Burma Part IX: Hsipaw

Hsipaw has a night market.  Really, it is a very, very early morning market.  We went at 3 a.m. and it seemed to be finishing up.  You may be asking why have a market at 3 a.m.?  Good question! The villages send one member, on their one motorbike, down to town loaded up with all their excess produce. That person is responsible for selling said produce and then buying what the village needs. The market is all closed up, and everyone is home, before breakfast.

I also visited the princess in the Shan Palace. Technically she isn't the princess, her brother-in-law was prince (her husband is his brother). The princess, the Shan Prince's Austrian wife, lives in Colorado now. The Prince was killed by the government. The brother was imprisoned for telling this story to tourists, actually he was imprisoned twice, but now with the government reforms they are allowed to talk to us. This is their home -- they accept donations to help pay for badly needed renovations.

I also took another boat trip, this time down the river.

Pineapple field

This adorable old lady talked our ears off. She lives here at the edge of a fruit plantation by herself. She grows some food and she seems to get around pretty well. She didn't know how old she was.

This is her eggplant.

Village shop

Thatching a roof

Twins!

The government writes the vaccinations given to the children on their house. They do this in chalk, so I'm not sure how long they expect it to stay there, but otherwise this seems like a genius way to keep tabs on vaccinations. I'm assuming people don't move often.

This is called, "the Bagan of Northern Shan." It was nice, but it was nothing like Bagan.

The following photos are from a Nat shrine. Before Buddha, the Burmese were animistic. Nats are spirit gods that protect villages. Every village has a Nat Shrine that includes a bottle of oil the village buries every year under the Nat to bless their fields. The oil is dug up after a year and used for medicine. But this shrine was by far the most elaborate we saw.  [Note: Nat shrines are also incorporated into Buddhist temples.  Buddhism is nice like that.]

How to make rice noodles

1. soak rice

2. squeeze out the starch goo into noodle shape

3. set noodles out to dry

I definitely missed some steps in there, but trust me, none of you will ever make them if only because your family/neighbors will complain about the smell.

Burma Part VIII continued

I felt like I was overloading you with images on my last post, so I divided it up. 

On our second day of trekking there were loads of miscommunications along the way, but we ended at the Lonely Tree for sunset, and it was wonderful...





Our route:



Our host on the second night:

People in the villages work together to collect firewood before the monsoon rains hit. This wood is used to warm their homes and cook their meals, build their homes, make their tools, etc. It is also a major contributor to bad air quality, poor health, and deforestation. I'm not criticizing the communities, I'm criticizing the world, and the Myanmar government, for not helping to replace this reliance on wood.

The paddy fields were being prepared for the rains too...



Lunch hosts

Fire ant eggs being prepared to eat...



I think this is ingenious -- they put a rope around the horns of the cow and the end of a bamboo pole and now the cow can move a full 360 around the pole.



Over the trek we were surrounded by butterflies, who refused to sit still for photographs. But this guy was willing to accommodate me...

Burma Part VIII: Trekking near Kwaukme

I booked a tour before leaving the States in order to trek in northern Shan State. I was given bad advice, so let me set this straight right now: it is very easy to do this independently. Yes, there aren't as many tourists up in northern Shan State, but that just adds to the joy. That said, there are many people who make their living off tourism, and just like in Kalaw, they are there waiting for you when you arrive to book your trek. So don't arrange a tour -- you are just paying someone 5x more than the price to get something you can easily do yourself. In my heart, I knew that was true, but I was worried given my lack of time. I met a number of people staying in the same guesthouses as me in Kwaukme and in Hsipaw who did everything I wanted to do and in the time I had to do it in. That said, this area has far less tourism infrastructure, so book your guesthouse early.

Even though I was very upset about paying too much, and a little irritated that on my fully supported trek we ran out of water on day two and had instant noodles for lunch on day three, it was still an incredible trek. This is a beautiful area of the world with incredible people.

We passed these guys making sling shot "bullets" to kill birds. I doubt they had a lot of success since we saw very few birds, and when we tested the sling shots they weren't very accurate.

The school children were studying for a country-wide test, but they were happy to have a break for our visit.







The cows were terrified of us.



Cooking Shan noodles. Here is the recipe: cook sticky rice noodles per instructions. Mix: stewed tomatoes, garlic, green onions, oil, salt and put on top of noodles with a little water (to make it slightly soupy). The kitchen is an open fire inside the house. Note the small square of cement for the kitchen, the rest of the house is made of wood.

Village:

Tea

A praying mantis graced our guide with a visit. She was pretty freaked out, but I assured her no harm would come to her and then asked her to stand still so I could take a picture. I'm such a nice guest.





Little monks.

One of the books I read while on vacation described the "blue hills of Burma," and thus, I spent a great deal of time trying to capture this.

This machines rolls the green tea leaves...

The kitchen in the chief's house -- we stayed the night here.







Older women, who can no longer work in the fields, weave the longhi's and head scarves for the family. It takes seven days to make a longhi (the sarongs that men and women wear every day). We were also told that women "over 50" shave their heads. I use quotations for "over 50" because no one actually knew their age. I think they really mean when they reach menopausal age, but that isn't something you'd discuss with guests.

My only wildlife sighting...

To be continued...