December 23-24, 2014: Hsipaw to Mandalay to Thazi

From Hsipaw I wanted to head south to the Inle Lake area, and hoped to take a bus south on a road to Taunggyi, but found out the buses don't travel that road because of its very poor condition.  There are overnight buses via the road to Mandalay, but I don't like overnight buses.  So on the foggy morning of the 23rd I walked to the train station to take the enjoyable train ride back the way I had come.  On the way to the station I came across two guys cutting strips of bamboo with machetes and then weaving the strips into a pattern that is often used for the walls of houses.  It was very interesting to watch how expertly they cut the bamboo.  They used not only their hands but also their feet for the weaving.

About 30 other tourists were waiting for the train at the station.  My upper class ticket cost about $2.75 to Pyin Oo Lwin.  The train, coming from Lashio, arrived two minutes before its 9:15 scheduled arrival time and left right on time, 9:25.  The morning fog had mostly lifted by then.  The train consisted of a diesel locomotive, two upper class carriages, three ordinary class carriages (with wooden bench seats), and two boxcars at the end.  Two little kids, a girl about six and a boy about ten, sat right in front of me.  Both were bundled up with coats and wool hats and both had thanaka on their faces.  They were shy, but friendly.  They were traveling alone and got off at Kyaukme.

I again enjoyed the journey.  We reached Kyaukme at 11, where I had a chicken, vegetables, and rice lunch right on the platform during our 25 minute stop.  The train kept pretty much on time until the station just before the Gokteik Viaduct, where we were delayed about a half hour waiting for the train coming the other direction.

We crossed the Gokteik Viaduct about 1:30.  This time the train, traveling very slowly over the viaduct, shuddered to a stop just before reaching the other side, and then started up again.  That was a little unnerving, as there is no railing and a long drop down into the canyon.  Once we had crossed I could spot the tunnel entrances in the cliffs across the canyon, which I hadn't noticed when I first crossed the viaduct more than a week earlier.

We reached Pyin Oo Lwin about 4:30, a little less than a half hour late.  The train makes a long stop in Pyin Oo Lwin, before heading down to Mandalay, with a scheduled arrival time of 10:40.  All the tourists got off at Pyin Oo Lwin.  Several hopped in the open air pick up for the ride to Mandalay.  I considered spending the night in Pyin Oo Lwin, at about 3500 feet elevation, but preferred the warmer climate of Mandalay, at only 250 feet elevation.  I didn't particularly want to take a chilly ride in a pickup, though.  However, two other tourists and I chartered a taxi to take us to Mandalay for about $25.  It cost us each about four times the pick up fare, but was much more enjoyable.  The taxi driver stopped at a particularly scenic spot so we could see the very orange sunset over the hazy plains below.

We reached Mandalay in the dark just after six.  The taxi driver drove right along the lit up south wall of the palace and dropped us off near our hotels.  I had been a little worried about finding a hotel room in this busy Christmas-New Year tourist season, but got one at the second hotel I went to.  The night air felt warm compared to the hills.  The restaurant I ate dinner in was chock full of tourists.

The next morning about 10 I took a motorcycle taxi about 20 to 25 minutes south to the main bus station area and upon arrival immediately got a seat in the front of a bus headed south to Meiktila.  The small bus left about 10:45 and was soon jammed full of people, with several seated on the roof.  But I was comfortable in my seat at the front across from the driver.  The bus drove through the roundabout that marks the northern end of the new Yangon-Mandalay expressway, but took the old highway south.  We soon crossed the river that flows through Hsipaw.

The road didn't have a lot of traffic and I enjoyed the trip.  In places the road has been widened from what I remember from traveling on it in 1994.  We made lots of stops to drop off and take on passengers as we passed by already harvested rice fields, other crop land, and several towns.  I have been told that the Irrawaddy Valley has two rice crops a year, compared to only one per year in the hills, but I didn't see any newly planted rice.  I guess it is too early, with the harvesting just being done.  There are lots of trees along the route, and I saw lots of bullock carts and even some pony carts.

We reached Meiktila about 2, where I boarded an open air but roofed pick up jammed with cargo.  Four middle aged ladies, laden with their own shopping goods, and I sat on boxes at the end of the pick up bed as we left about 2:30.  It took only about 45 minutes to reach the small town of Thazi, a railroad junction east of Meiktila.  I was dropped off right in front of the Moonlight Hotel, which I think is the hotel I stayed in three times in 1994.  That year five of us banded together upon arrival in Yangon and hired a van, driver, and guide, as the public transportation was terrible then.  On our twelve day trip (from Yangon to Bagan, Mandalay, Pyin Oo Lwin, and Inle Lake before heading back to Yangon) we spent three nights at this junction town because it had a very cheap hotel.

The town seems, and I'm sure is, much bigger and busier now.  I walked to the train station, with a sign indicating the elevation is 700 feet, to check train schedules, and then walked around the friendly town.  Some young men were playing barefooted soccer.  I found two old, but newly and brightly painted, locomotives on display a little north of the train station.  One was small and looked like it dated from the 19th century.  The other was huge, with a coal tender on one end and a water tank on the other, something I've never seen before.  It had a plaque that was heavily painted, but I could make out the year "1943."  Nearby was a dilapidated old wooden private car.  I could open the door and see the old kitchen, but the interior door was locked.  A guy from the railroad yard told me there is also a bath room and a bedroom/sitting room.

I walked back to the train station just in time to see the 17:48 train from Mandalay to Yangon arrive, right on time, with many carriages and passengers.  That night a loudspeaker near my hotel loudly blared music and what I suppose was a sermon until just after midnight.  I think it might have been a Christmas Eve service.  

December 21-22, 2014: Palaung Hill Tribe Trek

I had hoped to go on a three day trek (with less walking each day and more time in villages) in the hills near Hsipaw, but upon my return to Hsipaw only a two day trek was leaving on the 21st.  So at about 8 that morning I set off with four other tourists and a Shan guide, all in their 20's.  The other tourists were friendly but seemed oddly uninterested in the culture of the Palaungs.  The guide was excellent, knowledgeable about not only the Palaungs and the Shan, but Burma in general. 

