could have been off a couple of hundred feet, or even more), in a pretty area with rice fields set against low hills. We began to climb into the hills of Chin State, soon passing the Chin State border. Chin State has only been open to individual tourists in the last year or two. We rose rapidly on a fairly good road into the forested hills in the late afternoon, finally reaching the town of Mindat, at about 4500 feet (by my altimeter), just before 6 as it got dark.
The bus stop was opposite a gloomy looking wooden guest house, without any hot water. I had been told of another one with hot water, so I got directions and started walking. Soon a guy offered me a ride on his motorcycle. The guest house was quite nice, though they seemed surprised to see me, needing to summon someone from somewhere else to deal with me.
I checked in and then walked the dark streets to a restaurant near the bus stand, 15 or 20 minutes from my guest house. It was a small, dark place, but filled with local people, and I had a delicious dinner there: rice, pork, fish, greens, sprouts, soup, and several kinds of vegetables, all served in individual little plates. By the time I finished all of the other customers had finished and left. One of the serving girls cut an avocado in half and gave me half, sprinkling sugar on it. It was delicious. The meal cost me all of a dollar and a half.
The people in the restaurant were very friendly. The Chin look fairly distinctive from the Burmese. They compose only about two percent of Burma's population. (The Kachin in the north number even fewer, about one percent.) Chin people also live over the border in the Indian state of Mizoram and in Bangladesh.
I walked back through the dark streets, with very few lights, to my guest house under a full moon and a sky speckled with clouds, quite a pretty effect. The night air was already chilly and back at the guest house I enjoyed the luxury of a hot bucket bath. The night was cold, and I slept under two blankets.
The next morning I was up after 6, just after it got light, and my thermometer measured 63 degrees in my room. I was out soon after 7, walking up and down the main street of the town. Mindat is situated on a long ridge, running mostly east to west. The sun finally warmed the town up. People were friendly and I saw several grannies with intricately tattooed faces, perhaps ten in all. The Chin used to tattoo the faces of their women, supposedly to discourage the Burmese from kidnapping them. But the government put a stop to it in the 1960's, so now it is only old women with tattooed faces. One I saw was also smoking what looked like a sort of corncob pipe.
I walked to the eastern end of town and then came back to a tea shop where I ate a breakfast of tea with condensed milk and some sort of chickpea fritters. After breakfast I walked to a pagoda on a hill at the western end of town. The Chin are about 90% Christian, the result of western missionary activity, but the Burmese government promotes Buddhism and a minority of Chin are Buddhist.
From the pagoda, and from elsewhere in town, I could see Mt. Victoria, more than 10,000 feet high, to the south. There are views of hills in all directions from the town. A young Chin guy who spoke passable English accompanied me up to the pagoda. By then the sun was warm and I was in shorts, a shirt, and sandals. He wore a leather jacket, a scarf, and a wool hat (with the Yankee "NY" on it). As we climbed up, he remarked, "It's hot." Well, yes, if you're wearing a leather jacket, a scarf, and a wool hat.
I spent some time enjoying the views and then walked back to my guest house. Most of the homes and buildings in town are made of wood, and I passed a noisy school and a quiet orphanage. At the guest house I encountered another tourist, a Belgian, who was spending five days in the town. He had come to climb Mt. Victoria, but the guide fees are absurdly high here. He was quoted $65 a day. I was quoted $50 a day. The high fees are an artifact of the days when only tourists willing to pay for permits, guides, and vehicles were allowed to visit the area, so I suppose they will come down in time.
About 2 I had lunch and then hung out in the little restaurant until about 3:30, watching a movie with a little kid, who soon fell asleep, and his older sister, if she was his sister. The electricity cut out just at the climax of the movie, during the final battle on the Golden Gate Bridge between apes, made particularly intelligent after being used as test subjects for an Alzheimer's Disease drug, and the police.
I walked through town a bit more and climbed up to another pagoda and stayed there until after sunset. A full moon rose. It got chilly quickly. That evening I had a much less satisfying dinner, the pork being almost all fat, great big chunks of it. The local people must wonder why I leave the best part uneaten. As I walked back to my guest house through the dark streets under a full moon, I heard a group of children in a nearby building singing "Feliz Navidad."
The next morning about 6:30 I walked to the bus stop. My minivan headed north to Gangaw was due to leave at 7, but left closer to 8. I enjoyed watching the early morning activity in town, with vehicles arriving carrying people and produce for the morning market.
The minivan was comfortable and I had a seat near the front, next to a friendly brother and sister from Mindat headed to Hakha. The brother spoke some English and asked me if I knew Justin Bieber. He asked me several questions about him, but I'm afraid my Justin Bieber knowledge is rather slight. He also told me he didn't like Miley Cyrus, because she was "too sexy," not a complaint I would have expected from a guy who looked about 20. Later he asked me when the expression "holy shit" is used.
From Mindat we headed east for about an hour, down the road I had come two days earlier, to the town of Kyauk-Thu, beyond the Chin State border and at about 1500 feet. There we stopped briefly and the sister bought me a coffee and gave me several of the very sweet little mandarin oranges that are common in Burma.
