Myanmar Shangri La

This plateau of hill tribes in Myanmar proves to be rustic rather than primal. There’s no jungle or bark huts or uncultivated natives. It’s pastoral, more like being in a European art-house movie set at the turn of last century with enchanting characters and muted landscapes where boy meets girl in a script written by someone from the Romantic School.

We’re on a trek from Kalaw to Inle Lake in Shan state. Sharing my journey are four French hikers; Sanmya, our guide, a nineteen year old Pa-O girl, her cheeks adorned with circles of the ubiquitous thanaka cream; and Zaw, our cook from Yangon.

It rains for two days prior to the trek and is still falling before we set out. This is meant to be the dry season, but Kalaw has a unique climate.

* * *

On day one …we leave the former colonial Hill Station carrying essentials in a day-pack – the bulk of our luggage is transported ahead to Inle.

We continue on a long, but gentle climb on a dirt track made damp and occasionally clayed by the earlier rain, entering tea plantations interspersed by spindly pines with banana trees huddling in gullies, and overlooking multi-hued country similar to Galicia in Spain.

At one point a villager stops on a motorbike carting containers of fuel to a gold mine. He lights a cigarette, oblivious of any risk, and continues on his way.

We reach an altitude of 1800 metres – the sixty kilometre route is mostly at that elevation making for mild temperatures – and approach the Paluang village of Nyang Kong, today’s destination.

Entry is via a dirt track that passes a small monastery, a row of timber and brick homes and ends at a large banyan tree sheltering a Nat shrine that honours a guardian spirit.

There are two variations of the Paluang tribe – Golden and Silver – differentiated, partly, by a preference for the respective colour. This is a Golden Palaung village. Once comparatively reclusive, they are now opening up to the world. Here, they live in individual homes rather than traditional long houses. Tea is the Golden Palaung cash crop. Other produce, oranges, carrots, soya bean, bananas, papaya etc are grown for their own consumption.

Sanmya takes us to the home of Dawjak, where we will stay tonight. She has the demeanour of a favourite aunty and serves us tea.

After lunch we venture off on a side trip to a small monastery village nearby.

Villages dot the occasional ridge white then the clouds spread allowing the sun to spotlight fields and crops, accentuating yellow, brown and green hues.

The assistance of a local villager is required to guide our return via a short-cut route. We arrive back at Nyang Kong as dark appraoaches.

 * * *

Early morning on day two …a rooster crows with routine belligerence, a grandmother recites prayers to Buddha at the foot of our sleeping mats, and a loudspeaker trumpets Palaung songs across the valley. The wet season is over, the tea is harvested and weddings are in full bloom.

In this case the marriage is arranged, though Sanmya explains the couple: “Already know each other and are in love”. They’re both from this village (she’s a local teacher) and twenty years-old, other factors diverting from traditional convention. We met the couple at their respective homes last night, joining guests chewing betel nut, drinking tea, and eating minya and sali (snacks of leaf, bean and nuts) and a tasty soya-bean version of a potato chip that becomes a staple-snack during our trip.

150kg of pork will be consumed for the wedding breakfast.

We’re invited to the wedding ceremony, but there’s uncertainty about the starting time. Then the music is replaced by a male voice calling villagers and Nats to attend, so we make haste. It is 6.30AM.

We’re ushered past villagers assembling outside and offered a position on the floor of a large room, near the bride and groom. Sitting opposite them is the chief of this region of Palaung tribes and the man behind the voice. He continues to recite, blessing the union on behalf of the elders, who cram the room. The men on one side…

And the women and children on the other…

The ceremony is fervent, but informal. The rhythm and tone of the recital evoke meaning even if the Palaung words don’t. The couple will also visit a monk tomorrow to receive his sanction.

The wedding breakfast follows at the bride’s house – spicy pork. When we return to Dawjak’s, another, even larger breakfast is prepared by Zaw.

A group photo is arranged with the bride and groom and their mothers.

Dawjak presents us with a parting gift of home grown tea, apologising that’s all she has to give, but it’s the perfect souvenir. She claims the house will feel quiet with our absence. Her husband is away, representing the family at another wedding.

The Palaung soundtrack alternates with Myanmar contemporary now and bon-voyages us (with very full stomachs), following us across a distant ridge.

We continue a gentle hike for around two hours to our lunch destination, the Viewpoint, a makeshift Nepalese restaurant, and popular trekking junction.

Two primary schools are passed on the trek. This is the first one, The kids are a mixture of shy curiosity, cheekiness and sing-song recital.

By mid-afternoon the steep country gives way to gentler terrain. At a fork in the path we rest under a large Banyan tree. Villagers have propped up its sacred branches with lengthy bamboo poles.

