The Kachin Experience

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The Kachin Experience

Every morning around six one of the Malikha girls would creep silently into our room and load up the Scandinavian-style fire with fresh wood - it was such a delight to wake up to a warm lodge and a crackling fire! This morning was no exception, and the rain had stopped when we were woken with some coffee and tea at about eight.

A while later we left with Ashleigh, Yves, Ruby Rose and Indigo to walk down to the Mulashide Bridge on the nearby Nam Lang River where Deepak, an amiable Nepalese in charge of water sports awaited us. With two other members of his team, Cookie and Orang, he had a large river raft, a kayak, and all the other necessary gear neatly laid out on the pebbly river beach. After going through a safety briefing we were soon paddling gently down-river, joining the Malikha River about three hours later and then entering a pretty gorge traversed by a couple of precarious-looking bamboo and rope bridges.

Our pace was unhurried and we had plenty of time to enjoy all the sights of the river; an elephant being bathed by his mahout, families of Ruddy Shelducks flying low across the water, Cormorants and Kingfishers waiting patiently to catch their lunch, Wagtails and Chats foraging along the banks, a herd of buffalo slowly crossing at a river shallows, prospectors panning for gold, and local villagers bathing at the river’s edge or fishing from mid-stream rocks.

Shortly beyond the gorge we were surprised to see several Malikha Lodge staff waving to us from a small rocky island; they had taken a river boat down to meet us with picnic tables and chairs, table linen, china and glasses - even a portable loo! We were soon tucking into fresh salads, delectable sandwiches on homemade bread, one of Rolf’s delicious cakes - all washed down, of course, with wine and well-chilled beer.

After lunch one of the local long-tail boats took us all back up the Malikha River and dropped us at Machambaw village where the Mitsubishi picked us up. We took a lovely stroll through the friendly and relatively affluent village as the sun began to sink in the sky. The local boys all seemed besotted with Ruby Rose and Indigo and we gathered quite an entourage walking down to the Machambaw River bridge and back up to the village’s main road (track, of course, in reality, since none of the roads up here are tarmac).

After our walk we drove back to Mulashide, dropped the girls off at home, and relaxed over cocktails at the Lodge with Ash and Yves. Later, Lisa had a massage and after our showers we ate a fairly early dinner and retired at a very respectable time.

The next morning at six one of the girls came in to feed the fire and bring us some coffee and tea. By six-thirty we left with Yves in the Mitsubishi to drive to Putao for a look around the local market.

Although Putao is the largest town in Kachin after Myitkyina and has a population of 10,000 it feels more like a large, sprawling village apart from a few larger wooden government buildings scattered around the outskirts. The market seems very meagre compared to what one would see in other parts of Asia - a few vegetables and fruits, a handful of tiny river fish, a few bags of rice, a dozen or so eggs, and one tiny butcher’s stall with a collection of odd-looking cuts of meat. At one end of the market stand a few permanent provision shops selling batteries, cheap watches, combs, basic clothes and other day-to-day necessities. Anything else has to be ordered from Yangon or Myitkyina - which, incidentally, although only 150kms away is a minimum eight days drive in the dry season and only reachable by plane between April and September.

The web site of the Kachin National Organization claims “There is no economic opportunity amidst rampant inflation and people are reduced to the lowest level of subsistence. Equally lacking are proper healthcare and education.” From what we saw and heard in the region around Putao, it is hard to argue with this.

It was a glorious morning, misty with a watery sun shining through, cool enough for a jacket, but not too cold. Perfect weather to warm ourselves up at the handful of small food stalls. We sampled mohinga - Burma’s national dish, perhaps, rice noodles with fish cake and broth topped off with cilantro and crisp caramelised onions - a superb bowlful! At another stall we tried their tofu noodle soup - also very good - and onion and sweet potato Bhaji.

On the way back we stopped briefly at a small nature museum connected to the Hukaung Valley Wildlife Sanctuary and funded by the Wildlife Conservation Society of New York - a rather meagre affair with a small collection of rather threadbare stuffed birds and mammals, a few pinned butterflies, and a tiny orchid garden. By around nine the mist had cleared away and we enjoyed the lovely, soft morning sunlight as we drove back through the villages to Mulashide.

Back at the Malikha Lodge we sat and chatted over coffee around one of the fires in the main lodge, then had a rest in our villa before lunch.