From Kyauk-Thu, we headed north through a very pretty hilly valley, with lots of rice being grown and harvested, along with patches of vegetables. The houses were all of wood, and there were lots of bullock carts. We stopped for lunch in the little town of Hti-lin at about 11 and reached Gangaw, about 800 feet in elevation, at about 1:30. I had thought I might have to spend the night in Gangaw before heading back up into the hills of Chin State to Hakha, but several others from the minivan were heading to Hakha that afternoon, so I joined them. My guidebook has virtually nothing on Chin State, with no information on hotels and transport.
We changed to another minivan and finally left Gangaw about 2:30 after stops to fill the tank with gas, buy betel nut for the driver, and so forth. We drove north a few miles and then crossed a river and headed west through rolling hills. We started to climb more steeply once we reached the Chin State border, passing a village with a sign post saying "Bung Zung" (my map had it as "Ban Zone") soon after the border. A mileage post (in miles, not kilometers) indicated it was about 70 miles to Hakha.
At first the road up into the mountains was good, and we sped along at about 20 miles per hour. But it very soon deteriorated, and we slowed to about 10 miles per hour. The scenery was marvelous, with views over ridges and ridges of jungle covered hills. I noticed pine trees began to appear at about 3500 feet. We saw few other vehicles and not too many houses as we made slow progress on the dusty road.
About 5:30 we stopped for dinner at the little village of Lam tok, at about 4000 feet elevation and about 40 miles from Hakha. We all ate together at one big table from several different plates, including chicken, pork, and vegetables. One meat dish I couldn't identify. One guy said it was a "monster." Another said he thought it might be bat.
It was after 6 and dark by the time we finished and set off again for Hakha. The driver kept his window wide open so it was cold and dusty inside. The moon was soon up, but the sky was cloudy. Nevertheless, I could see in the moonlight ridges and ridges of hills to the east, with banks of clouds or fog among them. We came across few other vehicles on the road, maybe ten or fifteen over two and a half hours, and only a few dark wooden villages.
We rose to maybe 7000 feet elevation before starting to descend. The lights of Hakha appeared below and we reached it, at about 5800 feet, at about a quarter to 9. We stopped at a guest house on the outskirts of town where the others planned to stay, but they weren't licensed to accept foreigners. The minivan took me to another guest house in an old wooden building near the town center. The town looked pretty much closed up at 9 o'clock. The guest house was fairly comfortable, and the manager gave me a thermos of hot water that somewhat warmed up my still cold bucket bath, but I was happy to wash off the day's dust and grime before going to bed. My thermometer registered 63 degrees in my room before I went to bed at about 10:30, but I slept warmly under a comforter and two blankets.
I was up before 7 the next morning. My thermometer had dropped to 55 degrees. The town still was quiet and I saw the moon setting over hills to the west just beginning to be lit up by the rising sun. I got back into bed until about 7:30 and soon after 8, the morning still cold, began a walk around town.
Hakha reminds me of a town from the Old West, with almost all buildings of wood and many of several stories. The wide streets are paved, but dusty, with little vehicular traffic, and that mainly motorcycles, with the occasional truck. Hakha is the Chin State capital, strung out over a valley in the hills. The Indian border is only about 30 miles to the west, and Bangladesh about 40 miles further.
As I walked around town on a Sunday morning, I was struck by the large number of churches and other church affiliated buildings, of all sorts of denominations, mostly Baptist, but also Roman Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, Assemblies of God, Pentecostal, and others. I walked by a big outdoor breakfast, with maybe thirty people seated at a long table, with big pots of rice and other food cooking alongside. It was a wedding feast, the day after the wedding. I talked to some of the folks there, including the mother of the bride, and was told the bride lived in Malaysia and the groom in the United States, if I understood correctly.
About 10 the streets were filled with people headed to church, usually starting, I was told, at 10 or 10:15. I was invited to a service but declined, not wanting to be stuck inside for two hours or more. Some of the older men had western style jackets, but made of brightly colored, mostly red, traditional Chin fabric, while many of the women were dressed up, at least one in very high heels. The town did seem to get noticeably quieter after 10, though there were still people on the streets. About 10:30 I stopped in at a friendly tea shop for a greasy, but delicious breakfast.
After breakfast I continued my walk around town, peeking in through the door of the Pentecostal Church. The interior was filled with hanging Christmas decorations and many of the women wore white scarves on their heads. Nobody seemed to mind my staring in, and several smiled and even waved. Outside the church some young folks had gathered, seemingly more interested in flirting than the church service.
I wandered around some more and finally found my way to the Zion Baptist Church, with some bright poinsettias growing outside. I stood outside and listened to what might have been a part of a sermon and then a hymn. A Chin man also standing outside in a black western style suit struck up a conversation. He told me his name was Bik and that he had spent nine and a half years in the United States, mostly in Battle Creek, Michigan, where he had an adopted father who was a Chin minister. He told me there were about 2000 Chin in Battle Creek, and more in Grand Rapids. He mentioned several other cities with lots of Chin people, including Indianapolis, with 10,000.