As Sanmya explains, “A mother, or something like this, goes to a fortune teller about something …maybe a sick kid. For a cure she must support the Banyan tree.”

The track follows a dilapidated railway line through a narrow, forested cutting for several kilometres emerging at Mindak. Villagers come from surrounding areas to sell their produce.

Tea plantations are replaced by rice paddies (likewise recently harvested), arranged marriages are no longer the custom, and the track descends from ridge to valley floor.

Red soil is exposed on the surrounding hills …it’s a drier climate here, but with ample water supply, the two ingredients often associated with abundance.

Plants hanging from trestles like grape vines. “Pumpkins”, Sanmya says, then also indentifies pear trees growing on a rise above the paddies, their leaves fallen in deference to winter.

We walk through gardens of soya bean, and sesame and mustard seed. Cabbages and cauliflower add to the vegetable mix.

The track follows a creek winding through the valley. Clouds play shadow puppet with the descending sun, projecting shades of light and dark on amphitheatres of harvested terraces. The earthy scent of straw hangs in languid air.

Seen from the crest of a hill is a Danu village of timber homes with rusting tin rooves. The golden spire of a Buddhist temple rises behind it on a forested knoll.

The village is approached via a long footbridge emerging into a path embraced by trees and hedges that leads to the house where we stay night two.

We’re greeted by the father, a stocky man who invites us to tea on the verandah. He has a shaved head – a Danu Yul Brynner.

Now that the rice is harvested the Danu gather around fires each night peeling the garlic to be planted in its place. Following our evening meal, Sanmya escorts us along a rambling dirt path matted with loose straw and flanked by rickety bamboo fences and gently burning fires. Conversation and laughter predominate while garlic is peeled unconsciously, with deft fingers, the cloves split and dropped in a small basket, the downy feathers of peel scattered around bare feet.

“It’s a custom that if a boy likes a girl he will visit: She serves tea and they peel together. Maybe he comes with friends or something like this, but after …they leave,” Sanmya confides. In parts of Europe, at the turn of last century, garlic was used to repel evil; here it’s a match-maker.

We continue sauntering. Sanmya makes casual conversation with the villagers – small talk, easy going. They mostly want to know where we’re from. The evening is mild and calm, the sky littered with stars and softened by a moon nearing full. In a nearby bush, a cricket, not to be out done, loudly announces itself, strumming wings in its own courting serenade.

A lone girl sits beside one fire. She rakes the scattered papery leaf into a rim caressing it into the flames, blowing on the embers, sitting on her haunches, performing a busy, crouching dance. She directs glances with eyes speaking multitudes in a foreign language. A boy ambles shyly, playfully up to her. She teases pushing him away then serves him tea.

* * *

On day three …mist veils the village, water buffalo breakfast, free range, in the yards and verges, and at the thatch-roofed house next door a young child helps his mother sweep a verandah in his own act of devotion.

This village is more serene than Nyang Khong, nestled as it is in the calm of a valley. Is there a hierarchy about location? It also appears more affluent, relatively speaking. Fate offers a hand – a UN funded scheme generates power from the creek. Though limited in supply, one house has a satellite dish. Plumbing is also on its way – our house has an outdoor, western style toilet, though it isn’t working during our stay – not that we demand it. A shower, for the moment, is still a dish and water.

After a pancake breakfast, we leave the Danu village…

Sesame seeds.

Flowers are another cash crop. Villagers mainly buy them for religious purposes.

The leaves from this plant can be used to stem a bleeding wound.

A last look back over the Danu village.

Memories of last night echo.

Entering Pa-O country the landscape alters again: expanses of red-chilli fields.

And a village with a primary school a little less rudimentary than yesterday’s.

The ox rest while the villagers work. Later, roles are reversed.

The paddies are drained. Garlic is planted in the damp soil and covered with hay.

Lunch is at a Pa-O village.

Wearing predominantly black, the Pa-O, related to the Karen, dress in layers to emulate their ancestral spirit the dragon. In the 11^th century, King Anawrahta decreed their captive ancestors wear dark clothes to signify lower status. They form the second largest ethnic group in Shan State (the largest being the Shan themselves).

Today is the hottest walking so far, though the temperature’s still no more than mid to high twenties. In the late afternoon, dark clouds form above bleached fields on the eastern horizon, the sky made to appear threatening by the sun’s goading rays. But there’s more brewing than weather …it’s a mood stirred by the light, the tranquillity and a pastel landscape suggesting other than the tropics. At an intersection of trails five Pa-O women load a cart.

Typically they want to know where we’re from. One observes that we’re “Tall …big”. I joke she forgot to add “Handsome” and Sanmya translates the reply. “She says, Yes, very handsome – you can follow them to the village tonight.”