Hsipaw was cloudy and foggy as we first visited a noodle making factory in town and then headed out of town on the dirt road through the rice fields I had walked days earlier.  The sun didn't come out until after 9.  After reaching the cemeteries we headed northwest into the hills, climbing from about 1500 feet elevation at Hsipaw to about 4000 feet over the next four hours.  The guide told me we walked about nine miles.  We walked on paths and dirt roads into the mostly tree-covered hills, with some crop land and lots of wildflowers along the way, and with some good views over the hills.

Shortly after noon we reached the Palaung village of Pankam, with several huge banyan trees at the entrance to the village. The Palaung are a hill tribe found all around this area.  The village, the guide told me, has 122 houses.  He said most of the men were out in the fields, because November and December are the rice and corn harvest months, when the men spend all day in the fields working and usually even sleep there rather than return to the village at night.

We stopped at a big wooden house on stilts, where we had a delicious lunch, maybe the best meal I've had in Burma, in the central room, with a clay fire pit in the floor.  Except for eggs, the meal was all vegetarian, with tea salad (crunchy with peanuts and some sort of other crunchy things), taro and cucumber soup, pumpkin (particularly good), and a mustard leaf soup.  The woman of the house was in traditional dress, and big purple rubber boots that matched the purple in her clothes.

After lunch I walked around the village, visiting the monastery and a nat shrine, among other places.  A few children were playing, and I saw some monks, but only a few other people.  An old man came along leading a water buffalo on a leash.  Back at the house a man was picking through tea leaves drying outside, removing small stones and sticks.  Our guide showed us the hand operated wooden equipment used for processing the tea, which is grown near the village. 

We left that pretty village about 2, heading southwest.  I kept looking for well manicured tea plantations, but saw none.  I asked our guide and he told me the tea plants aren't trimmed as they are elsewhere, but grow almost in a wild state.  He pointed out one that I hadn't even recognized. 

We descended from Pankam, dropping about 800 feet through a beautiful forest, much of the path along a creek, with lots of bamboo growing.  The air was a little chilly in the gloom of the forest.  We eventually crossed the creek and made a steep ascent on the other side, climbing about 500 feet, and then walked through cornfields, arriving at a Shan village about 4 or 4:30. 

After a short rest we set off for another 40 minutes or so before we reached the Palaung village of Manloi, about seven miles from Pankam, where we were to spend the night.  Several bullock carts passed us on the way.  Pankam is at about 3700 feet elevation, at least at the bottom of the village by my altimeter, with three big banyan trees at the village entrance.  We stopped in at the wooden house on stilts where we were to spend the night, and then walked up a steep, partially stone paved lane to the top of the village, quite a steep climb, where there is a monastery.  The sun had set and the western sky was all rosy from the top of the village. 

Inside the big wooden monastery about twelve monks were chanting in front of the main altar.  A woman dressed all in white with some kind of offering knelt behind them.  Near her a mother and child were also praying.  I stood and watched and listened for a while, and then talked with a couple of the young monks. 

We walked down to the house in the dark.  Mattresses were laid out in the big room for us to sleep on.  In an adjacent smaller room a fire was burning in a clay pit.  I went to sit in there.  The woman of the house was cooking over the fire.  As soon as I sat down on the wooden floor her three year old son sat himself very comfortably on my lap.  He had a little bag of tart candy which he shared with me, though at first I was a little wary of taking the candy he handed me with his dirty hands.  He was very generous, giving me almost half of it.  It seemed to amuse him that I murmured "mmm, mmm" after every piece.  He was a very friendly little kid.

Two pink-clad nuns also sat by the fire.  The guide, who came in later to sit by the fire, told me one was the sister of the man of the house.  The mother also held a three month old son while cooking, though she occasionally handed him off to this aunt.  The room was smoky and the guide helped me talk to the nun, who had come to visit from a nunnery in the north, at Kawlin. 

The father, having heard he had guests, returned from the corn fields.  The guide told me he goes to a different house every trip, to spread the tourist money around the village more equitably.  He also told me the corn is all for export, to China, where it is used for animal feed, and that corn cultivation for export has resulted in considerably more deforestation and less tea growing.

We had a very good dinner, which was eaten in the big room where we were to sleep.  The house had solar panels which were hooked up to a battery about the size of a car battery, which powered a fluorescent light bulb.  After dinner I once again sat by the smoky fire until going to bed shortly after 8:30.  I did glance at the starry, cold night sky before going to bed.  I slept comfortably, with two blankets, which kept me warm enough. 

The baby started to cry about 5:30 the next morning, when the family got up in the darkness.  I got up about an hour later and was pleased to see it was a sunny morning.  The guide told me Hsipaw is cloudy and foggy in the morning because of the river.  I walked around outside, watching a woman sweeping leaves off the dirt lane under the banyan trees.  The village was quiet in the morning.  I saw the nun I had talked to the night before praying at the little Buddhist altar room in the house we stayed in, and then head off somewhere with an offering.

We ate a good and filling breakfast, with eggs, vegetables, rice, and tea, about 8.  A little before 9 we said our goodbyes to the very friendly family and made our way out of the village, past a field of yellow mustard or rape, heading southeast.  At the edge of the village the nun with the offering was praying in front of a stupa.  I took a few photos of her on her knees bowing in front of the stupa.  As I turned to go, I heard her say something and she was standing and waving goodbye.  She stood and smiled as I took her photo, quite unusual for a nun in my experience here.   

We soon turned south, traveling mostly through cornfields, with little forest, and mostly on dirt roads, not paths.  We also passed lots of harvested rice fields and lots of wildflowers, yellow and violet.  I stopped at one field with sunflowers, in various stages of ripening.  I could pry out the sunflower seeds from one of them.  My feet were blistered and hurting, as my shoes were new and I had been wearing solely sandals on this trip. 

