"Old Age is not for Sissies." (Quote Bette Davies * 1908 + 1989 US American actress)

I have to agree.

It is always sobering and a bit painful to be remembered of your age.

 

"You walk? .. Yes. Why? .. You old !! "

This morning I'm reminded of it once more. The girl at the reception of the Railroad Hotel, Sima, does not seem to have internalized the Western reluctance to make inappropriate remarks about the advanced age of her clients (though sometimes I would like that directness).

In any case, my 2-day trek towards Inle-Lake starts with exactly these words. We both laugh heartily (I'm a little tense) and say goodbye. It was - despite the bathroom - a wonderful stay.

 

4 persons plus sanny

At the organizing agency, the group of 4 people plus guide gradually comes together (exactly the right size, because after all, you are close together for 2 days and suffer the same fate, so to speak).

Sebastian, a young German from Rosenheim, Chris and his girlfriend Stefanie from Amsterdam and Sanny, our guide. There will be a lot more to say about him, because he will prove to be the great attraction of our excursion. All in all a good composition, a very good one.

As we are only on the road for 2 days, the first part of the journey will be taken with the shared taxi into the hills, where we will eventually be unloaded somewhere in the middle of nowhere and left to our own devices.

Well, at least we have Sanny. He is a 55-year-old, short, wiry man with a fine network of wrinkles on his otherwise smooth face, always with a smile, a woolen hat on his head, and wide, light-colored trousers shaking around his legs, which can be seen from a distance. That he is an extremely eloquent interlocutor and a storyteller like from A Thousand and One Nights will soon prove.

 

Sanny, our guide
Sanny, our guide, with interested listeners

 

A yellow sea

Well, let's go! We follow the path initially to the east, on well-developed trails, then washed-out footpaths, past yellow fields with blooming sunflowers, on fields with Sticky Rice (however, according to Sanny also Sticky Sticky Rice, which must then be quite sticky) , For the non-experts: Unlike the Wet Rice, Sticky Rice has a slightly different taste and, depending on the strain, people or country, is more or less part of the daily menu.

It's like a dream. A beautiful dream.

 

Sunflowers
A yellow sea of ​​sunflowers
Blooming meadows
A single treat for the eye

 

Banyan trees

Sometimes we cross the huge banyan trees, stand still for a moment and admire the ancient, holy monsters. Then again past a yellow sea of ​​flowers. The eye is tired of sheer splendor.

If I can believe our well-informed guide (limitation: I don't believe everything, although I am convinced that HE believes everything he tells us). The story with his healing qualities (which would fill a separate chapter) is so abstruse and funny at the same time that, if not true, at least well invented).

So if I can believe him, there are different Banyan trees, the sacred ones and the others. How they differ, however, is unclear. Some are simply sacred and are wreathed with equally sacred utensils, while others, although looking completely the same, are not sacred.

But anyway, Banyan trees have played an important role in Buddha's history. As far as I know, he meditated in Bodh Gaya, a village in India, a few hundred kilometers from Varanasi (Benares), under a Banyan tree and was enlightened just there (a great-great-grandson of the tree still grows in the same place) ...

 

Banyan Tree
A huge banyan tree

 

Through fields and forests

It is one of the most beautiful hikes ever. A leisurely stroll along meadows and fields and forests, past lovely rivers and streams, watched by water buffalos and cows and children ... You just have to be able to walk on. Endless. With open eyes and ears and nose. It smells of perfumes, of expensive ingredients, of nature and beautiful women ...

Eye and heart are exhausted in the face of all these beauties. The endless yellow fields stretching to the horizon, seemingly without limits. The green of the meadows, the brown of the scorched earth. In the ear the gentle sound of the wind in the branches of the trees.

It should never end ...

