eyes turned skyward: Trekking in the Summer Palace

With a 4:15 alarm set, I was actually looking forward to the call to prayer - great way to help me be totally awake on time! We trooped out of our hotel at 5:00 am, and began our journey towards Kalaw, in the eastern mountains of Shan State.

Kalaw - cool mountain temperatures, 4,200 feet above sea level, tea plantations, orange groves, lush gorgeous greenery blanketing the hills and peaks of the mountains. Kalaw was so beloved by the British during their colonization that they called it the "Summer Palace" and the wives of the officers would retreat to the cool climate and quite of the mountain environs to give birth.

We would have an 8 hour drive there, and we began with a stop at the U Bein Bridge, the longest teak bridge in the world. Now, I was expecting an actual bridge - this was more of a boardwalk across

a marsh. The landscape was beautiful, and the bridge was a wonderful photo opportunity, as it had many monks and local people out for a sunrise walk. This beautiful place had one major problem - trash. Trash covered the ground, clogged the lake, littered the bridge, piled up in the reeds, it was everywhere. This is one of the biggest tour attractions in the country and it looks like a junkyard. The sunrise was beautiful, and it turned the lake to liquid gold. We walked the length of the bridge and got some really nice photos before heading back to our bus.

I don't know if any of you have watched the BBC show Top Gear, but they just had a special on Burma, where they buy really junky lorries and have to drive them to the Thai border (it's hilarious, you should watch it!). I have seen that episode and they go through the area that we would be in, so I had a vague idea of what to expect from the mountains. The only thing was, I was wrong.

It was 10 times more beautiful. The roads wound up and up, switch backing ever higher, taking us right into the clouds. The higher we rose, the greener everything became. The sky was so blue, almost like lapis. The contrast between the verdant green and the bright blue was just amazing! As we drove we saw so many small villages, the children wearing their school uniforms of crisp white blouses and dark green longyis, walking to school with their lunch tiffin tins in hand. Farmers working in the fields, plowing their land behind their ox carts, women washing laundry in rivers, smoke swirling into the air from kitchen fires. Children laughing and playing, stopping to stare when they saw our bus pass by and then waving waving waving at us so happily! It was entrancing. The drive went by so quickly, and after a lunch stop we drove for one more hour and then arrived in Kalaw.

The minute we stepped off the bus, our first words were "We're never leaving here!" After the heat, noise, filth, hustle and bustle of Mandalay, we had arrived in paradise! Right as we arrived, the rain rolled in. It poured for about 2 hours and was wonderful! We checked into our hotel and rested for a little while, then headed off on our walking tour of Kalaw. One of the first things that we saw on the walk was a free vaccination clinic. The women can bring their children when they need their vaccinations and they will be provided free of charge. That was really great to see. We wandered over to the railway station and then past a football pitch, where there were boys playing, as well as several cows in the field! Hmm.... hopefully no one steps in a cow pat when they're shooting for a goal!!

Back into the town, we saw the market and lots of local food stalls where people were buying their dinner. We ambled back towards the restaurant where we would be dining when we were suddenly attacked by vampires! Two very small, very cute, giggling vampires! They jumped out at me from a shop, so of course I had to scream because I was very scared! "AAAHHH!!!" I said!! They started giggling even more and baring their teeth at me. Then they ran back into the shop. I figured that they would come back out, so I hid behind some cloth and awaited their return. A few seconds later, out they came and looked for me! I jumped out and said "BOO!" "AHHHH!!!!!" they screamed and smiled! Then the mama vampire came and took them inside, presumably for dinner. :) Such a special experience! The children here.... I love them all!

We were dining at Everest, a Nepali restaurant, so we headed that direction. We were all starving! I was feeling really well and therefore brave (dumb?) so I ordered the chicken masala and a garlic chapati. YUM I was so excited. Seriously, we inhaled our food. It was so delicious and we were so hungry! After satisfying our hunger and feeling totally stuffed, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for our 16 kilometer trek tomorrow! By this point, the temperature was amazing. Probably in the mid 70's and with a lovely cool breeze.... it felt heavenly!

Unfortunately, I woke multiple times during the night to visit the bathroom, and was really hoping that my GI issues would stop by the morning, because there was NO WAY I was missing the trekking - it's one of the things I was most looking forward to on the whole trip! I took some meds and drank a lot of water and hoped for the best. When I woke in the morning I felt a little bit better, but was still having issues. Fortunately Mez was fine (probably because she was smart and didn't eat meat!), but when we went to breakfast we found that everyone else who had eaten the chicken was having GI upset also, including Joseph. So that was 5 out of the 8 of us feeling a little rotten. Poor Tom had it really bad, it sounded like he had what Mez and I had in Bagan. So Tom and Phil stayed at the hotel for the day, and the rest of us took off for the hike. I packed extra water and extra meds (and extra toilet paper) and took some more meds and headed out the door.

