Our guide for the trek was Aung San, from a minority group called Palaung. I emailed a few trekking guides back at home. Aung San replied back and told me to call him when I arrived in Hsipaw to arrange the time and the duration of the treks in person. We began our trekking trip at 7:30am.
On the ride to the bottom of the mountain, where our trek would start, the tuk tuk honked midway and offered a ride to young monks. They were on their morning routine to collect rice and donations. They got off after we crossed a bridge, where they first ran to find their hidden shoes.
Our guide was amazingly knowledgeable. He knew the names of pretty much all plants and their uses — for medical use, where to apply, how to consume, and for which occasion. He also told us about the culture of minority tribes in Myanmar.
Myanmar is a Buddhist country. They believe that their acts in this life will decide what they will be born as in the next life. If you lived a generous and devout life, you will be born into favourable circumstances, enjoying wealth and good health. If you “borrowed something and never returned,” you will be born a water buffalo in the next life, where you will serve your owner for the rest of your life.
All Buddhist boys in Myanmar are expected to enter a monastery to receive Buddhist education. Their monkhood can range from a few weeks to years. Being a monk twice in a lifetime is considered a goal for many Buddhists. Aung San, our guide, told us that he stayed in Mandalay monastery for 8 years from the age of 10, and left because “it was enough.”
During his stay in Mandalay, he experienced frequent stomachaches in the beginning. He wasn’t used to eating greasy food so he found this plant. He chewed on the young sprouts only a few times and his tummy was all good.
Margaret and I already felt like we were melting and Aung Sang casually turned back at us and said, “Nice weather for walking. Not too hot.”
We insisted that this is a hike and not a trek, and Aung San repeated that this is not a hike, it’s just a walk. Eventually, we came to a crossroad. He asked us to choose which way we would prefer. Left would be a walk, and right would be a real hike. There were trekkers resting after a hike on the right road. They looked perfectly fit and almost dead. Margaret and I are the most indecisive people so we asked our guide to choose for us. Aung San quietly faced the left. So we took the left.
The trees are burned down after the harvest to make natural fertility soil for the next season. This is, however, toxic to water storage. Aung San would speak to farmers to raise awareness.
Aung San showed us the Rocky Mountains of Myanmar. I told him about the Rocky Mountains in Canada and how there is so much snow there, and also bears, moose, ibexes (“snow goats”), and elks, to name a few. I once told a couple Australians about aggressive, man-eating possums of Vancouver, but maybe because of the atmosphere of this country, I didn’t mention the polar bears or the igloos this time.
We were introduced to 3 ethnic minorities in the region: Shan, Palaung, and Lishu. Each village has flags consisted of same sets of 4 colours as they all grow tea. Green represents the tea land, blue represents peace, yellow symbolizes their ties to Myanmar, and lastly, red represents the sun.
Aung San told us about the courtship in his village. Everyone will go about living their daily lives in the day, and at night, guys would visit girls with their friends as wingmen and hold conversations across the door. This makes good talkers good candidates for husbands, rather than handsome men. But sometimes, the girls would already identify the voice and know who they are talking to. This happens persistently until their engagement and oftentimes the wingmen will find any way to escape the awkward situation and steal fruits from someone’s field for snacks. If the girls are not interested in the guys, they would offer a lot of tea. When the guys return from washroom breaks, the girls would be gone. Aung San also said that this can get quite embarrassing as the parents can hear everything through thin walls.
He also told us about his friend, also a guide, who married last year to a French girl, who was his trekking guest. They moved out to live in the city after they got married. These things do happen.
We took 8 hours to get to the final village. It usually takes Aung San 3 hours. We’ll do better next time.
While we stayed at Aung San’s family’s guesthouse, we saw 2 Shan soldiers who climbed down the mountain after seeing us foreigners to see us. They came in separately and the first man smiled shyly as he entered the guesthouse and sat at the table with us. He put down a gun between him and me. I didn’t notice at first and moved my belongings so that there is enough space for everyone. Then once again, he patted his gun in a big motion, which by then I noticed what he was trying to show me. They happened to be of Palaung people. One of them volunteered to join the army in place of his young son and now has served for 28 years, fighting his own people.
Shan State Army is one of the largest insurgent groups in Myanmar. They don’t necessary only recruit the Shan people, but they would recruit any ethnic minorities. Aung San’s village was lucky because no one got recruited by either army. Both the Shan and Palaung armies visited around the same time, and the tension within the village and the stress from having to pick so many men in the given few days rather prevented both army to take anyone from the village. But the Shan State Army still surround Aung San’s Palaung village, as the Palaung Army, or TNLA, surround the Shan villages. Stepping into each other’s boundaries would start a shootout, which apparently happened near the village a week before we arrived. There are also land mines between these armies and it is not uncommon to hear an explosion when the roaming water buffalos step on them.
We went out for a walk after a short rest.
After dinner, we walked around to see how people work with the tea they collected during the day. Tealeaves are steamed by women rowing a giant wheel. After a while, the tealeaves are spread out again on the bamboo carpet to let the steam out.
Night time is pitch black dark so we went to sleep early. It was a good sleep after a daylong trek.
Day 5 — Hsipaw trek (Day 1 of 2D/1N)
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