Shan State, Myanmar

Morning came quickly as it always does when you lack the ability to sleep in. I sat on a guesthouse balcony bench and watched the red sun peek out from behind the tin roofs. It illuminated the sleepy town below, the stone gray stupa and the power lines all contrasted against the gentle face of the mountain.

Our breakfast held true to the Sikh heritage of our guesthouse owners. Our omelettes were wrapped up in a chapatti and I finally had hot water for my own tea. As much I loved this country’s fixation on tea shops and having thermos of complimentary green tea on nearly every table, my body couldn’t take much more caffeine. Peppermint tea tasted like true bliss.

With our bags, we sneaked down to the restaurant/trekking agency. We did have light concerns that our guesthouse owners would be angered we left without taking advantage of their trekking company. They had kicked one girl out the night before I arrived for booking with another agency, leaving her out on the street. More cutthroat than we had bargained for. Luckily, the owners were occupied, so Colleen and I could sneak away.

After all the picky hotel details were ironed out for our next destination, we followed our two Burmese guides -- cousins apparently -- out of the city. Our trek would take three days before we arrived at Inle Lake, one of the most touristic locales in the whole country.

We walked past old colonial houses that had been abandoned in the 1950s when Burma gained independence from Britain. Pine tree fires sent smoke in the already clouded air. March was dry season, and much like I’ve seen in Canada, locals set controlled fires to burn away the potentially hazardous dry material and reduce the risk of raging forest fires. The European woman had questions about it while my eyes just grew big in understanding and I nodded.

We continued uphill on a path well travelled by motorbikes and today there was no shortage. A festival was going on in Lupin village to celebrate young monks. Many vehicles carrying couples and families swung by us, making this hike one of the least natural I had experienced. The different coloured headscarves and longyi skirts caught my interest as each bike passed.

Once we arrived in the village, our guide ushered us into a monastery. Male monks in Burma wore maroon robes while the female monks wore bright pink. This was a new phenomenon for me despite having lived in Thailand where the dominating colour was orange. A villager brought us over some snacks – a ginger salad with crunchy beans and tea -- while we watched the young monks at the front sip tea. People knelt before them then brought their head and arms to the floor while the monks recited prayers.

The whole area had a transient feel as people ventured in and out as they pleased. It was a very public and accepting place to accommodate foreign onlookers. Colourful flags hung from the wooden ceiling and our guide informed me they were the Buddhist flag. As we were leaving, more tourist groups had arrived, but despite it, nothing here felt like it was put on for show. This was just a festival that we happened to be fortunate enough to visit. Outside vendors sold long colourful balloons, toys and ice cream.

Thura, the older of the two guides, explained how different groups wandered in and out of monasteries and homes during this five day festival. Each group wore distinct clothing or accessories from the red sling bag the Pa-o woman carried to the colour of the headscarves they wore. We followed the locals into a nice two story home where the owners received us with smiles and encouraged us to sit down on one of the mats. They brought us an array of chips, sugar cane treats, the Burmese tea leaf salad with soya beans and even Cheroot cigars. I skipped the cigars since I don’t smoke tobacco, but the rest of the treats were great.

To our shock, we stopped for lunch an hour later, as if we needed anymore food. Thura had us set up in a random family’s home where we had lunch and tea with a nice local man. There wasn’t a lot of English spoken around these parts, but our guides were decent translators. Afterwards, I learned one of the most valuable lessons in tropical travel: the importance of mid afternoon naps. The average temperature in March hovered around 35 degrees Celsius plus humidex so you could imagine how unpleasant those afternoons could be.

The homeowner offered us his living room for our nap. Thura instructed that we sleep with our heads to Buddha, meaning the tall shrine against the far wall. Pointing ones feet towards Buddha displayed immense disrespect. We complied and lay down on the bamboo mats to sleep. We could only really thank him with a wave as he grinned back and the bright orange colour of his headscarf gleamed in the sun.     

