
We arrived in Hsipaw in the early evening,
and despite the fact that Jonno was having a great time with the chundering
man, we got off the minivan and went to find a guesthouse. Most of the websites
we had looked on had recommended a place called Mr. Charles Guest House, so we went
to check it out. It was a very pretty building with most of the interior being
wooden, which gave it an old English feel about it. We asked for the cheapest
double room which was $14 with a shared bathroom. Unfortunately the building
neighbored a before and after school programme, which started at 6am and
finished at 10pm. It seems the only way people learn anything in Myanmar is by
chanting things as loud as possible and as many times as possible, which was
not great for when we wanted an early night or a lie in. We also discovered
that even though we were in a twin room there were in fact three of us
occupying the room, one of which was small and squeaky with a long tail. After
attempting to position our bags so that our new friend could not nibble at them
easily, we went in search of food and found a cheap roadside place with some
noodle soup and returned to our room to be lulled to sleep by the chanting that
sounded like some kind of satanic verse.
The next morning we took a look around the
town of Hsipaw, which mainly consisted of a marketplace with various fresh and
packaged food stalls. As we walked through the maze of market stalls, we saw
lines of small nuns in pink robes and hats make their way around too, singing
and receiving donations from the local people. I had brought along a pair of my
trousers which were held up by elastic, and in some places the elastic had broken
so they did not really stay up anymore.
For a while I had been meaning to take them to a tailors to see if they
could replace the elastic, but had forgotten to take them with me. After about
a month of forgetting, I finally remembered to bring them along so we went in
search of somewhere that could repair them. We passed a few who shook their
heads when I tried to explain what I needed, but one old man in a small shop
took the trousers from me, dropped the fabric he was working on and began
ferociously sewing away on his machine. When he had finished I asked him how
much and he shook his head and would not accept payment, just one of the
instances that show how friendly and kind the people of Myanmar are. It didn’t really
matter that his work made no difference at all because he didn’t replace any
elastic he just sewed a line where the elastic should have been, I appreciated
the gesture anyway.
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The nuns visiting the market stalls |
On the map that the guesthouse had on their
wall of the area, we noticed there was an old Shan Palace that was open to
visitors, so decided to go and investigate. As we turned off the main road and
onto a small path that lead to some gates that had become overgrown, we
wondered if we had the right place. We saw a small sign on the gate with
opening times, so gingerly opened the gate and went through. What we found was
a fairly old English looking house but nobody in sight except a grumpy little
dog that wouldn’t stop barking at us. As we turned to leave, a woman came out
of a door and invited us inside, where there were two other tourists. She let
us explore the room which was covered with old pictures and books, and then
started explaining the history of the building. The Shan state of Myanmar
previously had royal families for each area, and this was the home of the ‘sky
prince’ of Hsipaw. The reason it looked English was that he had been sent
abroad to England for university and adopted a western style and wanted his
home to look the same. He had married a
woman from Holland who later wrote her story in a book called ‘Twilight over
Burma: My life as a Shan Princess’. The woman who was telling us the story was
his niece and now lived in the old palace and wanted to share her story with
visitors. In 1962, the Burmese government arrested all the Shan princes in
secret, and then denied that they had anything to do with it, but nobody ever
saw the princes after that. The family are still trying to get the government
to admit responsibility but to this day they still deny any involvement. The
woman who now lives in the old palace started sharing her family’s story in the
1990s with her husband, but the government was not happy with this and
imprisoned her husband who was released after four years. She and her husband
continue to receive visitors, and have lots of stories and photos to share. It
was fascinating listening to her accounts, and gave us an insight into what the
people of Myanmar have experienced in recent history. Mid way through her talking
to us, she heard some people outside and tutted, telling us she was sorry but
some people just turn up uninvited, which is exactly what we had done but we didn’t
point this out.