He told me he had worked as a sushi chef, of all things. (I asked him about that several times, to make sure I had understood correctly.) I asked him is he liked sushi and he said, "Not really." He came back to Hakha four and a half years ago to get married, and now has a two and a half year old son. He told me he hopes to go back to Battle Creek, as the education and health care is so much worse in Burma.
While we were talking and the service rumbled on, men in red robes came out and passed out, first, little bits of cookies, and, later, little plastic vials of what appeared to be grape kool-ade. Bik advised me to hold them until he signaled, and then we consumed them.
After hymns, the service ended about noon, and people streamed out, not pausing for any socializing. Bik headed home. I wandered around some more, eventually heading back to the town center. Bik spotted me and invited me into his home, introducing me to his mother and father. We sat in a big wooden room and I was given a cup of thin coffee. He was still in his suit, which he told me he bought in Hakha for $140. He brought out a photo albums to show me photos of his life in Battle Creek and visits to other parts of the U.S.
I spent an hour or so at my hotel and then set out to try to find the bus station to buy a ticket for Falam, further north. I found it and bought a minivan ticket for the next morning. I found a fairly good restaurant for lunch, with a video of a Shania Twain concert in Chicago playing on the television.
Later in the afternoon, as I was again walking around town, I met an 80 year old man, who looked much younger, perhaps in his 60's, named Van To. He invited me to his house and introduced me to his 32 year old wife. We sat in his front room and talked. He is a retired education official and has recently, in 2010, published a Chin-English grammar book. He showed it to me and it looked very well done. He told me he had 1000 printed and sent 300 to Dallas.
He was a very interesting man, having gone to the University of Rangoon from 1958 to 1963, majoring in Political Science, History, and Economics. His children, of whom he had graduation photos on the walls of his front room, are now in Dallas, Australia, and Norway. He told me that there is a Chin refugee trail from Burma through Thailand to Malaysia (getting there "by hook or crook," he said), where many Chin are allowed to stay hoping to get refugee status to move to the United States, Australia, or other places. He said his son was the first to lead a group to Norway. He told me that many Chin have moved to Mizoram in India, which they can easily reach across the border, where life is better.
He also told me that before the Chin became Christians, they worshiped "not evil," but things like stones and trees. He had a picture of Jesus up on his wall. After leaving his house, I walked around some more, but it was getting cold as it got dark. That night the guest house manager gave me two thermoses of hot water, so I had a somewhat warmer bucket bath than the night before. I went to bed about 9.
The next morning I was outside my guest house at 7 in wait for my minivan to Falam. The town was busier than on the previous Sunday morning. Shops were being opened. As I had walked out of the guest house I had noticed a western bicycle parked just inside, and soon a European bicyclist appeared with it, ready to set off south, the way I had come. He had arrived the afternoon before from Falam. We talked a while before my minivan arrived about 7:45. It took me to the place where I had bought my ticket, where I was placed into another minivan. From there we went to a tire shop to fill up the tires with air and made several other stops before finally getting gong about 8:30.
We headed north out of town and just beyond the town reached a scenic spot where the driver stopped and said something. A man stood up in the minivan and recited a somewhat long prayer, while some of the others occasionally murmured approval and all said "amen" at the end.
The morning was sunny and clear, with good views of the hilly countryside. The hills weren't as densely forested as they had been before dark south of Hakha. Along with lots of trees were brown grassy areas, though most of the hills were tree covered. Unfortunately, I had a back row seat on the very bumpy road. Fortunately, it is only about 40 miles to Falam from Hakha. We passed several wooden villages as we traveled between 5000 and 6000 feet in elevation the whole way.
We arrived in Falam, at about 5100 feet (according to my altimeter), at 11. I was the only passenger to get off there. The others, it seemed, were all heading to Kalaymyo. I was dropped off right at a guest house in the middle of the small town. A big red Baptist church stood in a prominent position above the main junction of the town. I went into a nearby tea shop for a late breakfast/early lunch of corn soup, with lots of big, fat kernels of corn, and fried bread, along with tea.
Afterwards I walked around the pretty little, mostly wooden town that clung to the slopes of its hills, with good views out over the countryside below. I wandered along the main paved roads and several dirt lanes, finding a few old and very dilapidated brick buildings with chimneys with grass now growing out of them. Perhaps they are relics of the colonial era. I also found a profusion of beautiful red flowers, the same color as poinsettias, but different, with great big blossoms. People seemed reserved, but friendly. Back at my hotel I met two Americans, one just getting off a minivan from Kalaymyo while the other one has been here for three months teaching.
I walked around some more in the late afternoon, ending up at the town's main intersection, just below the big red Baptist church. A uniformed traffic policeman was now stationed there, though there was very little traffic to direct, mostly motorcycles, though rarely did three, or even two, approach at the same time. The intersection, however, was a bit of tricky one, sloping and a bit like the central section of an 8. The traffic cop, equipped with a whistle, took his job very seriously, giving stiff armed commands to drivers, some of whom obeyed him and some who seemed to ignore him. He paused to admonish one driver, stepping away from his post just before about four motorcycles approached at the same time. A little wooden pavilion stood just above the intersection and I sat there to watch him. He wasn't there for long, just for the late afternoon rush hour, I guess.