 The rest of the trek passed peacefully by the highest peaks we’d see on this voyage as well as the orange and brown tinged valleys below. Dry season essentially had the same function as winter: kill off leaves and crops, while rainy season brought them back to life. We were caught in the jaws of dry season, at its scorching mercy.

As we walked I had a chance to chat with our companions. I was surprised to learn Thura had also lived in Bangkok at the same time I had; however, he couldn’t find the employment he desired and headed back shortly after to be taken back into the trekking agency as a guide.

“You are so young. Why do you travel alone?” Thura asked as he looked back at me. The string of his straw cowboy style hat swung with the motion.

I laughed. I got this all the time since my actual age never matched my face. “Because I wanted to see Myanmar and my friends wanted to visit Australia. I’m twenty two. You are so young too, how old are you?”

“No, no, I am old. Twenty five!”

“No way. Twenty five is so young! Twenty two, twenty five, very young!”

He was laughing at me now with a big grin pushing up his dark cheeks. “Thank you. You are kind. Many men my age have wives.”

“You have lots of time.”

“You know, my name means master of love,” he said, raising his eyebrows and grinning.

“Really?” I said with a laugh and soon steered the conversation elsewhere.

I won’t lie; I had missed that flirty nature that came with so many men in the tourism industry on that side of the world. It was something you got used to while living in Thailand and frequenting beach bars where you could go back and forth with playful banter. Most of it was pretty harmless, or I tried to keep it that way. A three day trek could turn out to be quite long should things go sour. Plus, I figured there were probably rules about it through the trekking agency.

We passed fields of mountain rice, chilies and various vegetables along with a group of cows and a very perturbed little calf. The sweetest little cries emitted from her tiny mouth as she ran from us and toward her family, clearly not liking our presence. Around a few more corners, we found Jao Soot, the village where we would be sleeping. Jao Soot boasted a collection of homes made of bamboo where the homes sat on the upper level while the animals occupied the six to eight foot space below the house.

Our guides gave us some privacy to set up our beds in the living area where we each were given a bamboo mat and two thick colourful blankets to keep us warm. Not everyone was excited about sleeping on the floor, but when in Burma do as the Burmese do. There wasn’t any running water there so we went out to the water tub out back with a bar of soap. People peeked out of their houses to see what we were all about, scrubbing the dry dirt and sweat off the few exposed areas of our bodies. We seemed to be their tourist attraction.

On the way out, one of the Danish girls and I came across one of the sweetest little girls who peered out at us from a doorway. Her parents watched and laughed at the scene. She would look out until she realized we were looking back, then run back into the shadows. Her mother tried to coax her out with a smile and eventually the girl came out. We got their permission to take her photo and she posed like a sweetheart with her big red hat and rosy cheeks.

We explored the rest of the village and saw women carrying baskets on their heads, returning from harvesting the fields. A man came up the path with a pair of ox pulling both him and a wooden cart. We both had nice enough cameras begging to capture this scene. The sun began to set and as life in the village ventured indoors, we decided to do the same.

Supper was fantastic. Thura certainly outdid himself. I thought hiring a restaurant cooks to lead tours, when they were responsible for food preparation, was a stunning idea. The six of us women had a real feast. Mountain rice, chicken and veggies in red sauce, marinated tofu, and bean sprout salad were among our selections. Of course the tea came out at dessert. The family and guides wouldn’t eat with us. They had the same in a separate room. Thura and our other guide, Pew, came to join afterwards for tea and it appeared a gaggle of men had followed them in. I suppose that was the byproduct of leading a tour of young women in their earlier twenties. At twenty two, I was the second oldest after Colleen in her mid twenties.

We asked Thura what the occasion was and he said that they wanted to meet us. There was an awkward silence since we didn’t speak Burmese and they spoke minimal English. Thura went through some translating to ask who was single. His eyes flickered between me and the British girl, Allison, while the silence grew even more awkward. She told him she had a boyfriend back home even though she planned to move back to India to teach shortly after. She hoped he would join her there. I just got a bit awkward with all the eyes on me and shrugged. The conversation dropped after that and eventually we were left to settle in for the night.