5th January 2015 - Inkay Lake to Kalaw MYANMAR (BURMA)

5th January -  Inkay Lake to Kalaw

Today we are going to Kalaw, which was a British hill station in the "good old colonial days" and is now a trekking centre for the Burmese highlands, which is about a 4 hour drive from Inle Lake through the picturesque Shan state. Scenery was beautiful there were just a million photo opportunities en route.
We really loved it here but on to our next adventures!.  Once again, Janette had to deal with her fear of boats and later we were to lean that Mandy had added lifts to her expanding lists of transport modes most feared.  It was going to be one of those days!!

As we move out of the Inle lake region, it stays rural but very fertile.  The soil seems very rich in Iron making everything red or covered in red dust.  There is absolutely no automation for farming here and literally everything is done by hand and mule.

(Above) Virtually no farm automation in the country...A new Mercedes car dealership has just opened in Mandalay

Bath and wash time - bathing comprises of submerging yourself on the nearest river or brick quarry pit, bathing fully clothed which washes your clothes as well...easy and all the family can join in

(Below) Transporting goods on your head is still widely used

We cannot begin to count how many uses for Bamboo we have seen..eating it to building with it and everything in between so its a vital crop.

Farming is done by almost everyone, if you have a job you still need to farm to provide food.  Its the coolest and driest time of the year here and today its 34c

Petrol is available at your local roadside station although coffee and croissants are a little harder to find.

Women and men work on the road maintenance.  Women have the same jobs bit generally earn about 25% less apparently.

WARNING WARNING- HISTORY LESSON
The British used this area as a summer retreat as the air is cooler on the higher ground..

Its a good time to explain how the Brits got to be here in the first place so here is a brief and simple history lesson

The British took over in 1824 in the first Burmese war and this was to do with the securing of Burma for the East India Trading Company and its appetite for commodities

The second Burmese war in 1852 was done by "extremely dubious" circumstances and resulted in the third king being replaced by his half brother which suited the British better.  Britain had a habit of dictating the kings around Indochina and Burma was no different.

The third Burmese war was as a result of King Mindons' attempt to modernise the Burmese state and economy to resist British encroachments, He established a new capital in Mandalay which he proceeded to fortify. This was not enough to stop the British, however, who claimed that Mindon's son Thibaw was a tyrant intending to side with the French (God forbid!) and that he had lost control of the country, thus allowing for disorder at the frontiers, and that he was reneging on a treaty signed by his father. The British declared war once again in 1885, conquering the remainder of the country in the war resulting in total annexation of Burma.

Britain made Burma a province of India in 1886 which is why to this day, we see a lot of Indians living in Burma and the demise of the monarchy and the ethnic problems that dogged Burma for centuries resulted in the British destroying thousands of villages especially in the North.  This ethic discontent still continues to this day as clearly seen from the significant military control.

During the 20th century, the youth Buddhist movement began the galvanize the country. Students soon added to this with the expulsion of Aung San from university for not divulging dissidents names and the result was a police charge into the rioters in the oilfields of cenral Burma and 17 people were killed including a monk.

Despite the Burmese freedom organisation forging links with Russian communist parties and the IRA etc, they actually joined the British to defend themselves against the Japanese invasion.

The British had murdered the leader of the freedom party Aung San (Father of Su Aung San) and other leaders which is still a national day but in the end, it resulted in the British asking the socialist party to form new government in 1948.

In 1962, military rule was installed again after a coup which retained merciless control until 1988. Then came a socialist uprising 1988 followed by another coup in 1992 which restored the iron grip on the country until 2007.

Burma's democracy continues but to many, not quick enough and corruption is staggering.  In the 2012 elections, 57million people voted in a country that only has a population of 51.8 million.

In 2013, talking negatively about the government would have got you 65 years in prison.

Whilst the government attempts to buy the people, is is still pocketing the proceeds of its vast teak and jade industry all of which are licensed by government.  Jade, gold, silver, oil, gas and teak are all contracted to the Chines who are presumably the only government that will deal with corrupted regimes and who are seriously corrupted themselves.

HISTORY LESSON OVER 

We stopped at the place where they hand make the decorated paper and watched the whole process, including making some of our own.

It comes from the pulp of the Mulberry tree mixed with water.

(Above) So now take some Lotus flower stems and beat the living daylights out of -soak add flowers to the slurry for pretty patterns. We also saw them make the beautiful decorated paper parasols, all by hand using manual tools. Really beautiful. More items were bought !!

 The umbrellas even come with waterproof options by using the sap of a Gum Accacia (Gum Artabic) tree.  All colours are natural as chemical processing has not really been developed.

On again through the mountains until we reached Pindaya where we were going into a cave to look at Buddah statues.  

Expecting similar to what we had seen in Laos, we were completely blown away when we entered this cave. It has over 8000 Buddah’s ! The views across the valley to the other mountains from here were just stunning too.

Mandy had a mini melt down as lifts were not her forte but bravely she got up to the top

We managed to get Mandy up the lift.  There was a concern when we saw a sign for a collection for a new lift

its not everyday you see 8000 Buddhas - or so we thought as our Buddha count increases significantly

There is also a elephant tethering post - as trip adviser ststes... the Burmes will never allow reality to stand in the way of a goof myth

Now, this guy is touching up the paintwork stood on two scaffold poles with a 4" gap between them and about 400' above ground level.His mate is varnishing using a solvent based varnish - great contract to win

Onwards to Kalaw which had a little of the Sapa frontier town feel to it, very ethnically mixed with lots of different hill tribes, a Muslim population and quite a large Indian population. 
Politically, this is a hot potatoe as its home to the highly persecuted Rohinga muslims which is a current throrny issue and also, its the edge of the second largest opium fields in the world making it the most militarily patrolled region in the country.  We are now allowed to go any further North from her.

This little house in Tunbridge Wells....no, it's our hotel room in Kalaw, a former British hill station on the edge of the most dangerous part of Myanmar. 

The town has temples, but also a catholic church, a methodist chapel, a mosque and a sikh temple ! Very multicultural and it also has some wonderful old colonial villas.  Now here, they really do stare at you...!!

Military patrol heavily here with almost every other vehicle being military green. ...the reason is that we are on the edge of one of the largest opium growing areas in the world with Myanmar being second only to Afghanistan and the areas are hotly fought over and defended.  It is also the only town where ethnic minorities can live together without persecution so its a real ethnic mix.  We also saw a lot of military vehicles parked outside the golf course!!

Janettte had found an artist that had actually exhibited in London and his pencil sketches were unbelievable.  Suffice to say she bought one.

(Above) This little fellas job was to wave down walkers and tourists so they would buy a beer at his parents bar...start then young and it worked for us as we had 4 bottles of finest Myanmar.

So after a wash and scrub up in our Tunbridge Wells hotel, we went for dinner and once again, an early night.