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The old Shan Palace |
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Inside the palace- definitely an English influence |
After thanking the woman for sharing her
story we walked back towards the hotel. One of the other tourists at the palace
was also staying at our guesthouse, so we walked with her. She was from Germany
and had been travelling to some of the places we had also been to, so we shared
stories. She told us that the guesthouse offered advice and information on the
treks that they offer, and we had heard that the area was good for trekking, so
we joined her in asking for information. The guide that was at the desk
explained about the 1, 2 or 3 day treks they offered. Although we had done a
bit of trekking, we had not tried any more than a day at a time so we thought
we would challenge ourselves and try a 2 day trek, which would take us through
villages and we would stay overnight in one of the villages. The german girl
also booked the same trek which would start the next morning. Still not being too
sure what we were getting ourselves into, we prepared our day bags with the
things we would need and got some sleep.
The next morning we gave our main bags to
the guesthouse to store them and went to find our trekking group. There were
five of us in the group; us, the German girl we had met the day before and 2 German
guys. We were introduced to our guide and off we went.
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And we are off |
The trek started out with a nice easy path
through some fields and past a cemetery which had different sections for each
nationality that was buried there, and as we continued we hit some steeper
inclines but it was manageable and we stopped for breaks a few times. The guide
had brought some local sesame seed cookies for us which we all fell in love
with.
We stopped for lunch at a family home in
one of the villages. They had set up a small table for us and some cushions
made from sacks that we could sit on, and served us an amazing vegetarian lunch
of local dishes with rice. We then had about an hour to relax in some deck
chairs before we continued on our journey.
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Taking some much needed rest at lunch |
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You don't need language when you can bang on a plastic chair together |
The trek took us through beautiful scenery,
from farmlands where families were ploughing fields with buffalo to jungle
areas where the guide had to break a path through the trees. He had lots of
knowledge about the area and showed us interesting plants like the mimosa
leaves that curl up when they are touched and fruit trees like jackfruit,
banana and avocado. The guide also explained to us that there are only certain
areas in the Shan state which allow foreigners in and even Myanmar people from
surrounding areas would need a good reason to visit the restricted areas. This
is because there are armies from different parts of the Shan state who have
camps in the jungle, and there is often fighting between these groups and the
government. As we passed some of the villages, the guide told us that it is
often difficult to get the villagers to engage with politics and the issues of
the country, as they often govern themselves so don’t see the relevance. We
also discovered new things about the German culture with three Germans for
company, which has given us an urge to travel Germany now- the difficulties of
having the freedom to travel the world, there are far too many countries! The
great thing about German and English is that we have a lot of words that are
the same or similar (one of them being hoof as we discovered) so even when they
were speaking German together we could pick out a few bits of the conversation.
Jonno also had a great satisfaction as a few days before he had said how much
German people love strudel and we overheard the Germans talking about their favourite
types of strudel, so I was given a ‘see I told you so’ look.
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The whole family works on the fields |
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Beautiful scenery |
We arrived at the village of our homestay
about an hour before sunset, after trekking for around eight hours, and were
taken through the village and up a steep path to see the Monastery at the top.
There was a group of unkempt looking children playing around the Monastery, who
were very excited to see us and ran up to us waving and shouting hello as we
passed. One little boy only knew how to say ‘ta ta’ so he repeated this over
and over again.
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Meeting the local kids |

We entered the monastery and the guide beckoned
us to sit on the floor in front of the shrine of Buddha statues. On the
platform there sat one monk of 14 years old, with an elderly nun praying at his
feel. The guide explained that monks are always higher than nuns, regardless of
the age. It did seem very strange to see this hierarchy in a culture where you
should pay respect to your elders. After the nun had finished praying to the
monk, he brought a flask of green tea for us which was definitely needed after
the long walk. There were about twenty other monks and novices in a room next
door watching a black and white film. The guide showed us a gold statue of a bird
and explained that the village had been saving up for this statue and it was
going to be placed on the top of a pole outside the monastery in a ceremony the
following morning. He told us the meaning behind the bird is that there is a story
where a bird challenges the sun to a race which he initially is winning but
then death catches up with the bird. Apparently this is a reminder to Buddhists
of the inevitability of death. The guide told us we were invited to the
ceremony of placing the statue on the pole the next morning, which we said we
would like to attend. The guide also explained the reason behind the bells on
the top of every pagoda which chime when the wind blows them, as when people were
in the jungle and wanted to find their way back to the village they could just
follow the noise of the bells, as every village has a pagoda.