After he left, I talked with a retired headmaster of a school who stopped by the pavilion for a chat. He told me Falam was something over 5000 feet in elevation and that he thought it had about 10,000 people. It is interesting that it is old people, educated before the disastrous 1962 coup, who speak the best English, though younger people are now beginning to learn it again. After a dinner heavy with pork fat, I went to bed about 9, skipping a bucket bath as there was no hot water.
At 5:30 the next morning amplified loud music began blaring from a church, followed by a sermon that went on for almost an hour, proving that Christians can be just as annoying as Buddhists and Muslims. The thermometer in my room read 59 degrees and the town was enveloped in fog.
The fog in town had cleared as I walked to the nearby bus stop just before 7. I had booked a bus ticket rather than a minivan ticket to Kalaymyo, maybe 80 miles away, the day before because the minivan had seats only in the far back. Originally, I had hoped to go to the town of Tiddim further north, but found you had to go to Kalaymyo first.
The bus was packed with people and cargo. In fact, the seats in the back half of the bus had been removed to make more space for cargo, though people then sat on the cargo. The roof, too, was filled with cargo and maybe 20 people. I had the seat next to the window right behind the door, which was tied open. People sat and stood in the aisles. We got going soon after 7, but made several stops in town to load more people and cargo, so it was almost 7:30 before we left town.
Just north of town is a deep gorge, with a river at the bottom. The bus stopped at the beginning of the descent into the gorge, at a very scenic overlook, with great views down into the gorge and across to the forested hills on the northern slopes of the gorge. The driver said something and a man stood up and recited a prayer, with a chorus of "amens" at the end. I hoped the prayer was not a complete substitute for checking the brakes and tires before our descent.
The overburdened bus descended the zigzagging, mostly asphalted road down the mountainside to the river, dropping more than 4000 feet. Just before the bridge over the river the bus made a short stop, where we could stretch our legs. It was cloudy at the bottom of the gorge, some morning fog or clouds above not yet having cleared.
As we made our ascent on the other side, I noticed one hillside with the leaves of the trees changing colors, with lots of red and yellow leaves. The road was in good shape, mostly paved, and we passed several villages of wooden buildings. We climbed up to pine trees again. There was some fog along the way, but lots of great views over the forested hills.
About 10:30 we stopped in a village, at about 6300 feet, where we had a meal break. Quite a few vans had also stopped there for a meal. Vans seem to be the mode of transportation if you can afford them. The rice and chicken and vegetables were good and the town friendly. I watched a woman preparing betel nut, spreading liquid lime onto bright green leaves and then adding betel nut and other stuff. A young women came out and said, "This is my mother. Isn't she beautiful?"
After lunch we continued north, ascending to over 7000 feet before we began our descent and turned to the east. We left Chin State and reached the valley floor, full of rice fields and with good views of the Chin hills to the west, at about 1:30 and reached Kalaymyo about half an hour later. My altimeter gave the elevation as about 500 feet.
About 2:30 I set off from Kalaymyo, which seems to be the main town of the region (I've read it is about half Chin and half Burmese) in a small open air truck, with wooden benches in the back, bound for Kalewa to the east on the Chindwin River, maybe 20 miles away. The road follows a river through low hills that flows into the Chindwin at Kalewa. The ride through the hills was pretty, though the road often terrible. On the way the truck had a flat tire. In fact, the metal wheel appeared to have cracked. But they did have a spare and we soon on our way again.
It took us almost two hours to reach Kalewa, where I was dropped off at a guest house right above the broad Chindwin River. I wandered around the riverfront, asking about boats upriver and downriver. I was headed downriver, but I hope to come back and travel along the upper Chindwin before exiting Burma for India. At 5 I watched an express boat arrive from upriver and soon continue south, headed for Monywa, I was told.
I ate dinner just before dark in a gloomy little restaurant above the river. The bucket baths at the guest house were of cold water, but bearable at this low altitude along the river, about 400 feet according to my altimeter. It felt good to be clean and the night air seemed warm after the cold night air of the mountains of Chin State. The temperature in my room just before I went to bed at 9 was a balmy 75 degrees.
We set off at 8 and I was given a roomy seat right in front, opposite the driver. It is, i think, about 90 to 100 miles to Mindat in Chin State, and I was told the trip would take six hours. We headed west on a sunny, cool morning, but about 8:30 we stopped and then turned back to pick up some other passengers. On our way west again, we got a flat tire about 10. Surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly, the bus carried no spare tire. The driver and his assistant pulled off the tire and removed its tube and then inflated it and two other tubes they had with them with a compressor located under the chassis of the bus. They then deflated them and the assistant took off on a passing motorcycle. He came back, having patched up one of the tubes, I imagine, and they replaced it in the tire. The whole thing took about an hour, and then we were off again heading west.
