Half a month in Myanmar, there are new surprises every day. However, when it comes to recalling those days, it is the first two days of hiking in the Shan Shan area.
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Shan State early impression
Shan State, on the northeastern plateau of Myanmar and occupying nearly a quarter of its territory, is the largest and most populous state in Myanmar. However, the main inhabitants here are not Burma’s main ethnic Bamar, but Tai people or Dai nationals of our country Shan. Due to its remote location and the complicated ethnic distribution, Shan State remains one of the few not fully peaceful states in Myanmar to date. Both the Darely Freedom Army (Kokang Nationality, also known as Burmese Han) and the Wa State Area (WA) In Shan State.
Of course, most parts of Shan State are as quiet and peaceful as elsewhere in Myanmar. Starting from Mandalay and passing through the beautiful colonial resort of Binh Duong, Hsipaw, the first center of entry into Shan State, has another more literary translation: Tin robe.
This road, it is the extension of the famous Burma Road, has been leading to Yunnan Kunming. I take a taxi, like most of the vehicles in Myanmar, is a Japanese second-hand car, the right rudder car driving on the right of the road exceptionally awkward, but driving the old driver has long been adapted to even the country’s rural road Not as good as Panshan Road, he actually sprinted to 80 km, no matter whether the chassis was ground to be reverberated. Every time a sharp bend people are terrified, the car’s life can be in his hands too!
With all the way opposite the speeding terror, but it is beautiful scenery throughout. If walking is a step by step view of scenery, in this speeding car is absolutely one second of ten: a scene glimpse into the eye, have not had time to store into the brain, it disappeared without a trace, replaced by another Different styles of the same shocking new King. At the beginning I also attempted to take the camera viewfinder can be taken completely different from the photographed simply to give up, holding the camera out of the window an unruly press, they took these scenes:
As a backpacker transfer station, Xi Bu town style in Myanmar by no means prominent, but in the wandering, accidentally photographed the most fantastic experience in Myanmar, like a movie poster like the sunset scene.
Trembling all the way to shock
Trekking into the mountainous areas of Shan State is the most popular activity in XiBo, with stalls on both sides of the main road attracting backpackers. Prices are related to the number of people in the group. However, all of them are surprisingly low. For example, the 2 days and 1 night hiking tournaments I enrolled in, the guide and the full board and lodging costs are only about 130 RMB. With an extra 50, we can upgrade to 3 days 2 nights. I traveled with two Swiss girls and two German boys. The Swiss girls are from the German-speaking district. I am worried that only four of them speak German at the time. To be sure I have to place a slip, a German boy has told me in English that his friend is a German-Taiwanese mixed-race who speaks Chinese. I looked around, in addition to these four European faces, there is no Asian face it! Just then, another German boy called me in Chinese: “Hello, I can speak Chinese.”
This greeting really scared me! First, as we said just now, his face can not be seen as a little Asian. Second, it is also the most crucial thing. Please do not take for granted that Westerners speak the Chinese accent, and make up the brain idols of Taiwan idols. – His Taiwanese Chinese is pronounced taller than all my Taiwanese friends. Only idol actors can match it! And that kind of soft accent, on his 188 tall European man, it is particularly contrasting Meng.
He told me that his Chinese was learned in an overseas Chinese school in Germany and that he was particularly familiar with Asia because his mother was from Taiwan. Many times to Taiwan to visit relatives do not say, but also by the ability to speak Chinese, to Changchun FAW Volkswagen internship. Later, he became the busiest person in this journey, always talking to me in Chinese just as I am, turned around and talked to three other people in German.
However, the unlucky, rainy as if to stop the start of this trip, but no one has the meaning of retreat (perhaps because of the deposit last night). Wearing a big burly Myanmar-style hat, put on a rain cover backpack, starting!
In the seemingly never-ending muddy paddy fields and cornfields walk for nearly 2 hours, the clouds gradually dispersed, the sky finally began to reveal a slit, then we have halfway up the mountain, quickly grabbed the camera to record the sun shed The first moment.
After the scenery will be the same as the day before yesterday, a large tracts of corn and the location is just a good house constitutes a range of different landscapes. The difference is, this time finally have time to take the camera to take a good scene, and then calmly press the shutter.
We have come back another way on the way back, passing many tea plantations in the mountains.
