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TRAVEL BLOG ENTRY
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“The Forestry Officer says they have to move the village?” |
The unofficial trekking capital of the country, Kalaw is a patchwork of hill tribes. It really was refreshing to set off with Sam's Trekking. His family form the group of guides. He requested that we didn't bring anything to the children in the villages, he didn't want his people being changed by the tourists passing through.
Idan and myself set of with Ko Sway and a cook. He would be our source of all things Burmese for the next three days. He had a university education from the 80's, and I think that it was actually a real education. He was very proud of the fact that he could come back to these villages as an educated person to give advice to the locals with no education. His wife had worked in the area as a mid wife before so he knew the people and was very well respected by the locals.
The first day we trekked in to the Paulong villages. The local kids were going crazy. They would stand shaking their hands as hard as they could shouting 'Dada, dada, dada,........'. Most tourists take the three day route from Kalaw to Inle lake, so it made perfect sense to trek in the opposite direction! It was market day in Kalaw. Along the trail in the morning we met streams of locals coming with baskets on their backs. Some were going to sell, others to buy, some for both. It seemed like the centerpiece of the week for them to get dressed up and head to 'the city'. That evening in the Paulong village we could see them returning after their day out. One little girl had her own little bag carried on her head with a little bunch of flowers, her face freshly made up (see photo). That night Ko Sway got really worked up. He was talking to the village chief who told him that the forestry officer had called and said that the whole village would be moved to another location, 200 houses. This was a power trip from the officer, who wanted to extract money from the locals. The villagers were afraid and didn't know what to do. They said that the bribe would have to be about $1,000. The extension to the monastery in the village that was underway was being funded by a senior military person from Kalaw, maybe looking for some good Buddhist merit, maybe just a good person. The advise was for the chief to go to this senior military person and tell him the story. For the village that he was funding the monastery in to be wiped out couldn't happen and the forestry officer would be in big trouble. One striking thing on the trek was the variety of food that the locals grew. All very good food. Fields of rice, wheat, sesame, mustard, marrow, pumpkin, tomato, cabbage, cauliflower and chilly are just a few that I can remember. Locals bent over in the fields tending to the crops. On the last day of the trek, we visited Ko Sway's own Paou people. Even though he grew up in ' the city', he was really happy to talk to the locals in their tribal language, totally different to Burmese. The local women, traditionally dressed fully in black with colourful headgear, sorted through harvested chillies. On our way back to Kalaw, we trekked to a small village train station. The local sellers waited for the afternoon train to arrive. Vegetables and flowers were everywhere to be seen to traded with the passangers on the train. All the houses have a shrine to Buddha that need fresh flowers every couple of days. The local women marched up and down the platform with the flowers perched on top of their heads. The train pulled in and local trade broke out. The best deals were to be had just as the train was pulling off. The trek was a real treat. It turned out not to be just trekking through deserted hills which is a little along the lines of what I had expected, but more moving through the local hill tribe villages and seeing how the local people lived. Ko Sway knew everything that there was to know, he wants to go back to live in one of the villages to help the locals who are uneducated.
previous travel blog entry
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