About 11 we reached a Shan village at about 2500 feet, where we took a short break.  From there we headed east, making a steep descent on a poor dirt road.  To our left were red cliffs; to our right a valley.  Shortly before 1 we stopped at a nat shrine, with carved wooden horses, under a grove of trees, at about 1600 feet, according to my altimeter. 

Our guide went ahead and came back with a three wheeler.  We all piled in the back and bounced along the poor road through a village and eventually to the main road that leads to Mandalay.  We drove along that until we turned off to a hot springs, where the hot water filled two ugly concrete pools, one for men and one for women. I skipped the hot springs and ate a lunch of Shan noodles, pork rinds, tea salad, and tea and coffee.  About 3 we got back to Hsipaw, where I was very glad to place my blistered feet once again in sandals.  After relaxing the rest of the afternoon and once again eating dinner on the river, I washed my very dirty clothes that evening.

December 16-20, 2014: Hsipaw and Muse

In Kyaukme the morning of the 16th, I took an early morning walk, starting about 7, through the just starting morning street market.  I was cold in the early morning chill, and felt sorry for the barefooted monks, mostly children, going from shop to shop for alms on the cold streets.  Most people were warmly bundled up in coats and wool hats.  Several motorcycles were heavily burdened with vegetables and other stuff from the market, much of the merchandise in small plastic bags hanging from the sides or back of the motorcycle.  These motorcycles are driven around town or out to villages and serve as mobile markets.  I also wandered through Kyaukme's large indoor market before eating a breakfast of hot Shan noodle soup and tea.  After breakfast the town had warmed up some, and I walked around some more.

About 11:30 a young guy from the hotel led me to the bus stand for Hsipaw, where we sat in a tea shop drinking tea for an hour and a half before the noon bus left at about 1.  Besides passengers, the small bus was crammed full of eggs in cardboard trays (about 3000 eggs, I estimated), wooden crates of betel nut, and other stuff.  It took about an hour to reach Hsipaw to the northeast, crossing the train tracks at least twice along the way, along with a river.  Hsipaw, surrounded by hills, is about 1500 feet elevation.  I checked into Mr. Charles Guest House, now a big complex catering to tourists who come here to trek in the hills.  In the lobby is a photo of Mr. Charles with his family at his son's wedding to a very beautiful woman.  In the photo Mr. Charles wears a white suit and a black cowboy hat.

I walked to the train station.  The Mandalay train had just arrived, only about 20 minutes late.  I watched some local folks unload huge bundles from a small boxcar at the back of the passenger train.  The train station is in a lovely location, surrounded by huge rain trees.  I hung around until after the train, its upper class carriages now empty of foreigners, departed for Lashio, further northeast.

I walked to the wide river, maybe 500 feet wide, that flows along the edge of town.  This river, the Dokhtawady, eventually flows into the Irrawaddy just south of Mandalay.  Just before reaching the river, I passed by some old colonial era godowns, or warehouses, and a big banyan tree right on the river with nat (spirit) shrines all around it.  I walked through a late afternoon street market along the river and then retraced my steps to an outdoor restaurant right on the river, with good views of the river and hills both down and up river.  I ate dinner there about 5, as the sun set.  One of the very nice waitresses wore a red and white Santa Claus hat.  For about four dollars, a little high for Burma, I had a very good dinner of fish in oyster sauce over rice, while incense burned around my table.  It was a little chilly on the river, and I felt a cold coming on, so I walked back to my hotel about 6, at dark.

My cold was in full force the next morning.  After a slow start to the morning, I started a walk to a waterfall in mid morning under a sunny sky.  It had been foggy earlier in the morning.  I was sneezing and sniffling as I walked on a dirt road southwest from town through harvested rice paddies.  Stacks of harvested rice were everywhere.  Beyond the ice paddies I reached cemeteries, one for Buddhists, another for Chinese, and another for Muslims.  Beyond the cemeteries, on the crest of a slight hill, I sighted the waterfall, more than a hundred feet high, across a little valley.  The dirt road turned into a path, passing simple houses and crop land.  Corn and bananas grew, along with lots of wildflowers, yellow, violet, and red.

A short final steep climb took me to the base of the waterfall, composed of at least seven strands of water tumbling into a pool, with a sort of small cavern behind the waterfall.  To the left a path led to a nat shrine in a shallow cavern under the rocky cliffs.  Small red flags hung all about it.  Inside the wooden palisade were altars, a carved wooden horse maybe five feet high, and some representations of weapons, including guns, carved in wood.

I spent about an hour at the waterfall and shrine, and then headed back to town the way I had come.  It took me about two hours to get back, with a few stops.  The skies had clouded up and there were even a few drops of rain, very unusual in the dry season.  For a long time I watched men using a portable threshing machine to separate rice from its stalks.  From a stack men fed big bundles of rice stalks into the machine, which shook the rice kernels loose and dropped then into baskets held underneath.  The baskets when full were poured into big sacks.  The now unburdened stalks were shot off into the air, landing into a pile a few feet away. The men seemed amused that I was watching and taking photos of what they were doing.  Once finished, they moved on to the next stack.  I got back to the hotel about 3 and sat on the balcony chatting with other tourists until about 5, when I went back to the river restaurant for dinner.  During the night there were a couple of brief, but hard rainstorms.

In the morning the ground was wet and the sky cloudy.  The sun didn't come out for good until early afternoon.  About 9 I set out on a walk and didn't return to the hotel until about 4.  I walked first to the former palace of the last sao pha (Shan for "sky lord"), or local Shan prince, of Hsipaw, on the northern edge of town.  The now decrepit mansion was built in 1924 for an Oxford educated son of the then sao pha, who didn't want to live in his father's wooden palace, which was nearby but later destroyed in World War II.

