Burma - Part III

The Trek.

Our trek took us from Kalaw to Inle Lake and it was, for me, the highlight of the trip.  The trails we followed led us through a pastoral landscape of rolling hills and farms where every kind of produce was cultivated -- rice, tea, cabbage, ginger, onions, corn, wheat, etc.  The first night we bedded down on the floor of a monastery, the second night in the bamboo hut of a family of 6.

There were five of us in all -- Erin, myself, a Swiss woman (who joined our group at the last minute), our venerable guide Meme, and our most excellent cook whose name regretfully escapes me.  The trek passed through an area of the Shan State that is home to seven different tribes, each having their own language and customs.  They were not accustomed to foreigners.  They were as curious of us as we were of them.  Whatever they were doing - picking chillis, harvesting ginger root, tending to a water buffalo, or hoeing the soil -- they invariably stopped and watched us passed, usually with a friendly smile.  The kids always waved, often times running after us, and yelled "Goodbye," never "Hello."  Neither kids nor adults ever begged of us although occassionally a child would ask for our empty water bottles which they used to carry water to the fields.  Digital cameras fascinated them, their images projected on the LCD screen never failing to elicit enormous smiles and laughter.

The first night at the monastery will be emblazoned in my memory forever.  The building itself was an airy, single story wooden building with tin tiered roofs shaped like a pagoda.  We arrived at the monastery at twilight.  As we entered, we saw on one side of the room our bedrolls laid out and on the other side a novice monk swathed in crimson robes sitting crosslegged on the floor underneath two open window frames, his bald dome lit up by the dying light like a golden stupa but the rest of his face cast in shadow, his posture and serene mein eerily remiscent of the noble Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now.  He invited us to a cup of green tea.  We sat on the floor before him and sipped our tea, always mindful to avoid pointing our feet towards him, which is an act of disrespect.  As the light faded and a candle was lit I could see the rugged contours of his face. A purple scar ran across his right cheek.  He was in his forties and built like an ox.  He chewed stoically on bettle nut, occassionally leaning over to spit blood-red juice between the floorboards.  No words passed between us (because he spoke no english and we obviously spoke no Burmese).  Instead, he stared at me with his dark eyes for what seemed like an eternity, as if probing my soul to determine its worth.  It was unnerving.

Then the head monk turned up.  He shared none of the novice's perturbing traits.  He was postively electric, owning the energy of ten men.  He had decayed teeth, wild eyes and thin wild eyebrows -- the kind of eyebrows that work independently of each other and have the agility to contort into the full suite of trigonometric functions.  He said nothing if it wasn't exclaimed with an ejaculation of ecstasy.  Everyone was "happy" and we were all "brothers."

At dinner the wild-eyed monk joined us at the dinner table.  Erin had already gotten up to go to bed.  The monk sat next to the Swiss woman and began examining her from head to toe.  She looked uncomfortable.  The monk spoke to Meme in Burmese.  Meme translated.  Apparently the monk had the ability to read people's personality traits by looking at their facial features -- ears, mouth, lips, eyes, forehead and eyebrows.  His power of discernment was acute, if not a bit creepy.  The woman was incredulous as the monk read her like an open book.
 
At night we all slept in the same room.  Us on one side of the room, our guide and cook on the other side of the room, and the monks behind the altar.  The fragrance of incense filled the room.  My age-worn blankets felt and smelled liked they been steeped in oil.  A candle burned in front of the altar.  The night air was chill.  Erin was sick, battling another food-borne bug, waking up every hour or so to run to the outhouse which housed a large, no-so-kind-looking spider.  Next to me were large burlap bags of rice, inside of which unseen animals nibbled away at the rice kernels, making a crunching noise in my ears.  Rats in the cellar screeched and scratched at the floor boards.  The tin roof creaked and groaned, as if seized by some outraged ghost.  Every now and then one of the monks got up from his bed and crept across the room and out the front door to wander the grounds or use the outhouse, his slinking shadow projected against the wooden walls.  At around 10 pm, a monk chanted the evening prayer while all of us laid still on our bedrolls in the darkness.  The candle guttered and then went out.  I couldn't sleep so I laid awake listening to the symphony of sounds around me, wondering when the rats would start nibbling on my toes.  At around 11 pm the voice of our cook joined the din. He began talking in his sleep, jabbering away in Burmese (and sometimes in broken English even though he didn't know how to speak it during waking hours) and every now and then moaning like a disgruntled ghoul whenever someone made the least bit of noise.  An hour later one of the monks farted (though neither one of them fessed up to it the next morning) and the floorboards rumbled.  In response the cook moaned something terrible. 

