Week 2: from hiking to party to hiking

Puh, weekly blogs are quite some work. Just uploaded week one and now week two is already over. Time flies when you are having fun! So where were we? Ah yes, Inle lake. Helen and me wanted to do some hiking, and there are basically two options: going East or going West. The west route is the standard one, although usually going from Kalaw to the lake and not the other direction. The description was nice, but we decided to go East for two reasons: less tourists and more of a real hike in mountains. And we chose well!
We got picked up by our guide in the morning, with the bad news that he can't take us because his mother had passed away last night. So he had organised another tour guide for us, Yarcar, who turned out to be a really great guide. We finally found someone who's English was good enough to answer all our questions. For two days we kept bombarding him with all questions we had bottled up for a week. He was super nice and we had a good time with him. Our first stop were the Htat Eian caves which had been recommended by a friend. It is a nice little cave with a lot of Buddha statues inside. Cool start of the day! Then we hiked in beautiful nature and Yarcar stopped often to explain to us the plants around us. We saw onions, avocado, bananas and even a plant the local kids use for blowing bubbles. Lunch was at a local village, where our guide cooked us an amazing lunch. I don't know how anyone could finish all that food. We started to eat strategically (leaving all the foods we could easily take with us for later) and shared as well with the French group, who had their lunch stop in the same place. Our highlight was definitely the avocado salad! To kill for! We told Yarcar, that he is a very good cook and will make his future wife very happy. We then learned that unfortunately once married it is only the women who cook.
After a short nap we hiked for another couple hours and arrived at the village where we stayed for the night. We and a French couple were the only foreigners there! After a short rest we started to explore the village and watched the sunset from the balcony of a monastery on top of the hill. Definitely a better view than we would have had from the vineyard two days before. Dinner was as delicious and much as lunch. While we were brushing or teeth they made our place to sleep in the living room, which consisted of a big pile of warm blankets. After the hot day it got quite chilly in the evening. We even had a little tent above us for privacy :-)
The next day started similar: a big breakfast and a nice hike through villages, this time down back to the lake. After lunch (which was unfortunately not self made, and the least good one) we took a boat back to where we started. We had two requests, which our guide was happy to support, the boat driver however thought we are a bit crazy: we asked him to put the chairs away and sit in the boat like the locals. And we wanted to learn how to do the one legged paddling. It was big fun! What looked pretty easy when Yarcar showed us, was actually unbelievably hard. Even though he was holding us to keep balance on one foot, it was still difficult to coordinate the second foot with the paddle.
Back in Nyaung Shwe we tried to book a bus for the same night to Mandalay. We were quite shocked when two bus company told us they are sold out. Luckily the third one still had space! So we went a bit jewellery shopping on the market (all real silver, locally made), took a shower and then got onto the next night bus. The experience was the same as before, many stops on the way, so the sleep was not really good.

We arrived at 4 am in Mandalay, went straight to our hostel and crashed for 3 more hours in couches in the hotel lobby. Around 8 am Tom joined us again and we rented a taxi for the day together. We were visiting the three ancient cities around Mandalay. First stop was a monastery where every morning hundreds of monks line up for breakfast. It was crazy, a bit like a zoo, with as well hundreds of tourists queuing for pictures. Next stop was Saigain Hills with plenty of temples. Our driver did a good job bringing us to the not so crowded temples, and our favourite stop: a monastery, which was also a free school for hundreds of children. The third stop of the day was lunch and a place with a short boat ride and then you could rent a horse carriage to bring you to: more temples. At lunch we had met again a group of people from the bus, so we carried on together. We obviously didn't take the horse carriage, but just walked around. Oh and the short boat ride was really fun! Little boat with a huge and loud engine and a unique Burmese boat driver, who loved the blond girls to sit next to him. The last stop of the day: sunset at u-bein bridge. It is something like the longest wooden bridge in Myanmar or so. And full of tourists. Luckily we ran again into the group from the bus and joined them for a beer. Way better than the tourist craziness. We all went home right after sunset and met shortly after again for dinner in Mandalay. Without knowing it, we ended up in a fancy western place for the first time. Dinner and the wine was nice and we all agreed to go for one beer afterwards. As it was Sunday not a lot was still open and so we ended up at a club. The boys paid the crazy entrance fee including a bottle of whiskey and there we are: the only foreigners in a club with electronic music. We were THE attraction. A lot of foto's were taken with us, especially the boys. Which was a surprise because there were mainly boys in the club. Well, we had fun, although I didn't like the music. However, I learned that you can dance salsa to any kind of music ;-) Well, the one beer turned into staying until the lights went on at 3am. Suddenly my earlier joke about staying awake until sunrise wasn't that much of a joke anymore. We had decided not to take the train to Hsipaw at 4am, but a bus later that day, because we wanted to watch sunrise from sunrise hill(but we had to do that after a couple of hours sleep). But here we are and now that it was already so close (in our slightly drunk minds), 4 of us made our way to sunrise hill. As no taxi wanted to take us the DJ of the club drove us there in his fancy car :-)