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The village school, surrounded with barbed wire |
By this time it was almost dark, so the
guide lead us back down the steep path to the home which we would stay the
night. The house was spacious but basic, and we were introduced to the family
who lived there. There were grandparents, parents and five children living in
the house together, and they welcomed us in with more green tea and lots of
smiles. We were shown where we could take a shower- a concrete block outside
with a trough of water and a bucket, and were served another delicious local
vegetarian meal. The bedroom was a large room upstairs with mattresses on the
floor and a mosquito net over each one- cosy enough and after a long day of
trekking it was very welcomed!
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Our homestay |
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A pretty big mosquito that has been caught by the net |
We were awoken in the morning by a man with
a terrible hacking cough, and then the grandfather of the house coming in to
chant some prayers to the Buddha shrine in the corner of our room. We got
ourselves ready and went downstairs where we were served a breakfast of rice,
vegetables in a broth, omelette with anise leaves and a very strong smelling
dried tofu dish. Some of the children were getting ready to go to school, but
also had to help with the younger children by feeding them breakfast and
getting them dressed. It was the calmest household with that many children that
I had ever seen- most scenes of getting children ready for school involve
parents rushing around frantically trying to get their children organised (If
you have seen the programme ‘Outnumbered’ this has been my experiences). This
was completely different- the children who were attending school were quietly
getting themselves ready while their parents sat and chatted with the tour
guide. Whatever parenting techniques had been used were clearly very effective!
We left our bags at the house and walked back up to the Monastery for the
ceremony, to find out that it had already finished and the bird stood proudly
on its stand with a sprinkling of popcorn around the base of the pole as an
offering. We went back to the house, gathered our bags, said goodbye to the
family and set off, our legs feeling achier than the
previous day.
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We missed the party but went to check out the result |
The second day of walking was easier than the first, with most of
the journey on flat paths or downhill. We passed more farmland and villages,
and after 3 hours reached a dirt road where we were met by a rickshaw and we
all gratefully bundled on. Our legs may have been thankful for the rest but it
definitely was not the most comfortable of journeys- the road was full of rocks
and holes and we were flung around the vehicle. We were taken to a place that
had some hot springs- they were man made pools but were pumped with natural hot
spring water. One was pure spring water but it was extremely hot, and the other
had some cold water added to it but was still the temperature of a bath. It was so nice to float around in them,
stretching our achy muscles.
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Relaxing in the hot spring |
After a while of relaxing, we were ready for lunch
but when we got to the path, the rickshaw had gone and the guide explained
there was something wrong with it so the driver went to get it fixed and would
be back soon. This caused a slight panic as some people had left their
belongings on the truck, including the German girl’s shoes, as we had assumed
it would wait for us there. After about 20 minutes of waiting, the guide
suggested we walk 5 minutes to a local restaurant for lunch there while we
waited for the driver to return. We made our way to the restaurant, which wasn’t
easy for the girl with no shoes, and the guide ordered us a local dish of Shan
noodle soup which is a type of thick, sticky noodle in stock (it is pretty
good). The rickshaw reappeared 15 minutes later to everyone’s relief, and took
us back to the guesthouse where we said goodbye to the guide and had a very
much needed shower. That evening, we went up to the communal balcony area where
we ended the day with some drinks, including an interesting concoction made by
the German guys of rum, hot water and sugar.
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A banana- the latest hair accessory |
The following day we felt that we had
earned a day of rest so had a lazy morning, and then in the afternoon had a
walk around some more of the town. There was an area which had been named ‘Mini
Bagan’ and even though the prospect of more temples and pagodas wasn’t that
exciting, we thought we might as well check it out and see if it actually did
resemble Bagan. The answer was, not much, apart from it being a small
collection of ruins of payas and pagodas, but it gave us something to do. We also
paid a visit to the nearby Nat shrine which has lots of animal statues, and a
monastery with a bamboo Buddha. We spent the rest of the afternoon in a
peaceful café with some fruit juices and booked our onward ticket to Inle Lake
for the following day.
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Someone has great taste in shrine decor |
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Buddhist gangsta statue with handfuls of cash |
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Making sure all the animals are well fed |
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'Mini Bagan' |
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A tree growing out the top of the ruins |
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