18 July 2019
[Above photo: High on an idyllic plateau in the Shan hills with its own spring, this farmer’s son is preparing the paddy for rice planting. Previously he used water buffalo to plow.]
Sitting on my deck overlooking the river at Mr. Charles’ Riverside Lodge, I suddenly felt no desire to spend the next day in Hsi Paw, going through markets, looking at British colonial mansions, and visiting the now-powerless nephew of the last sawbwa (sky prince), Mr. Donald, of Shan State, reduced to seeking donations from visitors at his fading “palace”. I asked the lodge management to contact a guide to take me into the hills for a trek. I noted that I only brought flip-flops, as I hadn’t planned on “trekking”. A trek (“across Antarctica”, for example) sounds like quite an undertaking. I was up for a restful holiday, until I realized that a day “trek” was actually a “hike”; nothing relaxes me more than a good hike. I was assured that the guide had an extra pair of shoes.
When Omaung appeared the next day at 8AM, he had with him a pair of trail runners a customer had given him. I had no socks. And they were tight. But we set off, me with camera and my water. ½ mile up the road I had a blister, so we called the lodge and they sent someone by motorbike with my flipflops. As long as it didn’t rain, turning the clay to greased Teflon, I would be fine. Omaung thought that we should all three pile on the scooter and zip to the trailhead where the hills and scenery began. That we did; it felt funny to be sandwiched tightly between two guys, as it would in another way between two women. It is astounding to see a family of 4 or 5 all squeezed onto a scooter, never mind that 1 in 20 wear helmets. Often only the father who is driving.
Up we climbed for 3 ½ hours with little pause, on quite steep trails. As we left the trail for a deeply-rutted dirt road and it was getting warm, he suggest we motorbike up the last steep section on the way to his village. Did I mention he was Palaung? It’s a small hill tribe in scattered villages with their own language, very different from the much more numerous Shan. Omaung spoke Palaung, Shan, Bamar, and English, all fluently. He is a very smart cookie but I couldn’t convince him, a father of 3, to wear a helmet on his motorbike. He called his sister and she and her cousin appeared in 15 minutes on two bikes. I mounted up behind his cousin and we zipped up a lot of steep hills. I was grateful. Then we walked the last bit into Pankam village. We went through the monastary to his house where he showed me their clever technology, all hand-powered, for processing tea, and then climbed to the second floor where I met his sisters, father, and mother. His father had a right-hemispheric stroke 7 months ago and was languishing about. After asking permission, I did a bit of a neurological exam and found he had good strength so encouraged them to get him up and about, emphasizing that recovery can occur up to a year after a stroke. He may also have hypertension, as he seems rather forgetful to them, and may have had mini-infarcts for awhile. There is no medical care in the village, other than a traditional healer/herbalist.
The lunch was amazing; vegetarian, all collected or grown locally with two kinds of wild mushrooms. 5 distinct dishes, wonderfully prepared. We later toured the village, walking on dirt paths up, down, and all around. He demurred going to a party to which we had been invited celebrating the new monkhood of a young man —as we walked by the house, he said they were drinking and getting too rowdy. We examined the tea plants from which the village earns their living and made a nice circuit of the homes. The quiet simplicity of the village life, coupled with the lush beauty of the maize and soy fields, tea bushes, rice paddies, and surrounding thick jungle-covered hills was impossibly alluring. But Omaung lives in Hsi Paw with his wife and children much of the time; the children get a better education and he and his wife can earn more without the uncertainty and strenuous labor of farming. Still, it evoked similar times in our country 150 years ago, romanticized. [I just finished Little House On the Prairie and On the Banks of Plum Creek, stimulated by Linda, so I am primed to dream the pioneer rural life.]
We boarded his motorbike and headed down-down the roller coaster. I had something like a helmut on and said, “Pyay, pyay” (Slowly, slowly) when we started out. I felt safer but a bit wimpish when a young man passed us, his wife sitting sidesaddle and holding their infant. I was deposited safely at the lodge and then had only to shower, eat supper, and figure out how to get to Lashio the next day. My plane left at 3:45PM and I wanted to have lunch with one of my students who was home for the holiday.
The only Lashio-bound bus left at 5:45AM. The train came through Hsi Paw at 3:50PM. Omaung suggested I wait at the town bus station and “hitchhike”: that is, pile into a taxi with others heading to Lashio, paying a fraction of what a taxi hire would cost. That sounded good to me until we got to the bus station. Since Tuesday was the Full Moon of Waso holiday, the attendant thought it was unlikely a taxi would stop by. Omaung called his friend who has a tiny truck and he agreed to take me to the entrance gate to Lashio for $25. It was a very bumpy 1 ½ hour ride but seemed a good deal for both of us; in any case, my choices were limited.
In Lashio I was met by my student’s friend, who drove me to meet her. We travelled to a locally famous meditation center, which neither of them had seen. Walking among the crowds, my student told me that young couples came here [to couple] since they were too shy, and broke, to check into hotels. Love will find a way! We had lunch at a “famous” Chinese-Burmese restaurant where I ate a respectable share of thinly-sliced pig’s ear. Better than steamed chicken feet but some parts of animals are best left uneaten, I think.
The plane flight was easy, leaving ½ hour earlier than scheduled because a big storm was descending on Yangon. It did and the taxi ride was splashy. It was nice to return to my apartment.
I’ve worked in Malawi and Myanmar and met some of the loveliest, most generous, and hard-working people of my life who just need a break. Everyone, except those milking or otherwise exploiting the system, wants the same thing: safety, security, education, a future. I attempt to limit my feelings of hatred and revulsion for our president to impatience but it isn’t always easy.
A Psychiatrist in Myanmar 