The countryside was pretty, with some hills. I saw quite a few bullock carts along the way. We stopped for lunch about noon and I ate some cookies and hard boiled quail eggs I had brought with me. About 2 we stopped again, this time for about an hour and a half, at a tire repair shop where more work was done on the tire. I didn't mind the stop, in a pleasant little village. I walked around a bit and then sat on the main street, watching the people and bullock carts pass.
After what I hoped was the final tire repair, we set off again, still heading west. By late afternoon we had risen to about 1200 feet elevation, by my altimeter (which hadn't been set to a known altitude since Katha, so could have been off a couple of hundred feet, or even more), in a pretty area with rice fields set against low hills. We began to climb into the hills of Chin State, soon passing the Chin State border. Chin State has only been open to individual tourists in the last year or two. We rose rapidly on a fairly good road into the forested hills in the late afternoon, finally reaching the town of Mindat, at about 4500 feet (by my altimeter), just before 6 as it got dark.
The bus stop was opposite a gloomy looking wooden guest house, without any hot water. I had been told of another one with hot water, so I got directions and started walking. Soon a guy offered me a ride on his motorcycle. The guest house was quite nice, though they seemed surprised to see me, needing to summon someone from somewhere else to deal with me.
I checked in and then walked the dark streets to a restaurant near the bus stand, 15 or 20 minutes from my guest house. It was a small, dark place, but filled with local people, and I had a delicious dinner there: rice, pork, fish, greens, sprouts, soup, and several kinds of vegetables, all served in individual little plates. By the time I finished all of the other customers had finished and left. One of the serving girls cut an avocado in half and gave me half, sprinkling sugar on it. It was delicious. The meal cost me all of a dollar and a half.
The people in the restaurant were very friendly. The Chin look fairly distinctive from the Burmese. They compose only about two percent of Burma's population. (The Kachin in the north number even fewer, about one percent.) Chin people also live over the border in the Indian state of Mizoram and in Bangladesh.
I walked back through the dark streets, with very few lights, to my guest house under a full moon and a sky speckled with clouds, quite a pretty effect. The night air was already chilly and back at the guest house I enjoyed the luxury of a hot bucket bath. The night was cold, and I slept under two blankets.
The next morning I was up after 6, just after it got light, and my thermometer measured 63 degrees in my room. I was out soon after 7, walking up and down the main street of the town. Mindat is situated on a long ridge, running mostly east to west. The sun finally warmed the town up. People were friendly and I saw several grannies with intricately tattooed faces, perhaps ten in all. The Chin used to tattoo the faces of their women, supposedly to discourage the Burmese from kidnapping them. But the government put a stop to it in the 1960's, so now it is only old women with tattooed faces. One I saw was also smoking what looked like a sort of corncob pipe.
I walked to the eastern end of town and then came back to a tea shop where I ate a breakfast of tea with condensed milk and some sort of chickpea fritters. After breakfast I walked to a pagoda on a hill at the western end of town. The Chin are about 90% Christian, the result of western missionary activity, but the Burmese government promotes Buddhism and a minority of Chin are Buddhist.
From the pagoda, and from elsewhere in town, I could see Mt. Victoria, more than 10,000 feet high, to the south. There are views of hills in all directions from the town. A young Chin guy who spoke passable English accompanied me up to the pagoda. By then the sun was warm and I was in shorts, a shirt, and sandals. He wore a leather jacket, a scarf, and a wool hat (with the Yankee "NY" on it). As we climbed up, he remarked, "It's hot." Well, yes, if you're wearing a leather jacket, a scarf, and a wool hat.
I spent some time enjoying the views and then walked back to my guest house. Most of the homes and buildings in town are made of wood, and I passed a noisy school and a quiet orphanage. At the guest house I encountered another tourist, a Belgian, who was spending five days in the town. He had come to climb Mt. Victoria, but the guide fees are absurdly high here. He was quoted $65 a day. I was quoted $50 a day. The high fees are an artifact of the days when only tourists willing to pay for permits, guides, and vehicles were allowed to visit the area, so I suppose they will come down in time.
About 2 I had lunch and then hung out in the little restaurant until about 3:30, watching a movie with a little kid, who soon fell asleep, and his older sister, if she was his sister. The electricity cut out just at the climax of the movie, during the final battle on the Golden Gate Bridge between apes, made particularly intelligent after being used as test subjects for an Alzheimer's Disease drug, and the police.
I walked through town a bit more and climbed up to another pagoda and stayed there until after sunset. A full moon rose. It got chilly quickly. That evening I had a much less satisfying dinner, the pork being almost all fat, great big chunks of it. The local people must wonder why I leave the best part uneaten. As I walked back to my guest house through the dark streets under a full moon, I heard a group of children in a nearby building singing "Feliz Navidad."
The next morning about 6:30 I walked to the bus stop. My minivan headed north to Gangaw was due to leave at 7, but left closer to 8. I enjoyed watching the early morning activity in town, with vehicles arriving carrying people and produce for the morning market.
The minivan was comfortable and I had a seat near the front, next to a friendly brother and sister from Mindat headed to Hakha. The brother spoke some English and asked me if I knew Justin Bieber. He asked me several questions about him, but I'm afraid my Justin Bieber knowledge is rather slight. He also told me he didn't like Miley Cyrus, because she was "too sexy," not a complaint I would have expected from a guy who looked about 20. Later he asked me when the expression "holy shit" is used.