 

bee hive
Beehives?
Along out of operation tracks
Along disused tracks
Trees and Buffalos
Lonely trees in the middle of the landscape with a few water buffalos
Fuck off!
He looks quite grim ("fuck off!")
lively discussions
Lively discussions
Van Gogh's Painting
Could be painted by Van Gogh

 

Monk Ordination

Sometimes you have to be lucky. On the way east we meet a Buddhist temple where a strange ceremony is going on. Not far from a temple, under the branches of a banyan tree a lot of people, old, young, babies, children, are waiting to look at the entrance of the temple, where you can hear the monotonous murmur of Buddhist recitations.

We stand by, and Sanny, our guide, explains to us that an ordination is in progress. Apparently on this day many new monks (bhikkus) are ordained, i.e. they receive their status as monks and from this day on they have to obey over two hundred commandments (most of which funnily enough concern the instructions on how to sit, eat and drink properly at the table).

Surprisingly, Buddhism is very relaxed and open in this respect: an ordination as in the Catholic faith, for example, which is valid for eternity, can be dissolved without any problems, so after more or less days or weeks or years one is detached from one's vows at one's own request and can continue one's normal life.

It doesn't take long, and the twenty or so new monks leave the temple with serious faces, they are greeted with music by the spectators, and the whole procession leaves with dignity, without appreciating us with a single glance ...

We leave the celebration with an ambivalent feeling. Once again we would like to be part of the culture, but we are aware that we do not belong to it.

 

Small temple in no man's land
A small temple in no man's land
Gathering of the believers below tree shade
The faithful gather in the shade of the trees
starting the ceremony
The ceremony begins
Parasols? Or something else?
Umbrellas? Or not?
Musicians with weird instruments
Musicians with strange instruments

Children ...

Sometimes children run across the path, shy, reserved, and run away as soon as a camera is pulled out. Then in a village a whole pack of people screaming for pencils. Pencils?

Now I finally have a chance to get rid of the remaining colored pencils. The distribution process is a bit tedious, however, because ten children jump up on me, trying to get the coveted pens with outstretched hands. So it has to be organized, everything in a row, then fair distribution so that the younger ones don't miss out either.

 

greetings or requests
Is that already a pleading gesture?
So many children
Even more children
chewing with pleasure
Cheerful enjoyment
Chewing as well...
As well …

... and Water Buffalos

Water buffalos, the most beautiful picture is a water pond, where ten of them wallow comfortably, while in the background a mother cow guards her offspring. A serious-looking man, apparently the shepherd, gives us suspicious looks. Today, however, we have no intention of harming his wonderful animals or taking them with us. He seems relieved when we go our way …

 

Water Buffalos
There's nothing more beautiful …
buffalo calf
A young calf, a little unsteady on his legs
Shepherd in the shade
The responsibleshepherd in the shade

Peperoncini

What the photographer among us, Chris, is particularly pleased about are the drying peperoncini, one has the impression that whole football fields shimmer in dark red. Women and children are crouching down on them, partly in their wonderfully coloured costumes of the Pa-O tribe, and turning them over or collecting them.

I don't quite understand the exact procedure, but certain details of planting vegetables that I don't like very much, don't seem to be very memorable either (apart from the wonderful colours, of course).

 
Tough work
The laborious work is the daily bread
working in the blazing sun
In the boiling sun ...

 

My stomach is rebelling

Perhaps I should mention something else: yesterday afternoon, tired and hungry for something sweet, I made the one mistake that should be avoided at all costs, namely to drink a lukewarm coffee in an Indian restaurant. Of course I should have rejected the brew, but sometimes you are just too stupid or too polite.

As a consequence, the unpleasant surprise you can imagine at five o'clock in the morning. So now I'm on an 2-day trek that takes me to places not known for decent toilets. But as I said, my mistake, but that's just part of it. A proper input from Loperamid-Mepha will hopefully make sure that I don't turn out to be too much of a troublemaker.

 

The Pa-O lady

Every few hours a stop, as it should be, once a tea stop at a Pa-O lady who is busy weaving wonderful cloths and bags. An endless, tedious process, which can take several days for a single cloth and - according to our own financial circumstances - is sold for a tip.