Towards the finish line, the wizard suddenly mysteriously said: “There is a waterfall over there, you can go to a shower, I will not go.” In the waterfall shower? I thought I got it wrong, ran half-heartedly, but saw a full six-story high waterfall! Is this really shower?
Or the Germans are bold, clothes are not off directly into the waterfall, I am outdone, followed, simply can not wait for the other two girls for a good swimsuit. At the moment when the powerful water column thicker than the whole man rushed overhead, I only thought of one word: 醍 醐 empowerment. Usher in a rare blank moment in my mind, there is no idea at all but also in such a force remaining. Unfortunately, no waterproof camera with a GoPro camera recorded this moment.
Villagers happy life
Walking distance is not long, 15 kilometers one way only, more than 2 o’clock in the afternoon we will reach the destination of this trip, a Shan village called Pankam. Our friend who is in charge of receiving us is a friend of the guide who has been transformed into an all-encompassing “walking reception” and even the toilets have been renovated according to hygienic standards. We are going to spend the night on the comfortable tatami floor on the 2nd floor.
(The front of the boys is half that Chinese descent, do not see it)
The main activity throughout the afternoon is visiting the village. Like all other villages in Myanmar, the heart of the temple is also a temple. Every morning and evening, people will be crowded with and worshiping monks. There seemed to be no sadness among the teenage monks here, and the seesaw made of wood was their favorite entertainment.
Children outside the temple are far more insane than monks. Thousands of them, playful slapstick, even a pair of broken tires into their hands have become a baby, chasing us shouting, it seems to show off their technology with us.
The villagers’ houses are all made of bamboo, and then the top of the metal is the cheapest building material. To prevent flooding, many build tall structures.
Corn and tea are the main crops here. September is the season of picking tea. The workers who cook tea are busy in full swing. The parked truck is ready to bring the fried tea out of the village.
The humble elementary school in the village caught my curiosity about what education would be like in the most remote mountainous areas of such a country? However, not only teaching facilities are available here, but even more surprising is the teachers here: From the blackboard, there are at least seven dozens of students in this school, but at least seven university graduates teach here! The guide confirmed my guess, saying that these college graduates volunteered to teach here and help their children.
The most shocking scene in the evening come: Have you ever experienced, with the naked eye to see the magnificent Milky Way across the sky? Before that day, I really thought that the galaxy in all the photos of the stars must be demonstrated with professional equipment and cumbersome PS processes. I never thought that the galaxy in this photo was just a daily routine. I do not have a tripod and I do not have a wide-angle lens for the stars. I just casually put the camera on the floor and set a long exposure to capture such spectacular photos.
Wizard’s twists and turns of life
Our guide is a standard Myanmar middle-aged man, a small man, dark skin, strong body. He was the source of happiness on our journey. When we walked under the scorching sun to near collapse, he suddenly took bananas out of his bag and distributed it to everyone with a smile, saying that this was the “energy banana” of the Burmese people. After eating it He will immediately energetic; and in the evening he magically turned out a guitar, played under the setting sun, people could not help but imagine how young he was romantic.
He described his life without hesitation: he was a Shan national of Xi Bu, studied electrical engineering at the prestigious Mandalay University when he was young, and only one year after graduation, he was forced to drop out of school because of the coup of the junta . Later, he did civil servants for a period of time, and then continue to study at the correspondence university, finally got a college diploma. Although he is now working for others, but he will soon go to participate in the pilot qualification exam, passed to achieve their dreams, have their own travel company.
More about him from the dinner after the “table Ye Zhonghua”, he took out his cottage phone, to show us his paintings. And all the paintings are made on this cottage phone with his finger and mobile phone software – both the realistic portrayal of detail and the “Impressionism” that need to be savored to understand, and even a Photo realistic and freehand and package, interesting degree does not lose self-portrait of Mondrian! Said he would open the software, the scene to show us the process of painting: start to seemingly arbitrary outline, after a few pen actually turned into a vivid landscape!
We five people stunned: his level of painting and inspiration, opening personal exhibition in the country is absolutely not a problem. Asked if he had ever studied it before, he shook his head and said everything was the result of a cell phone play on his own. “I just love drawing,” he said.
He is like many people I met in Burma – even the fate of the rest of my life has not dampened his passion for life.
