Uncle Sam Travel & Tours:

Despite waking before 6am, eating breakfast, booking a hostel in Nyaung Shwe for my arrival in 3 days, showering, and face-timing Nikki I found myself running with my heavy bags to Uncle Sam’s a few minutes late. We were relieved to find that only one of the members of the trek had arrived before us, two others showed up after, and three never came. Tagging our large bags to be transferred that day to our respective hostels in Nyaung Shwe, we started off - Nadine from England, Alvaro and Helen from Spain, Evan from the US and Canadian me - walking towards the southern hills of Kalaw. After a short stint on a trail snaking through rice fields, we arrived at a gravel road which wound us up a mountain in the blistering hot heat for two hours. I started to worry that this was foreshadowing of the next few days trekking.

View Point - Nepali Tribe:

Reaching the top of the mountain via gravel road, we veer off and follow a path along the ridge through fields of Mandarin orange trees until we get to a viewpoint, and the guide, after settling us at a thatch-roofed table, went off to make sure lunch was being prepared. A lady busy tending to the drying tea leaves spread out across a mat on the ground shoos her son from walking on it; a mother hen and her baby chick each tear at an end of discarded chapatti bread; a pale brown short-haired dog runs for cover over to us as the same boy chases it with a stick. The viewpoint looks out over vast valleys and hillside country – both irrigated and not – as far as the eye can see. The village consists mainly of Nepali people, and the lunch received represents such. Plates of papaya, orange and watermelon slices are served first, along with small bowls of soup. Delicious pumpkin curry and chapatti bread follows the fruit. When it is time to leave, we travel out of town through stands of papaya trees with ginger root growing at their base. A very large mat with countless kilograms of freshly picked ginger lays out in the baking sun. We follow a gravel road for another hour or so, then thankfully, cut into the forest. In no time, we are surrounded by the wailing, screeching, cawing and croaking sounds of jungle wildlife. The change of scenery is soothing, and each passing hour brings further relief to my fear of walking on gravel for days on end. From the lush forest at the top of the mountain, we descend gradually for the next hour to a lake where we break for a few minutes, then continue around it, traversing the slippery wet ground on the other end. We ascend up to a ridge to land slightly more dry and open. The ground changes from dark dirt to a tan-brown sandy look, which may have been dustier had it not rained the previous day. A train sounding in the distance, and the sight of staggered rice terraces appearing to the left, signals a further change in our surroundings. A few hundred meters away, trotting across the terrace is a lady barking out dog-like yelps, herding a group of buffalo, who skittishly run just in front of her. Our trail runs parallel to hers for a while, until we veer to the left onto a dirt road. The buffalo intersected our path, crossing the road, and leap gingerly – surprising for creatures of such magnitude – a meter or more down into the fields on the other side. 

Train Station - Myindin Village:

Shortly we come upon train tracks. We hang a right, and follow these for the next few kilometers, matching our steps to the spacing of the ties, or trying our balance on the tracks themselves – which are sometimes flat, but sometimes rounded on the top. The narrow path cut through the trees and brush by the tracks finally opens up and we enter a small village called Myindin, belonging to the people of the Paung tribe. Bright green fields full of garlic lay to our left, with small bridges and walkways leading through them to small single story huts beyond. Before long, after passing a few more cattle and buffalo grazing, we come to the railway station, where we stop for tea and a snack. Evan, who had been struggling with travelers diarrhea for a few days now, found a perfect opportunity to use the hole-in-the-ground toilet that dumped out human fertilizer from a 3 meter long pipe exiting the back of the toilet and into the crop field behind. After tea, we leave the station and follow a dirt and gravel road for a few hundred meters taking a right to cross one of the raised dirt paths that separate sections of field from each other. Another hour or so of travelling across hilly fields of various crops, we crest a hill and see a small village consisting of 30 or so small earthly coloured huts with tin roofs; a single white stupa rises up proud above all. “This is where we stay tonight,” our guide Khuso informs us. 

1st Homestay - Satkay Kong:

Dropping down into the valley we come to a long wooden bridge with hand rails, suspended just above the bright green of evening sun-touched grass-like crop fields. Crossing this we find ourselves in Satkay Kong village, a residence to perhaps a hundred inhabitants of the Danu tribe. We arrive at our home for the night in no time. In the back yard, Khuso shows us the four-foot-tall cement trough filled with water used for showering, with the assistance of a small silver bowl to scoop the water with. I don’t think a single one of us used this ‘clean’ water bath basin that had some questionable floaties visible on the surface. Our room, which is on the second floor of the dark-stained wood house already has 5 mats laid out side by side on the far wall from the door, underneath a Buddha shrine – almost like a Christmas nativity scene – raised up on the wall one and a half meters up. A low circular table sits in the middle of the room, and the dim light glowing above it is powered by a car battery in the corner of the room; thank goodness I brought my portable power supply to charge my phone/camera with! We wander the village for a nearly an hour before dinner, watching buffalo bath-time down at the water hole, kids playing with wooden sleds on a hillside, and families of fowl birds clucking confusedly across the road at our approach. We arrive back at the house and tell Evan of the things we saw, and he tells us how terrible the bathroom is. Food arrives shortly, and is a buffet assortment of varied dishes, that we eat while sitting on the floor around the low table in our room. We finish eating, and the darkness and sudden still peacefulness outside tempt us with thoughts of bed, despite it only being seven at night. We choose instead to pass time playing cards – assholes vrs. presidents – until the organic sound of music wakes our senses, suddenly audible and filling the silent night air. Donning our shoes, we rush towards the sound, which comes from one of the houses diagonally opposing ours on the other side of the street. We are beckoned in by a lady leaving the house, and on entering, see a group of 8 men sitting on the floor with an assortment of instruments in front of them: wooden drums, cymbals, bamboo clackers and a high-pitch squeaky flute played by an older gentleman. We find a place to sit on the floor and watch them play for 20 minutes before another man comes to the door, stands still for a moment, then bursts into dance, spinning round, and moving his arms in jointed movements to the rhythm of the music. It’s not long before the drum-beat coursing through my nervous system takes its toll, and I get up to join the man and his dancing.