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Published: March 20th 2012
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Aah the little pleasures of life ... in this far away village i have found the best bananabread i've ever tasted in mi life ... so have of course become a regular customer at the this heavenly local bakery (after losing 20 kilos i decided i can spoil myself a little bit). Here i met an advanced bycicle tourguide from england who was in search of some new routes ... i had seen him struggling up the mountain the day before and told him i was very much impressed, however that he was crazy ... a laughter accompanied by nodding of his head 'i've biked all over the world, the Andes, the Himalayas however this is the first place i have ever needed to dismount my bike and push it ... well i did at dirt roads, but never had to do it on paved roads. I also traveled a lot through China, and this place really reminds mi of it, the wooden buildings, the calligraphy, the people....uhm, minus the 7/11 supermarket of course ...aaaah i knew i had ended up in a special place, thus wanted to explore more than the 1.5km radius i had done in the previous days ... obviously a bycicle is out of the question, better to rent a scooter ... as i had left mi sneaks in chiang mai i bought myself a €2 pair matching the local colors ... made sure i covered all skin by wearing pants and the thickest long sleeve shirt i'm carrying around, to top it of with a baseballcap to make sure the way too big a helmet fit snugly around mi little skull ... driving further than the 2nd mountain range i left Mae Salong through a little touristy market, passing a gazillion tea factories as this is the main agriculture performed and which trade was obviously brought by their ancestors from china when they fled the comunists ... then i suddenly saw a slumb village hovering above the outskirts of Mae Salong so up i went a lesser paved road and when i reached the top of the slumbs i was greeted by a main gate ' veteran village' ... crowded, young, old, disabled ... and i started to wonder more how this region got developed so being somewhat of history nut i decided to go to the local memorial museum ... on the grounds itself i
wsa greeted by a grand golden hand which was to pour water into the wishing fountain, but both completely dry ... on a small hill to the west was a huge white buddha and a temple 'ah, a good place to unwind after the museum ... a few tea parlors on each side, where i believe 3 foreigners and 2 chinese were lurking at their little cup i was greeted by one of the local girls, all ardorned in tribal clothes ... i slowly entered the museum grounds and yes i was all by myself again. the building was had a u form ... on the west side the whole story in chinese and a shorter version in english ... it was all written very strategically. Just a short version ...on December 7th 1949 the communists army started to occupy the chinese mainland and about a couple of scattered freedom fighter batallions found each other in the mountain ranges bordering Birma ... however ountain ranges bordering Birma ... however after a few months as the war moved across the border the Birmese government the birmese government cited with the now chinese communist government .. and the birmese government filed a
motion with the UN that the chinese freedom fighters were their enemy trying to occupy Birma (which was litterally written from date to date, describing how many casualties etc etc) this kept going on for few yeas until the thai king officially opened up his border in 1953 and the remainder of the armies were able to retreat to thailand ... and the story went on and on very factual until at one point the thai army joined in the fights as the chinese communists were now attacking the freedom fighters on thai ground ... finally in 1980 a peace treaty was signed and the handful of remaining chinese became thai citizens ... unbelievable that by that time i had almost finished highschool ... anyway the region was depleted, very VERY poor and between the thai king and international relief organisations the region started slowly to develop ... the usual aid like agriculture, education, hygiene, craftsmanship (mainly for the women to make their tribal jewelry and clothes) ... by 1996 (yes only a decade and a half ago) the king travelled in the region and saw how poor it still was and with a cash injection roads, buildings, bridges etc
were reconstructed and tourism started to develop ... the latter part of the story was held in the east corner of the building accompanied by many many pictures ... in the middle was the actual memorial grand room ... when i finished reading the end of the battles and the peace treaty was signed the words ended that Thailand and the Thai people should be thankful for all those who had lost their lives fighting for freedom ... even so as for my own thought it has a double edge ... if these freedom fighters would have been defeated in Birma there never would have been a war in Thailand ... anyway still by myself i got back on the scooter (which took mi forever to start as i couldn't switch on the ignition lock) i went to the temple on top of the hill ... there i have found the most beautiful monk's hut made of bamboo, build on bamboo hovering above a very steep cliff, however surrounded with flowers and flowers and flowers ... breathtaking ... then i found the cutest little cat who had find a very peaceful, better said very spiritual place in the shade in
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every time I c mic with phone m astonished the middle of a little shrine with curled up around Buddha ... for a moment i wished i could lay right next to him ... but then again i'm way too big for everything here ... once back en route i found myself at one point on one of the highest mountain tops in the region and i got off my scooter, sat down on a very unstable bamboo hut build for the farmers to hide from the sun from time to time and as i was overlooking beautiful nature i was in awe that the war had only ended 25 years ago and i was even more in awe for those who had fought and lived or lost their lives in this region ... emotional fool that i am i weeped and only after a few good breathing exercises i was able to ground myself again and continue my exploration ... this led me back to the temple of 731 steps and to the little shrine underneath in which i had sat still at the previous day ... i found such a comfort there that it took mi about 5 different people before i realised who this woman buddha
was ... a chinese angel i was told, a feminine buddha i was told ... a holy woman i was told, a goddess and then finally i learned i am admiring Quan-Yin, the goddess of compassion ... the goddess who decided not to go to the heavens, but stay to feel and comfort the sufferings of human kind ... silly mi, i wept again as for one thing i know how it is to feel, live and experience suffering and also feel, live and experience the suffering of others, that's actually one of the reasons m on mi walkabout as by doing so i have crippled myself for a long time resulting in a complete loss of myself ... and now bit by bit by bit i can m starting to bring it back into balance ... perhaps even with a little help from Quan Yin ... the last day i ventured up once more to the temple overlooking the whole region so i could inhale the sunrise ... which i did ... and off i m to my next adventure ...
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