I looked around a bit outside before being invited into the sitting room on one side of the building by a woman probably in her 60's.  She told me her name was Fern and that her husband is the nephew of the last sao pha.  This last sao pha, a brother of the one who built the mansion, who died without children, disappeared after being arrested at the time of the 1962 coup.  The government has always denied that he was even arrested.

He had been educated in Denver, Colorado, at the Colorado College of Mining, where he met and married a Fulbright scholar from Austria.  They returned to Hsipaw in 1954, where she converted to Buddhism and had two children, both girls.  There are many wonderful old photos in the sitting room, and they seemed to live a very happy life until 1962.  The wife and daughters, their lives made very difficult by the ruling junta, left for the United States in 1964, when the girls were 8 and 6, and they haven't returned.  (In Mr. Charles Guest House is a photo taken recently of the two daughters.)  In 1994 the wife, by then remarried, wrote a book about her experiences, which Fern let me look through.  I spent about two hours there, most of it talking with her, and she was very knowledgeable and interesting.  Eventually, several other tourists also showed up.

From the palace I walked further north, and then west, to another nat shrine, with some very friendly little kids around it.  Further west are some ruined stupas, one with a tree growing on top.  Even further west are two teak monasteries on stilts.  Outside of one of them, a young monk was building a shelf case, cutting rough boards with a saw and then nailing them together.  The larger monastery, built in 1848, has a Buddha made of bamboo as the centerpiece of its altar.  The interior of the monastery contains 142 teak pillars and on the wooden floor several child monks sat reciting under the supervision of an old monk sitting on a bench and smoking a cheroot.  Both monasteries were old and rickety.

I walked back towards town and again passed the palace about 2, but instead of heading back to town I took a road that headed east, eventually along the river.  It took me past harvested rice paddies filled with rice stacks, vegetable patches, and then along simple houses in a very nice tree shaded village along the river.  Eventually I reached the railroad tracks and turned back.  I had dinner again along the river just before nightfall.

My cold was better the next morning, but I decided to postpone a trek into the hills.  Instead, I walked in the morning fog to the bus station before 7 and left Hsipaw at 8 on a big bus headed further northeast to Lashio, two hours away.  The bus traveled through rolling countryside, with some fog  on the hills in the distance.  It was sunny in Lashio, a big town of 130,000 at about 2800 feet elevation, which was the start of the old Burma Road to China during World War II, at least until the Japanese conquered Burma in 1942. 

I left Lashio almost immediately in a share taxi bound for Muse on the Chinese border, a route only recently opened for foreigners.  For about ten dollars I got a fairly comfortable seat in the front, with three others seated in the back.  The driver offered me a big wad of betel nut as we left, and laughed when I declined. 

I enjoyed the five hour trip north to the border on a good road.  There were lots of trucks coming and going.  The first hour or so was not particularly scenic, through a sort of plateau.  We crossed a river at Hsenwi and then began a steep climb, from about 2000 feet elevation to about 4000 feet, on a series of switchbacks.  There were good views of the valley below, but the many slow trucks on the road at times made the going slow.  There were trees, but the hills were mostly covered with brown grass.  After the switchbacks we traveled up and down through the hills, some of which were tree covered, rising to about 5000 feet.  There were few towns along the way, but some of the valleys were planted with rice, corn, and other crops. The sky was sunny but the air at times a little chilly.  We crossed the Tropic of Cancer on the way.  Muse is at about 24 degrees latitude.

Sometime after 1 we made a lunch stop in a little town called Namhpakka.  The countryside after Namhpakka was particularly pretty, with some of the tallest poinsettias I've ever seen, the plants rising to about 20 feet high.  Along the road there were also lots of those yellow wildflowers and big piles and bins of corncobs, the most orange colored I've ever seen.

Nearing Muse, we passed an enormously long line of parked trucks on the road's right hand side, apparently waiting for clearance to get to the border and cross.  There were hundreds of them.  I wonder how long they have to wait, and how much they have to pay to get clearance. 

We reached Muse, at about 2800-3000 feet elevation, about 3, and I was set down near the clock tower in the town center.  The first hotel I went to was not licensed to accept foreigners.  But they directed me to another, which charged $40 a night (and 25,000 kyat, about $25, for the same room for Burmese).  They directed me to another, which also wanted $40 a night.  They in turn directed me to another, the Muse Motel, which charged only $20 for a very nice room through with a hard mattress.

I checked in and then took a walk, figuring the main road through town would eventually lead me to the border.  The Chinese town of Ruili is on the other side of a small stream which is the border.  It took me almost an hour to reach the border and the big, fancy post on the Chinese side.  On the way, a road that obviously bypasses the downtown joined the main road and was heavy trafficked by big trucks.  Before reaching the border I could see the big new buildings and a Chinese flag on the Chinese side, beyond a litter filled, almost dry stream bed and a wire fence on the Chinese side of the river.  This stream eventually reaches the Irrawaddy south of Katha.

A big traffic jam of big trucks led to the border.  I walked right up to the border fence and watched some guys changing money through the fence.  A Chinese army guy in ill-fitting uniform stood at the border crossing.  A bunch of very Shan looking people hurried to the border post from Burma carrying red Chinese passports.  A lot of Shan live in the region over the border. 

It took me about 45 minutes to walk back to my hotel.  On the way I spotted another border crossing I had missed before, the big Chinese post mostly hidden by the construction in progress of a Burmese post.  I reached my hotel a little before it got dark.  Lots of ethnic Chinese live in Muse, and in fact in many places throughout Burma.  Many have lived in Burma for decades or even centuries, but there has also been a big recent influx.  The doctor I met in Pyin Oo Lwin was unhappy about their increasing numbers.  They have been buying up much of the land in places, including Pyin Oo Lwin, I was told.

I had come to Muse just to see the Burma Road, so I went back down it the next day.  The early morning was overcast and drizzly.  My thermometer registered 64 degrees in my room and it felt much colder outside.  I had steaming hot Shan noodle soup for breakfast in a very crowded and friendly cafe and made my way to the share taxi stand about 9:30, as the sun was coming out.  My taxi finally left about 11:30, after a long wait and a trip to a neighborhood in the direction of the border to pick up a woman.  My front seat cost me about $12 this time. 

