Kalaw

I met a Canadian guy and his German girlfriend at Yangon airport. He had already been to Burma and knew his way round pretty well, so when they asked if I wanted to come along to Kalaw it sounded like a very good plan. well actually, it was the only plan I had. I didn't possess a guidebook or even a map, so here was Karma again presenting itself to me on a plate.

Kalaw is a 14 hour bus ride north of Yangon, I will save the description of the journey for a time when I no longer feel the pain from that ride and can speak about it without wincing. Anyway we arrived at 3am (a really excellent time to arrive anywhere). We knocked on a guest house door and about 10 minutes later a man who could hardly get his eyes open came and let us in. He didn't say a word, complain or generally make us feel like wankers for waking him up, but instead showed us the last room he had - two single beds, so we said yeah and flopped into them.

The next two days were spent trekking in the hills around Kalaw. They were absolutely beautiful with native hill tribes dotted around the place. We spent the first night at a place called the Viewpoint (run by a wonderful Nepalese ex-Gurkha family), which is at about 1200 meters and commands a view of at least 100km into the distance. When we arrived we were offered delicious samosas and tea which was made from the bushes dotted around the landscape. We devoured the food, drank about 4 liters of tea and enjoyed a world-class sunset.

A delicious dinner, a couple of Myanmar beers and some of Nepal's finest brown export later and we were in bed with the sound of some hill tribe villagers singing mysteriously in the distance.