From Mindat we headed east for about an hour, down the road I had come two days earlier, to the town of Kyauk-Thu, beyond the Chin State border and at about 1500 feet. There we stopped briefly and the sister bought me a coffee and gave me several of the very sweet little mandarin oranges that are common in Burma.
From Kyauk-Thu, we headed north through a very pretty hilly valley, with lots of rice being grown and harvested, along with patches of vegetables. The houses were all of wood, and there were lots of bullock carts. We stopped for lunch in the little town of Hti-lin at about 11 and reached Gangaw, about 800 feet in elevation, at about 1:30. I had thought I might have to spend the night in Gangaw before heading back up into the hills of Chin State to Hakha, but several others from the minivan were heading to Hakha that afternoon, so I joined them. My guidebook has virtually nothing on Chin State, with no information on hotels and transport.
We changed to another minivan and finally left Gangaw about 2:30 after stops to fill the tank with gas, buy betel nut for the driver, and so forth. We drove north a few miles and then crossed a river and headed west through rolling hills. We started to climb more steeply once we reached the Chin State border, passing a village with a sign post saying "Bung Zung" (my map had it as "Ban Zone") soon after the border. A mileage post (in miles, not kilometers) indicated it was about 70 miles to Hakha.
At first the road up into the mountains was good, and we sped along at about 20 miles per hour. But it very soon deteriorated, and we slowed to about 10 miles per hour. The scenery was marvelous, with views over ridges and ridges of jungle covered hills. I noticed pine trees began to appear at about 3500 feet. We saw few other vehicles and not too many houses as we made slow progress on the dusty road.
About 5:30 we stopped for dinner at the little village of Lam tok, at about 4000 feet elevation and about 40 miles from Hakha. We all ate together at one big table from several different plates, including chicken, pork, and vegetables. One meat dish I couldn't identify. One guy said it was a "monster." Another said he thought it might be bat.
It was after 6 and dark by the time we finished and set off again for Hakha. The driver kept his window wide open so it was cold and dusty inside. The moon was soon up, but the sky was cloudy. Nevertheless, I could see in the moonlight ridges and ridges of hills to the east, with banks of clouds or fog among them. We came across few other vehicles on the road, maybe ten or fifteen over two and a half hours, and only a few dark wooden villages.
We rose to maybe 7000 feet elevation before starting to descend. The lights of Hakha appeared below and we reached it, at about 5800 feet, at about a quarter to 9. We stopped at a guest house on the outskirts of town where the others planned to stay, but they weren't licensed to accept foreigners. The minivan took me to another guest house in an old wooden building near the town center. The town looked pretty much closed up at 9 o'clock. The guest house was fairly comfortable, and the manager gave me a thermos of hot water that somewhat warmed up my still cold bucket bath, but I was happy to wash off the day's dust and grime before going to bed. My thermometer registered 63 degrees in my room before I went to bed at about 10:30, but I slept warmly under a comforter and two blankets.
I was up before 7 the next morning. My thermometer had dropped to 55 degrees. The town still was quiet and I saw the moon setting over hills to the west just beginning to be lit up by the rising sun. I got back into bed until about 7:30 and soon after 8, the morning still cold, began a walk around town.
Hakha reminds me of a town from the Old West, with almost all buildings of wood and many of several stories. The wide streets are paved, but dusty, with little vehicular traffic, and that mainly motorcycles, with the occasional truck. Hakha is the Chin State capital, strung out over a valley in the hills. The Indian border is only about 30 miles to the west, and Bangladesh about 40 miles further.
As I walked around town on a Sunday morning, I was struck by the large number of churches and other church affiliated buildings, of all sorts of denominations, mostly Baptist, but also Roman Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, Assemblies of God, Pentecostal, and others. I walked by a big outdoor breakfast, with maybe thirty people seated at a long table, with big pots of rice and other food cooking alongside. It was a wedding feast, the day after the wedding. I talked to some of the folks there, including the mother of the bride, and was told the bride lived in Malaysia and the groom in the United States, if I understood correctly.
About 10 the streets were filled with people headed to church, usually starting, I was told, at 10 or 10:15. I was invited to a service but declined, not wanting to be stuck inside for two hours or more. Some of the older men had western style jackets, but made of brightly colored, mostly red, traditional Chin fabric, while many of the women were dressed up, at least one in very high heels. The town did seem to get noticeably quieter after 10, though there were still people on the streets. About 10:30 I stopped in at a friendly tea shop for a greasy, but delicious breakfast.
After breakfast I continued my walk around town, peeking in through the door of the Pentecostal Church. The interior was filled with hanging Christmas decorations and many of the women wore white scarves on their heads. Nobody seemed to mind my staring in, and several smiled and even waved. Outside the church some young folks had gathered, seemingly more interested in flirting than the church service.