I enjoyed the trip back.  The driver was friendly, but very slow.  We stopped for a good Shan lunch in the same town we had stopped in the day before.  Again, there were lots of trucks on the road.  We finally reached Lashio at about 5.  I thought I might have to spend the night there, but a big bus was leaving at 6, bound for Mandalay and perhaps further, and I was able to buy a ticket to Hsipaw.  (In fact, several big buses left between 5 and 6.)  Traveling in the dark, my bus reached Hsipaw a little before 8.  I walked to Mr. Charles Guest House, checked in, and ate dinner there.

December 13-15, 2014: Pyin Oo Lwin and Kyaukme

I left Monywa by bus about 10 on the morning of the 13th, heading south and then east to Mandalay.  The road to Mandalay passed through crop land, with lots of already harvested rice fields as we neared Sagaing on the Irrawaddy.  The terrain was flat until we reached the pagoda topped hills of Sagaing.  The bus crossed the Irrawaddy on the big bridge at Sagaing and we reached downtown Mandalay about 1:30.

About an hour later I left Mandalay seated on a wooden bench in the back of a crowded, open air pickup with a roof over the back.  Others were seated on the roof.  A French family of four, with a beautiful blue eyed girl of about five, was in the back with me, and the Burmese woman also in the back couldn't take their eyes, and often their hands, off her.  She was very nice in return.  Her father told me she is used to it after four months in India. 

From Mandalay, at about 250 feet elevation, we headed east across flat land for about an hour and then began to climb into the hills.  We had some good views back towards the hazy plains as we ascended, along with a couple of stops for the driver to ply his overheating radiator with water from a hose. 

We reached Pyin Oo Lwin, a town of about 70,000 people a little more than 40 miles from Mandalay and at about 3500 feet elevation, about 5.  It is vastly changed from when I was first here in 1994.  It is now much more built up, with much more traffic.  It was founded in 1896 as a British hill station, to escape the heat of Mandalay on the plains, and named Maymyo ("myo" means "town") after its founder, Colonel May of the 5th Bengal Infantry.  After the railroad reached it, it served as the British summer capital. 

The next morning was sunny, but still chilly, as I walked from my downtown hotel, near the 1936 clock tower, to All Saints Church, built in 1912 as the regimental church for Maymyo.  It is a big brick church with an impressive steeple.  I stepped inside just as the Sunday morning service was coming to an end.  The priest was just intoning the lines about the "peace of God which passeth all understanding," which I remember from my youth as signalling the end of the service.  There only a few attendees in the large church, all Burmese but for two tourists. 

I looked around after the service.  Inside was a plaque with the names of British army units which had contributed to the church.  There was also a bulletin board with a photo of an army chaplain, in uniform, with his bride on their wedding day in 1919.  He apparently served many years at the church before his return to England.  Also on display is a copy of the 1925 Maymyo birth certificate of his daughter, along with a photo of her when she visited the church a few years ago. 

Outside the church I talked to a doctor who spoke very good English and was very interesting about the changes in town during her life.  Not too far away is the restored British Governor's mansion and office building, now part of a hotel.  The huge office building was closed, but for about two dollars I could stroll through the mansion, with an indoor pool, a bar, fireplaces, and a huge kitchen, no longer in service.  On the second floor are five bedrooms.  I was shown one of them and it was massive.  The flat screen television in the middle of the room seemed out of place among the period furniture, including a four poster bed. 

Downstairs are several mannequins, some with startling green or even red eyes, depicting several of the former governors, along with Colonel May, with accompanying photographs.  Outside are two old cars, both sedans, a black Humber and a silver Triumph, both inoperable, I was told.  The area is filled with wildflowers, with a large vineyard next to the office building.

In the afternoon I walked along a circular road through the suburbs that passed several old colonial buildings, several in bad shape.  One is now a church building, another a high school, and a third a government building.  I passed a couple of old colonial residences before I found Candacraig, the old colonial hotel, built in 1904 and formerly, if I remember correctly, a residence for bachelor officers, where I had stayed in 1994, enjoying a dinner of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.  I remember I stayed in a room in the turret to the right of the entrance.  It now is all closed up and falling apart.  I peeked through the grimy front windows at the big staircase and at the former hall, with a fireplace, and dining room.  Outside four Burmese guys had just arrived to play tennis on the old tennis court.  I think they probably brought their own net.  I looked around a bit in the now overgrown gardens and then continued my walk, passing another old colonial hotel, now apparently a private residence. 

From that hotel I walked more than a mile to the Botanical Gardens, getting there between 3 and 3:30.   They were founded in 1915 by the district forestry official, with the aid, the pamphlet they gave me said, of Lady Cuffee, "the noted Kew Gardens botanist."  The 435 acres center around a lake, with several black swans on it.  There were quite a few people there on that Sunday afternoon.

I took a causeway across the lake to the orchid area, with few orchids, but many other beautiful flowers, and to the butterfly house, with displays of thousands of beautiful butterflies and other impressive insects, including some very large, fearsome looking beetles.  A walk in aviary had many birds in it, including several huge hornbills, flapping their big wings and eating fruit set out for them.  I spent quite a while watching them, as you could get quite close to them.  One flew right by my head. 

Nearby is a wooden walkway that takes you up through big trees.  By the time I had done that, the sun was down, so I quickly walked through a pine grove, a bamboo grove, and then along another wooden walkway, this one through a swampy area that led to a teak grove and then a collection of a hundred or more pieces of petrified wood, including one tree trunk maybe twenty feet high.  It was almost dark when I finally left just before 6.  Another tourist and I shared a horse carriage back to town.  Pyin Oo Lwin has many horse carriages, the carriages the shape of small stage coaches.