 

Pa O Lady
Slowly, slowly, works of art are created
Magnificent results
The results of her work are breathtaking

 

Lunch in the homestay

Then lunch in a house that serves as a homestay for other trekking groups.

A round table is provided, you sit down on the floor (ah, how I hate that, how my stupid back protests) and receive a multi-course menu of noodles, vegetables, indefinable side dishes, which, however, I hear, taste very good ( I content myself with a bowl of soup for understandable reasons). There is talk and laughter, slowly the group comes together. Once again, English is the lingua franca.

 

Homestay
The lady of the house gives us a cautious look
It looks great
It does not just look good
Other hungry mouths
In the next room are other hungry mouths

Homeward

The full belly demands rest and a midday nap, but the way ahead is too long for that. We have to walk a few more kilometres, but through still great areas, along gentle hills where cows are gathered. It is a peaceful sight, and as always one is reminded how far away we have moved from such idylls. We can't bring this past world back but hope for the natives that they won't succumb so quickly to the seduction of western lifestyles ...

 

Cows on meadows
Cows in the sun
 
Way home
The way home …
Evening Sun.
Home in the evening sun

On the fields they pack up in view of the approaching evening. The evening light gives the images an unearthly beauty ...

 

closing time
The end of the working day is approaching - the day's work is done

Arrival at sunset

Because we lost a lot of time, we reach the village just before sunset, where we will spend the night. From a distance it looks rather strange, but apparently this is not our domicile. Our rest house (or whatever these establishments are called) turns out to be a multi-storey building where we will hopefully spend a pleasant night.

In the nearby courtyard there are cows ( Gnus?) and a few folks whose role remains rather unclear. But they nod at us politely, which we naturally reply. The dormitory is huge and could accommodate half a company of soldiers.

 

strange architecture
Somehow a strange architecture
Evening idyll
An idyll in the evening

The homestay

The Homestay makes quite a good impression (I prefer not to talk about the toilet in the yard), there is a big room where we will sleep, the sleeping places with blankets and mattresses are already prepared. But I don't like the shower (a bucket of ice-cold water over the head, only Sebastian is enough masochist to do that to himself).

After dinner outdoors - it quickly gets quite cold - and a longer lecture by Sanny about his healing (!) skills, Buddhism and a presentation of his KungFu arts, it's time to hide under the blankets. However, the 5 centimetre thick mattresses promised by the organizer prove to be more like 5 millimetre thick (he probably mixed up the measure), but the blankets seem to be quite warm (though probably in use a thousand times).

 

Homestay
Our homestay

I am happy to have my cotton sleeping bag, which doesn’t give too much in terms of warmth, but at least protects against direct contact with the blankets. I throw in another pill, hoping to avoid going to the toilet in question at night, and turn on my side. It's cold and it's hard, but kind of ... wonderful.

At least for the first moment ...

As I said, somehow wonderful, slowly warms up, the mattress is better than expected, the stomach at the moment sedated - there begins what in any relationship, in the military or the Boy Scouts, inevitably leads to problems: snoring!

 

A symphony of horror

But what comes out of Sebastian's throat next to me is not just snoring, it's much more than that, it's an attack on peace and quiet itself, a cacophony of gruesome sounds that could scare small children to death , a symphony of horror. Sometimes it sounds as if it's in the last train, sometimes it silently fetches breath, then pushes it out in frightening spurts. God in heaven!

Sleep is unthinkable, because now begins what you do in such cases, you are waiting for the next attack on the ears and can not sleep. And I left the stupid earplugs!

Well, somehow the night goes by anyway, in between I even fall into a sleep of several hours, the point six is ​​interrupted by the sounds of the morning.

 

P.S. Matching Song:  Wreckless Kelly - Little Blossom

And here the journey continues ...

 

Related Articles

Leave a comment

Your e-mail address will not be published. Required fields are marked with * marked

This website uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn more about how your comment data is processed.

Discover more from Travelbridge

Subscribe now to continue reading and access the entire archive.

Read more