The Chinese Myanmar couple and son we met in the restaurant in Pyin Oo Lwin took us in their car further North East.Along the way the driver turned off the main road onto a dirt track, and drove for several kilometers before reaching a ordinary looking house. Invited inside, I saw an old man sitting on the floor at a table, and a group of people gathered around him. Apparently this man had once correctly predicted the Thailand lottery numbers and now people came to him in the hope he could do it again. While we waited he wrote out his current predictation, as many times as there were people, before handing them out. Two weeks later the lottery would be drawn, and the gathered crowd hoped to become millionaires. Would they be so lucky? I never found out.
The scenery on the journey was very pleasant. Mountains, valleys, river crossings. It reminded me a little of the South Island of New Zealand.
At this point in the journey, one of those tactical decision you have to make when travelling arose. With only so many days left in the country, do I go to the town of Lashio? Or rather, do I sacrifice a day somewhere else for a day in Lashio? Ignoring the rule of thumb “quality over quantity” (ie: staying long in one place vs. visiting many places) I decided to go. It was a mistake. A mid-sized town, there was nothing of particular interest, and no other tourists.
Moving right along, Hsipaw was a much better place to spend a few days. I met an Australian expat who knew a lot of people around town. I ended up being taken out on the river with one of her friends who had contacts with the local insurgent group the Shan State Army (SSA). Sound exicting? Well it was rather boring, but interesting in that I was accompaning them as an observer on a “working” trip, rather than a trip for tourists. Part of today’s business was inspecting the logging the group carried out. Logging is “illegal” unless you are the government monopoly, but the SSA has some decree of autonomy. After that we went “fishing”, by throwing dynamite into the water they hoped to catch something. It looked and sounded good, but that was about it.
The Shan Palace in Hsipaw is well worth visiting for the wealth of information the occupiers, Mr Donald and Mrs Fern, have on the area and Myanmar. They speak very good English and told me about the current regime. Mrs Fern was so informative I went back two more times! She keeps a library of books donated by travellers. If you vist, leave a book for the main library or the secret library of books banned in Myanmar, which includes the Lonely Planet.