I got 2 hours of sleep that night I think.  Erin slept less.

The next day I woke to the morning monk chant and a waft of incense.  I put on my contacts and went outside to visit the outhouse.  The wild-eyed monk was there sweeping leaves with a broom.  He saw me out of the corner of his eye and held up the broom and exclaimed:
"In English, how say?" 
"Broom," I replied. 
Bram!  Good!  You happy?
"Yes, very."
"Good!  Everyone happy here!  America Good!  Snow!"
"Lots of snow."
He began sweeping again, then paused, looked askance at me, raised his eyebrow in a perfect parabolic arch, then said:  "Bram?"
"Broom"
"Yes, bram.  Goooooood!  Bram!"  He waved the bram over his head.
He continued sweeping, muttering to himself, then stopped again and looked at me and said:  Mikel Jockson!  Yes Good!  America!"
I had no idea what he meant.  He said it again.  Then I figured it out:
"Yes, Michael Jackson, American."
"Yes, Mikal Jockson, Gooooooood!  But dead!  Too bad!  Everyone happy!  Look around!  Everyone happy!"

Later that morning I saw him crouching in the monastery, his back to me, his entire body lit up by the morning light pouring into the room from the two eastern window frames.  He was muttering what sounded like the word "pussy" over and over again.  So as not to disturb him I crept over to my bedroll to pack up my things but he saw me and turned his head, his right eyebrow nearly floating above his head, and exlaimed with utmost pleasure:  "Pussy Cat!"  I heard a cat meow and then lay on its back under the monk's robes.  The monk rubbed the cat's belly and exclaimed again:  "Pussy Cat!"  I assured him that it was indeed a pussy cat, and a pretty pussy cat at that.

The second day we lunched in a small village where piles of recently harvested red chillis dried on tarps spread out here and there on the ground.  The name of the village and tribe escapes me.  The women of the tribe wore orange and red turbans on their heads.  After lunch the Swiss woman, who had the brilliant idea of bringing balloons along the trek, began blowing them up for the little kids who had gathered to watch our freak show come through the village.  It turned into raucus fun, the kids swatting at the balloons, the parents and teenagers watching on with wonder and amusement.  I think half the village was there, standing in a semi-circle around a pile of dried chillis, laughing and carrying on.

Later that day, we approached the village in which we were to sleep that night.  It was the end of the day, the sun on the verge of setting over the rolling hills to the west.  All of the villagers were coming home from the fields and pastures, converging on the lone road which led into the the village.  Small children rode on the back of water buffaloes, Brahman cattle pulled carts laden with ginger root, young girls with red and orange turbans carried hoes twice their size on their shoulders, and woman balanced baskets of ginger root on their heads.

We spent the night in a hut of a family of six.  We slept on mats on the floor in the main room (which served as the dining room and living room).  The room next to us, separated by a bamboo mat, housed the family, including among others the grandfather who had to be carried to the kitchen fire by his grandson, a novice monk, because he was too infirm to walk.

We arrived at Inle on the third day.  Inle is an idylic lake hemmed in all sides by mountains similar in shape, size and feel to the Sangre De Christos.  Floating gardens of tomatoes and other produce fringe the margins of the lake, and among these gardens villages of bamboo huts stand on skinny wooden stilts 20 feet above the water.  In the middle of the lake fisherman balance precariously on one leg on the back of canoes, their other leg wrapped around an oar, which serves as the rudder and mode of propulsion, while their hands are busy casting nets into the inky, placid waters.

I could go on but I need to see some more of Bangkok before we jet.