After dancing and then walking up the hill I had achieved my 10.000 step target at 4am! As Dan would say: beer! Well, I hadn't realised that as on every hill in Myanmar, there is of course a pagoda on top - not perfect for driving beer, but feasible. So we made our way through long stairways and past many dogs, big fun for people afraid of dogs. Well, we made it up until the last bit which was still locked. I don't know how we made it through the next 2 hours as it was quite cold and we were starting to get a bit tired. But it was cool to be alone at night at a pagoda with nice lights. Finally the security guard opens the gate and we could watch the sun rise over Mandalay. Well, kind of. We made it until the nice red colour of the sky and got impatient. On the way down we then saw the sun actually coming up. Still beautiful :-)

With just a couple of hours sleep, Helen, Tom and me spent the rest of the day in the bus. We checked in to our hostel in Hsipaw, decided we needed a rest day the next day and went to bed after dinner, where we met nice people from the bus again. I think I have met more people on transportation than in hostels here in Myanmar! Our first actual day in Hsipaw was exactly what we needed: we booked a hiking tour for the next two days, did nothing but some laundry and drink tea all day. The evening was then again a sunset, up on sunset hill :-) We made it right in time up the hill and it was beautiful.

The next day we got picked up by our guide Nepai. He said he is 19, but definitely looked 14. It was a great walk, in the beginning we saw quite some other travellers bur Nepai walked so fast that we quickly were ahead of everyone. Plus we did a bit different tour. We ended up in a village as the only tourists, all others stayed at another village. Nepais English was very good, so again we learned a lot about the country and nature. This time with a different spin to it. The area where we are is actually still fighting. Well, not exactly where we were. They make damn sure that no tourists go where there is actual fighting. But we saw the presence of the Shan Army, which is the official Burmese army. Nepai explained us that he is wearing a jacket that has the symbol of the other army. He only wears it when he is out with tourists, as then army then can do nothing to him. If I wouldn't have been so out of breath due to the heat and really steep path, I would have asked so many more questions!
The place we stayed for the night was again very nice, this time Helen and me had even our private room, only Tom was sleeping in the common room. After dinner we walked a bit around town, but spent most of the evening taking pictures of the beautiful night sky. I just love the amount of stars in these remote places! And it was not that cold, so we could actually test our cameras. The next day we again hiked for 5-6 hours and it was again very hot. Luckily it was more going down this time. The two highlights: Helen and Nepai got a fresh papaya from a tree and the lady at the next hut was so nice to cut it for us. And the finish of the track was a waterfall. Not the best I've ever seen and unfortunately no pool to swim in, but cute and refreshing.
Back in our hostel we were excited for our pizza! We had asked before for Western food, as we were a bit sick of noodles and rice all day. But the town is very remote, no tour buses, basically only backpackers make it here. But Lily, the hostel owner, told us that her chef actually cooks amazing western food. They only stopped serving dinner as they couldn't find enough staff and people complained about long waiting times. Once we assured that we don't mind the wait, we could order pizza for the evening. It was amazing! The hostel actually has a nice rooftop, where breakfast is served. And from there, there is another upper level which fits exactly three people. For the second time we finished our evening with beers up there. Perfect!

So for the first time we had actually made it out of the 'kite' (Yangon-Inle-Mandalay-Bagan). I loved it. I never felt unsafe, everyone was really friendly and it is just beautiful there. A great end of week 2 and a pity that you can only stay 4 weeks in this beautiful country.
There are so many great things about this country I could share, so here some random observations, this time apt the Buddhist belief. Let's start with the most obvious part of it: temples! What would Myanmar be without them? I sometimes get the feeling I've seen enough Pagodas and temples for my whole life! The craziest part: they still keep on building new ones! It seems that donating to the church is seen as something you need to do. The bowls of the monks that collect donations everywhere are not often empty and every pagoda is full of as well spiritual as monetary donations. Buddhism in general is very alive here. Every male Burmese goes minimum one week in his life to a monastery, living as a monk, many for longer and often they do this more than once in their life. One of our guides said he really liked it, the only problem is that you are not allowed to have a girlfriend :-) Girls go as well, and they don't wear the red or orange clothes like the boys but pink :-) Their heads are shaved as well and I have to say most still do look beautiful. There are plenty monasteries all over the country and they play an important role in the education of kids, as well on spiritual as worldly knowledge. Many kids speak excellent English! One great example of the Buddhist belief in every days life: there are pots with drinking water at many places, just next to the road. People will keep filling them and you can just drink from it (which we don't dare, as western stomachs may not handle the local tap water too well). It seems that you get some kind of credit for doing little good deeds like that. Great idea for such a hot country!