Visiting Hsipaw: Dry March of Fireflies

“When visiting the most isolated corners of the world, come bearing true treasures: pens, pencils, papers, notebooks and highlighters are the scarcest gold.” -Old Sean

North and Hsipaw

In the morning after our tour of Inle Lake, I awoke groggy and prepared for another adventure elsewhere in Burma. My roommate Kat and I both finished our stay in Inle Lake. Our next journey would lead to the longest walking-portion of our journey.  

Our next stop was visiting Hsipaw, a town named for the considerable mountain range nearby.  Kat and I found a small room in town.

We decided to leave most of our gear behind to make the upcoming hike easier.  We spent the first night watching traditional dances and bible readings on a mid-quality television in our room.  

The following morning, we left of our gear with the courteous hotel staff and went off to meet our guide.  The guide in question turned out to be an extremely capable individual named Mitch.  He was well-spoken, fluent in English, extremely knowledgeable and wandered alongside us at a perfectly accommodating rate.  It was because of Mitch alone that Kat and I had most of our luck for the trip.  

Firefly Trekking Guide Services were spectacular when finding us a guide. We immediately got on the Hsipaw mountain trails the following day.  Mitch (locally called Sao Moe) was a longstanding local who had grown up learning the lay of the land. He had recently returned from living in Mandalay to fulfill his trekking guide career.

Mitch was the perfect guide. He was insightful, intelligent, dauntingly fluent in English and three other languages, informative, humorous and deeply invested in our happiness. Within the first hour, Mitch shed more light on Burma’s culture than any other single source.

Mind of the Guide

First, a little bit of education. When we asked whether we should call the country Myanmar (as recognized internationally) or Burma, Mitch explained in a way that was both illuminating and frustratingly complex. 

Perhaps not surprisingly, the alternating name has political connotations that are quite confusing and a bit uncertain for outsiders.  (Burma) Burmese people are a distinct majority ethnic group. This group led a military regime resulting in sporadic ethnic warfare with six or seven other ethnic states struggling for autonomy.

The country was renamed, officially, Myanmar to include the diverse ethnic background. But a strong push by the democracy-advocating party latched onto the original name, Burma.  The inter-militia ethnic fighting has largely died down. However, there are still ethnic cleansings occurring in the north (against a Muslim population).  We were warned to avoid attending these areas.

Trek Checkpoints

In any event, Mitch guided us through daily military checkpoints. He warned us not to allow military personnel to slip any “drugs” into our (or his own) bags.

This was a common recruitment method since drug possession in the country is punishable by being drafted for military service.  Which military group is doing the drafting is a bit tricky to lock down. The different ethnic groups still have a somewhat varying level of autonomy. Many of these factions have their own militias available to local governing bodies. 

If a guard had managed to slip drugs into my bag at a military checkpoint, that would have been dangerous. If such drugs were rediscovered on the way back out, Kat and I would have been fined and deported. Our guide, Mitch would have been drafted into whichever military unit had “caught” us.

Mitch said all of this without drama, pointing out the more fraught zones clearly on a map. He carefully positioned himself to watch entire checkpoints for skullduggery while Kat and I were ushered through.  

Lucky, on top of being an excellent wellspring of information, our guide is a badass.

On the Trek

We trekked uphill for the majority of the first day, caking our shoes in thick coats of dust from the dry trails. Our small group walked past cliffs stained with differing minerals pulled forth from the ground by rigorous rains.  Bramble brush sprung in every direction. Domestic cows and horses trotted around freely, often passing through the local tea plantations. 

The tea plantations were a sight unto themselves. They were stubby little bunches of foliage reportedly a century old. They’re also one of the villages’ primary sources of economic income.  Each bushel we passed had been grown and cultivated into a dense, productive bush providing a sort of yellow-green tea blend.

Temple Schools

The brilliant thing about hiking up from Hsipaw and into the mountains is the lack of tourists.  Travelers are commonplace enough that there is a system for ensuring comfort, but there’s no major influx of hikers going through. 

The villages are a series of beds and houses utilized for wanderers to spend the night (although finding these without a guide on the jagged trails and their constant switchbacks is challenging). There are also abundant amounts of simple-fare food for every meal, accented by the local tea.  

Despite this infrastructure, travelers haven’t become too common yet.  Many villagers stop to stare and small children are often delighted to come up, pass along brilliant red flowers and play for a bit. 

During our hike, our guide asked us not to provide the children of the area any candy.  Dental care out in the mountains is extremely expensive and difficult to come by, so offering candy is unhealthy, promotes begging and is detrimental for the small village economies. 