The next morning I walked to the train station, getting there about 8.  The signboard said the train was due "7:52, guess."  It arrived only a little late and left about 8:35, only about 15 minutes late.  I had been told the train, coming from Mandalay and leaving at 5, had derailed a few days earlier, arriving hours late.  My ticket, for a comfortable upper class seat, cost me 2150 kyat, a little over two dollars for a five and a half hour trip.  The ticket broke the price down as 2149.32 kyat for the seat and .68 kyat for life insurance.  That's about 2/3 of one tenth of a penny for life insurance.  I wonder what the payout is. 

The train had two upper class carriages, each filled with about 20 foreign tourists and hardly any local people.  There were also three ordinary class carriages, with a few tourists and a few locals.  I think most locals now take the faster bus. 

Leaving Pyin Oo Lwin, the train headed northeast into Shan State, Burma's largest.  The countryside was rolling at first, then hillier, with beautiful yellow wildflowers, along with a few violet ones, growing along the tracks.  A little before noon we caught sight of and then crossed the steel Gokteik Viaduct, built in 1903 by the Pennsylvania Steel Company over a deep river gorge.  It is 318 feet high and 2257 feet across.  It was the second highest railroad bridge in the world when constructed.  The train slowed to a crawl and you could lean out your window and peer down to the forested gorge and river far below, with no railing along the bridge.  (I suppose this is why you buy life insurance.)  On the other side are cliffs, with two tunnels through them.   A uniformed guard with a rifle sat on a large cement block at the end of the bridge just before the cliffs. 

From the viaduct, at about 2100 feet elevation, we climbed about a thousand feet and stopped about 12:30 at a station where we waited about a half hour for the train coming from Lashio, in the opposite direction.  There is only one train in each direction each day.  I enjoyed the opportunity to get off the train and wander around and watch the food sellers and others at the station. 

The train reached Kyaukme, where three of us tourists got off (the others were all headed to Hsipaw an hour or so further) about 2.  Kyaukme, at about 2500 feet elevation, is in a little valley surrounded by hills.  A local guy also on the train drove us to a hotel a few blocks from the train station.  It is a converted house, built in 1943. and I got a room in one of the front turrets, with a four poster bed, for about eight dollars.  The very friendly older woman who managed the hotel told me the house was built by her father in law.

After lunch next door, I walked around town, visiting the street market and then walking up to a monastery on a hill on the east side of town, with good views of the town and valley.  I walked back down to the market and then up another hill on the west side of town.  A long series of stairs, under a roof, led to a much bigger monastery on top.  The people in town are mostly Shan and Palaung.  The Shan are Burma's biggest minority group, with about 8 or 9 percent of the total population. 

December 10-12, 2014: Down the Chindwin River from Kalewa to Monywa

In Kalewa on the 10th, I didn't get up until about 7:30.  The morning air felt warm compared to the previous mornings in the mountains of Chin State.  I had hoped to take a morning express boat downriver to Mingin, but the previous evening had been told there were boats only at 1 and 5 in the afternoon, the latter going all the way to Monywa.

As it turned out, I enjoyed my morning in Kalewa.  At about 8 I watched the express boat heading upriver to Mawleik arrive, and then depart about a half hour later.  There was quite a bit of river traffic to watch.  I walked a bit through town, stopping at a tea shop for a breakfast of tea and not too greasy sweet rolls.  After breakfast I walked back to the riverfront and watched another boat being loaded and unload, with men and women carrying big bundles on their heads up and down the river bank, perhaps a 40 foot drop.

From the town center near the boat landing I then walked north on dirt paths above the river through clusters of wood houses on stilts clinging precariously to the eroded steep riverbank.  I passed friendly people living in very simple homes, with pigs rooting around.  Some of the paths were of wooden planks.  Eventually, I passed a few small stupas on little hills above the river.  After about 45 minutes, when I had reached what seemed the northern reaches of the town, with good views upriver to a bend of the Chindwin, I turned around and came back more or less the same way, arriving at the town center about 11:30.  I ate a good lunch in a simple restaurant overlooking the river and boarded the express boat for Mingin about 12:30.

The boat left soon after 1 with only about 30 passengers, though we made many stops on the way, at least 20, picking up and dropping off passengers on wide sand banks and steep dirt banks below villages or maybe just a house or two.  A couple of times passengers boarded the boat after arriving in a smaller boat that pulled alongside.  The riverside terrain was hilly and scenic, with cliffs in at least one spot.  Generally, we were headed southeast, but with many twists and turns.  At times we were going north.  The sky was a little cloudy.

We reached Mingin, on a high riverbank, at 5:30, just before dark.  Making my way with my backpack off the boat on the narrow plank leading to the shore was a little daunting, but I managed not to fall off into the muddy water.  The climb from the boat on the river up to the town was more than 40 feet.

Mingin seemed like a pretty town.  Several trees were filled with chirping black birds settling down for the night.  I  was directed one way to a guest house, and then back the way I had come to what turned out to be the government guest house.  A well dressed young man came out and said I would have to stay in the guest house just across down the street, above the river, and pointed it out to me.  He said it wasn't a very good one, and that certainly proved right.  He told me he was the District Commissioner and that if I had any problems in Mingin to come and see him.  He told me the boat downriver to Monywa was scheduled to leave at 4 every morning, but sometimes left at 4:30 or 4:45.

I walked over to the guest house, a large wooden building of two stories and inquired in the restaurant on the first floor.  A man told me a room was 5000 kyat, about five dollars, gave me a key, and pointed upstairs.  I found the rickety stairs leading up to a dark corridor and my room.  There were no lights and I examined my bare room with my flashlight.  It contained only a wood platform for a bed, with a "mattress" no thicker than a very thin bath mat, and not much larger, plus two thin blankets and a pillow. I suppose I have had worse rooms in my travels, but not many.  I had been thinking of spending a day and two nights in Mingin, but began to reconsider.  The toilets were downstairs and there was no bath room.  Maybe just as well, as the water in the toilets was very muddy.

