Dec 22th, Inle Lake, Olli

I decided to go anyway, and now I'm happily in Inle Lake, after trekking for three days and two nights. Distance was only about 40-50 km, so not too bad. We had a group of six people, three canadians, one american, one turkish and myself. Our guide was a 28-year old guy from Kalaw, a great guy. On tuesday we left Kalaw around 9 am, and the highlight of the day for me was a stop at a local elementary school. It was a tiny building with only two rooms and a few desks. The children seemed to really enjoy their day, or maybe it was just because we came to disturb their normal day with our cameras. The first night we spent in a small village, where we slept in a floor of a local family. Three of us also played the combination of volleyball and soccer (3-3, a badminton net, 3 touches, only with legs and head, with a ball made of bambu) against the local teenagers. Guess who won? It was dark very early and there being no lights in the village, we spent the night watching the stars and went to bed at 8 pm. Yes, you heard right. We slept (or tried to sleep) on a wooden floor side by side on a matress with a few blankets. The walls were thin as paper and the temperature dropped to almost zero degrees, so the night was freezing.





So I was very happy to get up very early next morning. During the day we stopped in a few more villages, and met for example some chili-farmers and bambu-workers. The second night we spent in a small monastery, which was very interesting. In Myanmar all men (buddhists) have to live in a monastery at least twice during their lives. Once as a novice monk and once in their adult age. In this monastery lived nine novice monks (young boys) with one chief monk teaching them. So in the morning we didn't need any alarm clocks, because the young novices started chanting at 5.30 am. I have to admit, it was a really strange feeling waking up in a Burmese monastery to a sound of nine young monks chanting. Not a bad feeling at all. In the last day we saw some really nice views and after a 4-hour trek arrived to Inle Lake. Before letting our guide go, we still had time to visit an umbrella work shop and see some members of the long-neck tribe.

Dec 20th, Kalaw, Olli

I was really lucky with my flights to Bangkok. On the first flight I didn't have anyone sitting next to me and on the connecting I got to the first row. My first night in Bangkok was also good, I spent a fun night with some other travellers. On saturday I flew to Burma.

Somehow I immediately felt like being in Burma when I stepped out of the plane. I didn't find my luggage, and there was no sign indicating where I should find it. When asking for help, people were friendly all right, but they just kept sending you to the next person until you were talking again to the same person with whom you started to. And finally the bag just appeared somewhere. Next thing that happened was a power failure. All the electricity went off just like that. First time when the flash light was useful, for sure not the last one.

I didn't have any reservations for accommodation, and it was surprisingly difficult to find a room. I spent a lot of time finding a room with an american guy I met in the plane. Finally we did manage to find one, I think it was maybe the sixth place we went to.

The next day we took a night bus to Kalaw, which took 11 hours. The bus was ok, even though the roads were pretty bad. Almost during the whole trip they played (very loud) popular western songs singed in some asian languages. At some point it started to annoy a little bit.. We arrived in Kalaw at 2 am as promised, and found immediately a nice place to stay. So everything was going fine. Until after sleeping maybe for two hours the shit hit the fan. After that I spent the next 15 hours running between my bed and toilet. I am still feeling really bad after all the puking and can't eat or drink anything. I was going to hike to Inle Lake tomorrow, but it seems like I have to change my plans a bit..