Instead, Mitch recommended we provide pens, pencils, notebooks and highlighters, so the children have school supplies that are otherwise rare in the village.  We were able to visit one such school (which is actually a village learning-temple) where red-clothed monks teach. They watched us bemusedly as we walked by. 

School supplies are in extremely high demand.  One notebook had been absolutely crammed to the absolute limits with tiny, perfectly compact writing.  The student was adding another layer of margins to a non-existent rim of paper along the very edge of the battered book.  

Village Retreats

The villages themselves also merit quite a bit of interest.  The poorer villages are primarily constructed of treated bamboo, usually on the outskirts of towns. They show signs of a bit of patchwork.  Richer buildings are constructed of honest wood. When enough of these wooden buildings crop up in an area, it’s an indication of wealth.  Electricity was available for phone charging, though running water was not part of the package.

There were a lot of things to see in between.  Enormous trees, half as ancient as the mountains, are cradled and cared for inside sporadic villages.  Where towns in Mexico have central plazas with markets for a gathering area, towns in the Hsipaw Mountains are centralized around these gorgeous, shady behemoths.  People visiting Hsipaw Shan villages can often relax breifly at these natural sanctuaries.

Within towns, legions of pointy-eared canines trot freely, often coming up to attest to their exceptional friendliness. 

Along the edges of the trail, special tiny ferns hug the ground, with leaves folding inwards swiftly if you happen to brush them.  In this country, these shy plants are called Hti Ka Yoan‘ which means “crumbles when touched“.  In Latin, our guide wrote down their name as Mimosa Pudica.  It’s an extremely potent medical herb when used, so locals are happy to see it thriving.  

Trail Snacks

 Elsewhere, mountain monks at every age wearing their trademark reds reside in monasteries, bare feet drawing daily patterns in the dry-season-dust.  Independent farms also dot the mountains, growing papayas, hosting newborn kittens, chickens and ducks, slicing up mangoes and growing sugar cane.

Sugar cane is delicious, by the way.  Our guide was kind enough to pay a few children for a stalk, which he proceeded to dice up with a handheld scythe, allowing us to savagely munch on the plant as we walked.  For those who haven’t tried sugar-cane before, it’s like chewing a sweet, fibrous gum which crunches slightly.  The pulpy remains are usually spat out on the trail once all the juice and flavor have been extracted.  There’s always some for sale in large Asian food markets in the US, but this was my first time trying it fresh sliced.  

And every night, of course, the sky blazed to life with stars only still seen in the obscure portions of the world.  The enormous tapestry defied all photography attempts without a proper tripod and shutter control.  However, cradled by mountains, the sky was more pinpricks of light than walls of dark.

We hiked for three days, wandering from village to village, miles vanishing under plodding footsteps.  

Finally, after a dozen villages and footprints leading past sugar cane factories, patches of burning grass, we finally hopped on a tuk-tuk which puttered us to a gorgeous cave-waterfall (Hsipaw Nant-Ton Waterfall). We spent out time visiting Hsipaw Nant-Ton Waterfall by rinsing off dust and checking out the secret caves behind the torrent.

Return to Hsipaw

We finally returned, visiting Hsipaw one last time. The day was winding down and we bought a pair of bus tickets to Bagan, while asking our guide to join us for a quick thank-you dinner.  He took us to Mr. Shake (which I highly recommend).  To be clear, Hspiaw has two Mr. Shakes under slightly different names.  The first one I attended was close to the town center and this is not the true or original Mr. Shakes.  They only serve you sweet lies with fruit cuts.  The true Mr. Shake is further out, but resides as a marvelous little restaurant with everything one could ask for after returning from a three day trip.  

Before true darkness fell, we briefly walked through Little Bagan, the small temple district located in the north of the city before picking up our luggage from the hotel and heading to the bus station.  That was all the time we had for visiting Hsipaw.

We waited a few more moments at the bus station before saying goodbye to our guide before loading onto the vehicle.  

In any event, the night buses of Myanmar/ Burma are a hit or miss.  You either get a nice, spacious seat with curtains drawn, food and drinks served and a cushion for your dreams or you get a refurbished party bus with flashing lights on the ceiling, an AC with a passion for frostbite and a flat screen TV blaring Burmese love songs all night. One does not simply sleep on such a bus.

This trip, we secured the former.  I slept like the slightly upright dead.

In any event, tomorrow morning we arrive in the controversial but deeply fascinating dust safari of Bagan and its famous pagodas.

Until then,

Best regards and excellent trails,

Old Sean

Written February 22nd 2018

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