The morning after we had arrived in Kalaw we found ourselves a trekking guide. We settled on Mr. Aung whose "company" is called "Honeymoon" of all things. Asked how he came up with that name he simply said: "It's important that it's easy to remember!". Well, he has a point there. The trek itself was really good and had a few revelations in store - both culinary and culturally.

Mr. Aung is a retired school headmaster and has taught in the schools in the hills almost all his life. So he really knows the area and we were very, very happy with him. But before we left on our two-day trek we were in for another pleasant surprise: "The Golden Lilly" (3$/night) where we had stayed didn't charge us for the first night where we had arrived in the middle of the night. Nice!

The trekking itself was just great. I was pretty much at my limit though. Normally a two-day-trek would have been a lot shorter but Peter wanted to see all four hilltribes that are in the area, and I agreed to try to make it. I made it, but it was pretty hard work. We walked eight and nine hours per day. Obviously all that sightseeing in the last weeks did something for my constitution. Personally I thought that one tribe looked exactly like the other, which is not so surprising since they normally don't wear their traditional clothes each and every day. And in working clothes they DO look the same.

The best thing about the Trek was the night in the village. Actually that was probably the best thing I had done in Myanmar. We spent the night in a house in a small village in the hills. And of course we were not the first tourists they had seen or anything else like that. In fact, four Americans shared the room with us. But it still didn't have a touristy feel to it at all. The family was just incredibly sweet and at no point did anyone try to put on some sort of show of "indigenous hilltribe life" for us, like you see it in some other areas. We were simply their guests and they treated us really, really nicely. In part we might also owe it to the Americans that we had such a good time. Because they were soooo good with the kids. They just started to play with them and have fun with them the minute they arrived. And I'm sure that this was one importrant reason why the family opened up to us. And the food! It was absolutely fantastic. I mean, if you walk to some remote village in the hills you'd normally expect to get some pretty basic food. But this was probably the best vegetarian meal I've had in my whole life. It was unbelievable good!

After dinner we went outside to look at the night sky. I can't remember I had seen so many stars the last time. It was breathtaking.

We also learned something interesting about the family. Up there, in the hills, most people only attend primary school, since they are needed on the fields. So this familys oldest daughter was supposed to be taken out of school to look after the water buffalo. Some french tourists who stayed with them heard about this and pontaneously decided to pay for someone else to look after the buffalo, which costs only around 50 USD per year. And so the girl can continue to go to school since these French have continued to send the money (though I suppose it's become more difficult now, since you cannot send or transfer Dollars to Myanmar any longer because of the US-Embargo). Really makes you think about the money you spend in the pub each weekend, doesn't it?