They leave on a rutted track toward the sky crying wolf.

We continue in the opposite direction passing a field of harvested corn, our feet shuffling through the dry stalks and leaves.

The thorn and fibre from this plant is used as needle and thread.

A rice Nat-offering serves as gratitude and harvest insurance.

The sense of anticipation increases. Perhaps the serenity and the rhythm of our footsteps combine to bewitch perception. Maybe the encounters are evoking ancient memories of a collective idyll.

About twenty metres away a Taungthu girl in a long blue dress and a light pink top leans forward to twirl a lengthy orange scarf around her head like an oriental Sophia Loren. The setting sun lights the mountains behind and the rise holds her aloft before them. It’s as if we accidently walked into a film set. I reach for my camera, hesitating …should I? Do I ask? Too late, she turns away.

The image is etched in memory instead. Perhaps only movie directors, with the luxury of rehearsal and repeated takes, can portray moments like these.

An escarpment draws us into a narrower valley as darkness erases the last of dusk’s crimson.

Villagers, on cue, exit the fields with their carts and animals converging on a track that winds uphill. We’re swept along with them, directed by gentle laughs, mellow voices and the tinkle of cow bells, transported to our final night’s destination – a nearby monastery. The elderly abbot invites us to make ourselves at home, the ‘bedroom’ being a curtained corner of the main hall.

That evening Sanmya takes us to visit a Taungthu family living close by. Wooden stairs lead to a candle lit room. A fire burns quietly on its hotplate embedded in the floor. ‘Taungthu’ is another name given to the Pa-O, except this tribal variant has a more open dress code and presumably escaped King Anawrahta’s clutches. We join the eight women, three of whom are daughters of the household, and all wear stupendous headscarves died ambiguous shades of red. They serve us tea and a crab-apple dish that’s sour but oddly more-ish.

They want to know what crops we grow, where we buy our food, what the time is at home, do we like Myanmar? Sanmya says they thought it was a new sun every day. They stare at us, we steal a glance at them drawn to each other’s difference and dancing coyly to evolution’s song of attraction.

The father returns home from the evening ritual visiting other villagers. He’s an inquisitive, sprightly man with longish hair who looks too young for six children (the three sons have left home).

The eyes have it.

According to Sanmya, the Taungthu don’t practice the Danu courting custom, but a girl enters with a large basket and empties its contents near the fire. Garlic.

* * *

On day four …another foggy morning defeats the sunrise; the rhythmic thud of a villager pounding rice transcends the stillness; and a woman balancing a shoulder pole ventures into the monastery ground with food for the monks.

The meals Zaw prepares throughout the trek are plentiful and delicious and so is the last breakfast…assorted tempura, omelette, sticky rice with nuts, fruit, sesame-seed biscuits, green or ginger tea and brewed coffee.

After thanking the abbot, we leave the monastery among children walking to school, and are soon on an uphill track in open country of stunted grass that, if not for the occasional cactus, would pass for alpine meadow.

Unripe wheat shimmers like fields of frost.

We pass spider webs one after the other …small stars of dewy gossamer in the grass; others large wedding veils draped in the shrubs and trees arching the track.

The sun eventually reduces the fog to a warm, bright haze and exposes crops of sesame seed.

Climbing a range of hills we look back over the plateau-valley. The scene reminds of Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog a painting by Caspar David Friedrich, an artist from the Romantic School.

While in Myanmar I read The River of Lost Footsteps by Thant Myint-U, which documents the conflict that has visited villages like these over the centuries, civil and foreign. It’s difficult to imagine this world ever being disturbed by violence, but calm can quickly settle in the wake of chaos as if it never existed.

We’re travelling through at a pace that accommodates presenting a best face, but I’m feeling protective. I’d like to warn them to be careful what they wish for, to caution them about greener grass. Or is that just being Romantic? Change is inevitable and visitors like us are part of the dilemma.

As Myanmar opens up to the world decisions will need to be made about how much to embrace it. Modern technology offers them a chance to be connected without being invaded.

We continue through hilly landscape that Sanmya calls “sand country” because nothing grows there.

We’re on a dirt road for now, but there’s little traffic, though other trekkers are beginning to appear.

We stop at a tea shop in the middle of nowhere.

We follow a track that detours off the road and rest under a Banyan tree overlooking a water-buffalo way station…

Then make the long, final descent to a river and the boat that will transport us to Inle Lake.

We each pay a US$5 foreigner fee that gains entry to Inle and soon we’re encountering hawkers and tourist hordes … it’s like emerging from an art-house cinema into the dull light of day.

END