I wandered around some more and finally found my way to the Zion Baptist Church, with some bright poinsettias growing outside. I stood outside and listened to what might have been a part of a sermon and then a hymn. A Chin man also standing outside in a black western style suit struck up a conversation. He told me his name was Bik and that he had spent nine and a half years in the United States, mostly in Battle Creek, Michigan, where he had an adopted father who was a Chin minister. He told me there were about 2000 Chin in Battle Creek, and more in Grand Rapids. He mentioned several other cities with lots of Chin people, including Indianapolis, with 10,000.
He told me he had worked as a sushi chef, of all things. (I asked him about that several times, to make sure I had understood correctly.) I asked him is he liked sushi and he said, "Not really." He came back to Hakha four and a half years ago to get married, and now has a two and a half year old son. He told me he hopes to go back to Battle Creek, as the education and health care is so much worse in Burma.
While we were talking and the service rumbled on, men in red robes came out and passed out, first, little bits of cookies, and, later, little plastic vials of what appeared to be grape kool-ade. Bik advised me to hold them until he signaled, and then we consumed them.
After hymns, the service ended about noon, and people streamed out, not pausing for any socializing. Bik headed home. I wandered around some more, eventually heading back to the town center. Bik spotted me and invited me into his home, introducing me to his mother and father. We sat in a big wooden room and I was given a cup of thin coffee. He was still in his suit, which he told me he bought in Hakha for $140. He brought out a photo albums to show me photos of his life in Battle Creek and visits to other parts of the U.S.
I spent an hour or so at my hotel and then set out to try to find the bus station to buy a ticket for Falam, further north. I found it and bought a minivan ticket for the next morning. I found a fairly good restaurant for lunch, with a video of a Shania Twain concert in Chicago playing on the television.
Later in the afternoon, as I was again walking around town, I met an 80 year old man, who looked much younger, perhaps in his 60's, named Van To. He invited me to his house and introduced me to his 32 year old wife. We sat in his front room and talked. He is a retired education official and has recently, in 2010, published a Chin-English grammar book. He showed it to me and it looked very well done. He told me he had 1000 printed and sent 300 to Dallas.
He was a very interesting man, having gone to the University of Rangoon from 1958 to 1963, majoring in Political Science, History, and Economics. His children, of whom he had graduation photos on the walls of his front room, are now in Dallas, Australia, and Norway. He told me that there is a Chin refugee trail from Burma through Thailand to Malaysia (getting there "by hook or crook," he said), where many Chin are allowed to stay hoping to get refugee status to move to the United States, Australia, or other places. He said his son was the first to lead a group to Norway. He told me that many Chin have moved to Mizoram in India, which they can easily reach across the border, where life is better.
He also told me that before the Chin became Christians, they worshiped "not evil," but things like stones and trees. He had a picture of Jesus up on his wall. After leaving his house, I walked around some more, but it was getting cold as it got dark. That night the guest house manager gave me two thermoses of hot water, so I had a somewhat warmer bucket bath than the night before. I went to bed about 9.
The next morning I was outside my guest house at 7 in wait for my minivan to Falam. The town was busier than on the previous Sunday morning. Shops were being opened. As I had walked out of the guest house I had noticed a western bicycle parked just inside, and soon a European bicyclist appeared with it, ready to set off south, the way I had come. He had arrived the afternoon before from Falam. We talked a while before my minivan arrived about 7:45. It took me to the place where I had bought my ticket, where I was placed into another minivan. From there we went to a tire shop to fill up the tires with air and made several other stops before finally getting gong about 8:30.
We headed north out of town and just beyond the town reached a scenic spot where the driver stopped and said something. A man stood up in the minivan and recited a somewhat long prayer, while some of the others occasionally murmured approval and all said "amen" at the end.
The morning was sunny and clear, with good views of the hilly countryside. The hills weren't as densely forested as they had been before dark south of Hakha. Along with lots of trees were brown grassy areas, though most of the hills were tree covered. Unfortunately, I had a back row seat on the very bumpy road. Fortunately, it is only about 40 miles to Falam from Hakha. We passed several wooden villages as we traveled between 5000 and 6000 feet in elevation the whole way.
We arrived in Falam, at about 5100 feet (according to my altimeter), at 11. I was the only passenger to get off there. The others, it seemed, were all heading to Kalaymyo. I was dropped off right at a guest house in the middle of the small town. A big red Baptist church stood in a prominent position above the main junction of the town. I went into a nearby tea shop for a late breakfast/early lunch of corn soup, with lots of big, fat kernels of corn, and fried bread, along with tea.
Afterwards I walked around the pretty little, mostly wooden town that clung to the slopes of its hills, with good views out over the countryside below. I wandered along the main paved roads and several dirt lanes, finding a few old and very dilapidated brick buildings with chimneys with grass now growing out of them. Perhaps they are relics of the colonial era. I also found a profusion of beautiful red flowers, the same color as poinsettias, but different, with great big blossoms. People seemed reserved, but friendly. Back at my hotel I met two Americans, one just getting off a minivan from Kalaymyo while the other one has been here for three months teaching.