We met our trekking guide, Htun, right away - he was a fantastic guide and such a nice man! So here we all were, in our very Western hiking apparel - hiking shoes, quick dry ultra light pants, backpacks, etc. Htun was wearing a wonderful hat, traditional shirt, longyi, and flip flops. Joseph was wearing Converse shoes and his regular clothes. They were awesome, hiking over these extremely slippery surfaces in those shoes and not even batting an eye! First we climbed a set of stairs right across from our hotel, the stairs lead to a monastery and we turned off them onto a trail. We were now mostly above the town of Kalaw, so of course we had to stop to take photos. I immediately stepped in dog poop (typical me....), and Joseph and Tun said that was a sign of luck! If stepping in dog poop means you're lucky, I must be really lucky because I always seem to be steppin in it! So they said that was a good sign for our trek. :) We wandered along the side of the hill before entering a huge bamboo forest. So beautiful! I'll be saying "so beautiful" a lot in this blog post!

After we left the bamboo forest we emerged in a tiny village, then walked up a lane into what is best described as a pine forest. The biodiversity of the area is incredible! The pines looked similar to the long leaf pine that we have in the US (it's indiginous to Florida especially). We reached a point where the path became really narrow and very slippery. The rain from the day before had turned the path into a slick chute, almost. It was also very shady, so some moss had grown on it, adding to the slippery factor! We even had to cross a "cliff" at one point! It was just a mini cliff, but still exciting! At one point while on the slip and slide path we looked ahead and saw a huge orange plantation, the orange trees planted all over the hillsides. We saw the farmer and his family, and his sweet little girl called out to Htun the best way for us to hike!

I asked Joseph what kind of wildlife lived in the mountains, and he told me about deer, wildcats, squirrels, and..... TIGERS! The tigers are only in the northern mountains, which is where he is from. So I asked him " Joseph, have you ever seen a tiger?!" "YES!" he replied - I was amazed! After a few minutes of grinning at me, he said "IN THE ZOO!" hahahaha!!! He and I both laughed for a long time about that one. :)

After the orange plantation we started to see tea plantations. We also saw fig trees, mango trees, pomegranate trees, banana trees, and so many more kind of fruit growing. We began to climb in elevation at this point and it was beginning to get quite hot. As we climbed higher our view just kept getting better and better. We saw a chameleon cooling off on a rock in the shade and lots of butterflies. At this point I started feeling really really tired and over heated. I knew we were almost to the village where we would be having lunch, so I drank some water and kept my head down. While on the path we could occasionally hear the farmers singing in the hills as they picked their tea leaves. Idyllic is the word that comes to my mind when I recall this time.

We reached the village, called Jackdaw Fruit Tree Village (they grow lots of Jackdaw fruit there). We arrived at the house where we would be having lunch and happily sat down on a bench in the shade! I was feeling pretty poorly at this point, so I accepted some green tea but decided not to eat any food to avoid making myself worse. I ended up laying down on one of the benches at an empty table and just trying to cool myself down and calm my stomach down. Sanjay started feeling pretty poorly as well, so he and I both decided to take the support truck for the second half of the trek. The girls said that the food was delicious - I was so sad to miss out on it! Barbara and Eleonore both tried on some of the local Shan clothing. Barbara wore both the hat that the single women wear as well as the one that the married women do, and put on a jacket and skirt. Eleonore wore the jacket and skirt with the single woman hat - they looked fabulous! The cooks were coming out to take their pictures, it was so cute!

After the fashion show it was time to get back on the trail. The girls, Joseph, and Htun set off along the road and Sanjay and I clambered into the support truck (ambulance, haha!). It was a slow, bumpy drive and I was feeling pretty miserable at this point. I estimated that my temperature was about 100 degrees. We drove 2 hours to get to the end of the trekking trail, picked up the girls and the guides and drove 15 minutes back into Kalaw. When we got to the hotel I walked straight to the room, drank a bunch of water, and got into bed. I am fairly sure that my fever had reached around 102 at this point. I slept the entire rest of the day, woke from about 7-9:30, then slept all night until 6:00. I would say that I had heat stroke and dehydration - I know that I overdid it, especially since I was still having GI distress. However, I have no regrets. I am SO glad that I went on the trek. It was so beautiful and is something that I will remember for the rest of my life.

When I woke in the morning I felt completely fine, thank goodness! I did begin taking anitbiotics, however, as I absolutely refused to be sick again on this trip! After an early breakfast our bus arrived to take us to Inle Lake, about 4 hours away.

Just when I thought that the trip couldn't possibly get any better, it did. In fact, Inle Lake was so incredible that it's going to get its own blog post.