At lunchtime Lisa and I walked through Mulashide village towards Yves and Ashleigh’s house, but before we reached it Ruby Rose and Indigo were running down the lane to meet us. Theirs was a fairly standard small village bamboo and atap house on stilts but with a few mod cons such as a flushing toilet, piped (hot) water, and electricity wired in from the Lodge’s generators. The large, neatly laid-out garden was tended assiduously to provide fresh vegetables and salads for the Lodge. It all seemed rather utopian, although living there for any length of time would certainly have its downsides.

Pushpa, the family’s Sri Lankan nanny and housekeeper, was inside preparing a lunch of roti, curry, daal and sambals that we ate out on the balcony. And quite delicious it was, too. Mid-afternoon we walked languorously back to the Lodge and took a very welcome nap in our villa.

In the evening we had cocktails followed by a long and most enjoyable dinner with Ash and Yves in the main lodge, talking about life in Burma, what the future might hold for them, and every other topic under the sun. It was almost one o’clock before they wandered off home through the village and we made our way back to our room.

We were up at eight for a light breakfast before boarding two elephants just outside the Lodge compound. One was a perhaps 25-year old female, the other her 10-year old son and like most Burmese elephants, quite small, very cute, and friendly. We were planning to take them on a walk through the surrounding countryside. Unfortunately, a hundred metres into our trek, a tractor drove noisily past us and spooked the female I was riding - she trumpeted, turned, and broke into a gallop. The mahout appeared to panic when he failed to stop her with his feet and shouted commands, and he drew his large knife - fortunately, the elephant stopped at this point before I had the chance of seeing exactly what he planned to do with the knife. The whole episode made me very uncomfortable - not with the elephant but with the capability of the mahout (who was new, only three days with the elephant), and I decided I didn’t want to continue. So we dismounted, petted and fed the elephants some bananas for a while, and then took a stroll through the village.

Having already packed, we had lunch with Ashleigh, Yves and Ruby Rose out on the Lodge veranda - take-away mohinga for them (collected from the same stall at Putao market earlier in the morning), and a brunch fry-up for me!

After lunch we made our farewells and Ashleigh took us to the tiny Putao airport where Malikha Lodge’s “fixer” checked us in and we had a drink at a nearby café while waiting for our plane to arrive. When a plane takes off from Myitkyina staff ring a bell at Putao airport to let the townspeople know the flight will be arriving in half an hour!

We left about 4.15pm and with two scheduled stops at Myitkyina and Mandalay, and an unscheduled stop at somewhere whose name we never quite got, it was 8.30pm by the time we arrived back in Yangon.

When you fly in from somewhere like Singapore or Bangkok, Yangon seems like a fairly sleepy, under-commercialised capital; after four days up in the wilds of northern Kachin it struck us as a throbbing, cosmopolitan metropolis and a consumer paradise! It is quite amazing what relativity does to one’s perspective!

We checked in once again at Traders Hotel, ordered a room service dinner, and were fast asleep well before midnight.

We would be back in Singapore by lunchtime the next day, but we had enjoyed our return visit to Burma tremendously. Our brief time in Yangon had been worthwhile - we both adore the Swedagon Pagoda and could go there time and time again. But the high spot, of course, had been our trip to the far north of the country.

Malikha Lodge was delightful, and nothing had been spared in making this a cocoon of luxury in very simple surroundings. The investment in time, money and training of the sixty staff must have been massive and the results certainly show. We would recommend it to anyone.

It had been wonderful to catch up with Yves, Ashleigh, Ruby Rose and Indigo in such an unexpected place and to share a little of the lifestyle they had developed in the village. They had clearly had a major influence on the quality delivery at the Lodge, and had enjoyed the completely different experience that the opportunity up here had offered them.

And we had taken great pleasure in seeing some of the Kachin countryside and the way the tribal people lived and went about their daily existence. It is subsistence living up here, for sure, and one worries about the glaring lack of opportunity for these people to improve their lot under the Burmese dictatorship. But I have to say we saw no sign of malnourishment, and the people were very welcoming to outside visitors.

My only regret, I suppose, was that having travelled all that way, we did not spend more time there exploring and enjoying the environment. But there is always another time!

View Howard's Burma Gallery at PBase

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