I walked around some more in the late afternoon, ending up at the town's main intersection, just below the big red Baptist church. A uniformed traffic policeman was now stationed there, though there was very little traffic to direct, mostly motorcycles, though rarely did three, or even two, approach at the same time. The intersection, however, was a bit of tricky one, sloping and a bit like the central section of an 8. The traffic cop, equipped with a whistle, took his job very seriously, giving stiff armed commands to drivers, some of whom obeyed him and some who seemed to ignore him. He paused to admonish one driver, stepping away from his post just before about four motorcycles approached at the same time. A little wooden pavilion stood just above the intersection and I sat there to watch him. He wasn't there for long, just for the late afternoon rush hour, I guess.
After he left, I talked with a retired headmaster of a school who stopped by the pavilion for a chat. He told me Falam was something over 5000 feet in elevation and that he thought it had about 10,000 people. It is interesting that it is old people, educated before the disastrous 1962 coup, who speak the best English, though younger people are now beginning to learn it again. After a dinner heavy with pork fat, I went to bed about 9, skipping a bucket bath as there was no hot water.
At 5:30 the next morning amplified loud music began blaring from a church, followed by a sermon that went on for almost an hour, proving that Christians can be just as annoying as Buddhists and Muslims. The thermometer in my room read 59 degrees and the town was enveloped in fog.
The fog in town had cleared as I walked to the nearby bus stop just before 7. I had booked a bus ticket rather than a minivan ticket to Kalaymyo, maybe 80 miles away, the day before because the minivan had seats only in the far back. Originally, I had hoped to go to the town of Tiddim further north, but found you had to go to Kalaymyo first.
The bus was packed with people and cargo. In fact, the seats in the back half of the bus had been removed to make more space for cargo, though people then sat on the cargo. The roof, too, was filled with cargo and maybe 20 people. I had the seat next to the window right behind the door, which was tied open. People sat and stood in the aisles. We got going soon after 7, but made several stops in town to load more people and cargo, so it was almost 7:30 before we left town.
Just north of town is a deep gorge, with a river at the bottom. The bus stopped at the beginning of the descent into the gorge, at a very scenic overlook, with great views down into the gorge and across to the forested hills on the northern slopes of the gorge. The driver said something and a man stood up and recited a prayer, with a chorus of "amens" at the end. I hoped the prayer was not a complete substitute for checking the brakes and tires before our descent.
The overburdened bus descended the zigzagging, mostly asphalted road down the mountainside to the river, dropping more than 4000 feet. Just before the bridge over the river the bus made a short stop, where we could stretch our legs. It was cloudy at the bottom of the gorge, some morning fog or clouds above not yet having cleared.
As we made our ascent on the other side, I noticed one hillside with the leaves of the trees changing colors, with lots of red and yellow leaves. The road was in good shape, mostly paved, and we passed several villages of wooden buildings. We climbed up to pine trees again. There was some fog along the way, but lots of great views over the forested hills.
About 10:30 we stopped in a village, at about 6300 feet, where we had a meal break. Quite a few vans had also stopped there for a meal. Vans seem to be the mode of transportation if you can afford them. The rice and chicken and vegetables were good and the town friendly. I watched a woman preparing betel nut, spreading liquid lime onto bright green leaves and then adding betel nut and other stuff. A young women came out and said, "This is my mother. Isn't she beautiful?"
After lunch we continued north, ascending to over 7000 feet before we began our descent and turned to the east. We left Chin State and reached the valley floor, full of rice fields and with good views of the Chin hills to the west, at about 1:30 and reached Kalaymyo about half an hour later. My altimeter gave the elevation as about 500 feet.
About 2:30 I set off from Kalaymyo, which seems to be the main town of the region (I've read it is about half Chin and half Burmese) in a small open air truck, with wooden benches in the back, bound for Kalewa to the east on the Chindwin River, maybe 20 miles away. The road follows a river through low hills that flows into the Chindwin at Kalewa. The ride through the hills was pretty, though the road often terrible. On the way the truck had a flat tire. In fact, the metal wheel appeared to have cracked. But they did have a spare and we soon on our way again.
It took us almost two hours to reach Kalewa, where I was dropped off at a guest house right above the broad Chindwin River. I wandered around the riverfront, asking about boats upriver and downriver. I was headed downriver, but I hope to come back and travel along the upper Chindwin before exiting Burma for India. At 5 I watched an express boat arrive from upriver and soon continue south, headed for Monywa, I was told.
I ate dinner just before dark in a gloomy little restaurant above the river. The bucket baths at the guest house were of cold water, but bearable at this low altitude along the river, about 400 feet according to my altimeter. It felt good to be clean and the night air seemed warm after the cold night air of the mountains of Chin State. The temperature in my room just before I went to bed at 9 was a balmy 75 degrees.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI like so much your travel blog. Like you I am in love with Burma. during february I am going to visit Chin state : Mindat, Hakha, Falam, may be Tedim. But I am not sure for accomodation because during this period there is Chin national festival and I suppose there is a lot of local tourist. Do you know if it's easy to find a room in these cities and what is the price for a night ? For transportation, is there many choice for bus ? Thank you very much for your answer.