I left my backpack in the room and took a walk about town.  It was now dark, with few lights on, so there wasn't much to see.  But there was even less to see in my dark room at the guest house.  I ate dinner at the guest house and then took another walk around town.  The lights had come on, so there was a bit more to see.  One man brought out his maybe ten year old daughter from their house to speak a few English phrases to me.

Back at the guest house the lights were on upstairs and some rooms had lights, but not mine.  I had a fluorescent light fixture, but no bulb.  I walked around a bit more outside and then read in the restaurant below my room until about 9, when I went to bed.  After a few minutes on that hard bed, I had pretty much decided I was leaving the next morning.

I awoke the next morning at 3:30, and not for the first time since I had gone to bed.  I went outside to check the express boat, and people were arriving with flashlights to board it.  The moon was up, brightening the river.  I got down to the boat just before 4 and saw that it was not the boat I had taken the afternoon before, but a bigger one with about 130 seats, all of them more comfortable bus type seats.  I suppose that this was the boat to Monywa that had left Kalewa at 5 p.m., spending the night in Mingin.

Quite a few passengers boarded, though there were still many empty seats.  I think it was more than half full, though.  We left at 4:40.  A cold wind blew into the boat and soon the plastic sheeting was lowered on both sides of the boat to keep out the wind.  It wasn't raised until about two hours later.  I may have dozed some, but did see a rosy dawn through an open door near the bow.  The boat made many stops taking on additional passengers.

Once the plastic sheeting was up, I could enjoy the early morning river views.  For the man in front of me it afforded the opportunity to chew betel nut and almost continuously spit copious amount of red saliva out the side of the boat, usually hitting the narrow walkway just outside the open windows.

From Mingin we had traveled northeast, following a big bend of the river before the river turned south.  Now heading south, the boat made a stop on a riverbank about 7 and the boat was swarmed by women with platters of food.  I bought a greasy piece of chicken, consisting of two wings and two thighs, for 2000 kyat, about two dollars.

From then on there were few stops as we sped downriver.  The sky was speckled with clouds early in the morning, but soon cleared up. The riverside scenery was less interesting than the day before, with few hills. About 8:30 three packed express boats headed upriver passed us.  I knew the three express boats that travel from Monywa to Kalewa every day are scheduled to leave Monywa at 4:30, and was surprised to see them so soon in our trip downriver.

By 9:30, under sunny skies, it was warm enough for me to take off my fleece and windbreaker.  The boat made good time and just before 11:30 I spotted the long bridge over the Chindwin just north of Monywa.  We slowed down as we passed below it, the river shallow there, with a sandbank taking up more than half the distance under the bridge. We continued slowly from the bridge to Monywa, zigzagging across the river to avoid sandbanks.  I noticed lots of dredges at work on the river.

The boat docked just after 12, much earlier than I expected.  Back in Monywa after leaving it eight days earlier, I had completed a loop that took me south to Pakokku, west to Chin State, north through Chin State, east to the Chindwin, and then down the Chindwin back to Monywa.  I wasn't sure that I would be able to make that loop when I started off.

A horde of taxi guys aggressively soliciting business swarmed onto the boat as soon as it docked.  I made my way up the steep bank and walked the 15 minutes or so it took to get to the hotel where I had stayed before.  Getting to my room, I appreciated the relatively thick mattress on the bed.  I ate a big Burmese lunch, with about ten plates, including very good fish, and two soups, in a restaurant I had liked during my previous visit, and then spent the rest of the afternoon in an internet cafe.  Still full from my big lunch, I ate some street side snack foods for dinner.  The vendors may not have remembered me, but were very friendly.  Back in the hotel I washed my dirty, dusty clothes and day pack and went to bed about 9.

I spent the next day in Monywa, a very nice town.  I spent the late morning and early afternoon in an internet cafe and then had another big Burmese lunch about 2.  The serving girls brought me an extra plate of a vegetable dish I particularly liked, a sort of stringy green vegetable with what looked and tasted like pine nuts.  For dessert they brought me a container full of hard sugar chunks, another container with some sort of crunchy corn nuts, and bananas.  In the late afternoon I walked down to the riverfront to watch all the activity and the sunset, walking back just before dark. 

December 4-9, 2014: Chin State - Mindat, Hakha, and Falam

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.

November 30 - December 3, 2014: Monywa and Pakokku

In Shwebo on the morning of the 30th, I relaxed in my room after two long days of travel, ate a late breakfast, and made it to the bus station about 11.  At noon I left on a bus headed southwest to Monywa on the Chindwin River, the Irrawaddy's biggest tributary.  The 65 mile journey took over three hours, in part because we stopped at a rice mill, where we all got out of the bus so big bags of rice could be loaded under the seats and in the aisle of the bus.  I took the opportunity to explore the mill, as nobody said I couldn't.  Inside big machines were husking the rice.  A big pile of unhusked rice stood in one corner, with stacks of big white bags of husked rice all around.

We also passed lots of rice fields on the first part of the journey, some already harvested.  The latter part of the journey, however, passed through more uncultivated land, almost scrub.

After arrival in Monywa, a city of almost 200,000 people, I walked along the wide Chindwin, with beautiful large rain trees along the raised river bank, affording lots of shade.  Scores of boats were on the river or docked on the riverbank.  People were friendly and a few old men greeted me in English.  One walked along with me to the end of the tree-lined portion of the riverbank.  He told me he walks this route, maybe a mile, every day, for his exercise. Some old buildings stood on the other side of the river road, and almost all the buildings looked fairly dilapidated.  I watched the ferry crossings, with many people crowded into little boats.  Two small hills stand on the other side of the river.  Sunset was at about 5:20, into the clouds just above the horizon on the other side of the river.

