Today was a challenging day. We piled in to a couple of small lorries for a ten minute drive into the countryside where would walk through some mountain people villages. They don't speak burmese and are not allowed to marry out of their tribe. They tend to be animists so no buddhas today. It was about 8 am when we started and a village lunch at 1pm was promised. It was also going to be a steep climb as we were climbing up to 4900 feet but they were paths through the lush vegetation,our local guide for the day explained what the various crops and plants and their uses. Sadly the effects of deforestation can be seen even on a local level. The big pines are being felled for mandarin trees,bananas and tea which is a speciality here. Both as a drink and basis for tea leaf salad which is delicious. The are did look very prosperous with a ready supply of crystal clean spring water at the top of the hills. Lower down the hills cabbage,rice and onions were plentiful. Further up it was tea,mandarins and bananas. We stopped at the second village at the top where the pahlong people live. Here they grow tea which was ,when boiled for 20 mins,drying outside on mats. Here we tried some tea in a village house with homemade sesame biscuits,watched the lady of the house weave. Of course we couldn't leave without buying something,a runner for our bed or a scarf up here as it does get chilly at night in winter. Sebastian had to have an extra blanket! There were a few signs lanslip in the village and on the steep path down the hill to a hill village we had passed on the way up. The simple food was delicious,avocado salad,tofu,veg curry and a sublime musta
red greens and peanut salad . The beer was welcome too.
Our lorries arrived to the ace us back and put on local dance music so we did dad dancing with our hands. The hotel cleaned our shoes as they were coated in red dust and all had welcome showers. After a rest and allowing for it to cool down we went to look for some relics of colonial days. We headed for the station past the sparkly stupa and bright green mosque. The station has clearly seen better days but there were traces of those days. The down train to yangon was already two hours late but people just bided their time. Nearby was a nice park and clock tower being renovated. Above on the hillside we could see some houses that were colonial,mostly privately owned with razor wire,guest houses and government buildings. we couldn't find any trace of the english or catholic church,maybe our map was very reliable.