The next morning I walked to the river front again.  I hoped to take the ferry across, and then a motorcycle taxi 23 miles west to Hpo Win Daung, a complex of 492 Buddha chambers carved into limestone hills from the 14th to 18th centuries.  But the ferry fare for foreigners is 2500 kyat, versus 200 for locals, and I was told that on the other side I wouldn't be able to take a motorcycle taxi, but only a bigger vehicle for 20,000 kyat return.  However, a motorcycle taxi guy offered to take me on a longer route for 12,000 kyat total, so I agreed.  On his motorcycle we headed north to a long bridge over the Chindwin, crossed it, and then headed southwest towards the caves, a trip of 32 miles over almost an hour and a half.  There wasn't much traffic and the roads are fairly good.  The terrain was flat until we reached the hills at the end.  Along the way there were many patches of brightly colored sunflowers.  I didn't see any rice, but there were vegetable patches here and there, and lots of trees, including palmyra palms.  Near the hills we passed a huge open pit copper mine, all fenced in, with guard posts.

I spent about three hours wandering through the interesting caves, all man made and most very shallow.  Some had wonderful murals.  All through the site wandered mean looking macaque monkeys, with particularly red butts and groins.  They could be aggressive at times, too.  

Back in town in the late afternoon, I wandered around, visiting a big new pagoda, very golden.  Near the entrance vendors were roasting corn on the cob and some sort of brown root.  Big bundles of those long, thin roots lay all around.  I watched another woman grease a sort of griddle and then sift rice flour onto it.  As it formed a sort of thin pancake, she added shredded coconut and sugar and then wrapped it all up.  I bought a couple of them at 100 kyat (10 cents) apiece and they were crispy and delicious.

I spent most of the next morning in an internet cafe, a rare sight in the parts of Burma I have been traveling in this year.  After a good Burmese lunch of about ten dishes and two soups at a simple restaurant, costing all of 2300 kyat, I took a motorcycle taxi about ten miles south and then east to a colorful Buddhist pagoda called Thanboddhay Paya and spent maybe half an hour there looking around.  Then we went a further five miles east to Bodhi Tataung, reputed to be the  world's highest standing Buddha, 424 feet tall, made of steel and concrete.  Right in front of it is a big reclining Buddha.

You can climb inside the big standing Buddha and I did so, ascending 27 stories until just below his head.  There are about 16-20 stairs per floor, so about 500 steps in all.  The lower floors are decorated with wonderfully gruesome scenes of hell, while upper stories have much less interesting scenes of heaven.  The steel girders that hold up the Buddha can be seen inside.  Small windows are on each floor, but are dirty and, with the late afternoon glare, it was hard to see to the west, the direction the Buddha faces.  Still, I could make out parts of the Chindwin.

About 5 we headed back to town, getting there before dark.  The tree shaded rural road near the giant Buddha was particularly nice at dusk, with lots of vegetable gardens en route.  We stopped once so my driver could buy a liter of gasoline, sold in a recycled water bottle for 1000 kyat a liter.  At service stations gas seems to sell for about 875 a liter, but roadside vendors sporting a row of water or liquor bottles full of gas are much more frequently sighted than service stations.  I also had him stop at an ATM at a bank.  ATMs seem to have sprouted almost everywhere.  I saw them also in Myitkyina and Bhamo.  I brought lots of clean, crisp American currency but have had to use it only for the flight from Bhamo to Myitkyina.

The next morning at 9 I left on a bus south for Pakokku, a three hour trip.  Pakokku is on the Irrawaddy, just upriver and on the opposite bank from Bagan.  A big new bridge, the longest in Burma, now links the two.  On the way, we crossed the Chindwin via another long bridge.  The Chindwin flows into the Irrawaddy between Monywa and Pakokku.  The very full bus passed mostly through scrub land, with some vegetable patches, but no rice fields that I saw.

In Pakokku I checked into a rundown guest house right on the river, but now a backwater channel of the Irrawaddy, run by a grandmother named Mya Mya and her four granddaughters.  One of her granddaughters helped me buy a ticket for the next day's bus west to Mindat in Chin State.  I wandered through the very busy and interesting market to a restaurant for lunch.  On the way back I watched a woman pouring a watery dough into a sort of griddle made up of many little half circles.  They fry up into tasty little treats, and I've had them elsewhere.  This woman added tiny quail eggs into the cooking dough, frying them inside the dough.  I ate several and they were delicious.  I've eaten lots of hard boiled quail eggs in Burma, but these were the first fried, and fried in that sweet, crispy dough.

I wandered again through the fascinating market and then along the town's dusty streets. I found some derelict stupas in a monastery and later walked to the river, very low and shallow here, with the main channel now further east.

I returned to the guest house about 4 and spent the rest of the afternoon talking to a 72 year old German traveler and Mya Mya.  She was very interesting, telling me she was born in Myitkyina during World War II and later married, an arranged marriage, to a man, now deceased, from Pakokku.  She said that during the war a Japanese soldier gave her mother milk powder for her, because she reminded him of his own daughter.  She told me she had some Chinese and Shan ancestors, along with Burmese, and that she has now lived in Pakokku for 40 years.

She speaks very good English, having spent five years in a convent school in Maymyo (now Pwin Oo Lwin) after her father died (in the army, apparently fighting against one of Burma's many minority groups) and her mother remarried.  She told me she first started taking tourists into her hundred year old home in 1980.  Then tourists were allowed only seven days in the country.  Most would take the train from Rangoon to Mandalay, then a boat down the Irrawaddy to Bagan, and then a train or bus back to Rangoon.

She said the boat from Mandalay would arrive in Pakokku in the evening and spend the night there.  Some tourists didn't want to sleep on the boat, so she started a guest house and a restaurant for them.  She would have to wake them early to make sure they got back on the boat to Bagan, which left early.   She told me back then she charged five kyat per night (I paid 9000), but that the exchange rate was 13 to the dollar (now it is over 1000).  She also said that back then tourists could bring in a cartoon of cigarettes and a bottle of liquor, sell those once they arrived, and the proceeds would pay for their expenses during their seven days in Burma.  She was a very nice woman, a joy to talk to.