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Published: March 14th 2009
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Hsipaw is quieter, cooler and less dusty than the rest of Myanmar. It reminds me of parts of Kathmandu. I feel better already, just hanging around “Mr Charles Guest-house”. I bike to the 'Nine Buddha' monastery, where I can see the surroundings and get a feel of where Hsipaw is situated. In the distance is a waterfall, which looks like it's out of “ The Lord of the Rings”. It does look like Nepal here, except, of course, the altitude is much higher there. If it wasn't for the barrage of heavy vehicles being diverted through the centre of town, this would be a quiet village. As I watch the beautiful glowing sunset and remind myself that the sun isn’t moving at all; I am moving away from the sun. Hsipaw is a beautiful village, situated in a pretty valley, by a fast-flowing river, surrounded by vast mountains..
The following days are spent relaxing and wandering around the villages on the edge of town. As I pass a small timber hut, I hear chanting coming from inside. I approach
the door and look in to see a lone older monk sitting in the corner of the bare room. I signal to him if it would be ok for me to enter and record him. He nods while continuing to chant; I sit down absorbed in the mesmerising sound of his voice as he recites Buddhist texts in Pali. I stay until he’s finished and as I leave he gestures for me to take a chocolate bar from a bowl on the table. I reply, “Kyay Zuu Tin Par Tal” (thank you very much) which I remember how to pronounce by saying Jus-tin-Tim-ber-lake as if I had a mouth full of betel nut.
I meet a woman from Belgium, who has a warped sense of humour, and we talk passionately about photography and my desire to learn more about using my first digital camera. Previously, I owned SLRs and had three Olympus OM20s over the years. The first was stolen from my car while collecting magic mushrooms in a forest near Daylesford. The second, I left it in my backpack along with a bottle of PVA glue that leaked into every possible crevice and destroyed the camera. And the
third, and final OM20, I’d smashed against the side of my Kombi in a drunken rage over a decade ago.
In the past, I chose not to travel with a camera. Which seems crazy, because of all the amazing things I’d see and wish I had one. On this trip, I bought an inexpensive 8-megapixel, 10 x optical zoom,
'Fuji-film' digital camera. Over the following days, M and I become friends. She’d hired a driver with a vehicle to travel around the north of Myanmar and is going to Bagan via Mandalay. I ask if there’s room for one more, she smiles and says that if it’s ok with her driver, it’d be cool with her. So we leave Hsipaw and head back down into the dusty, flat land of northern Myanmar. I have an i-pod with me and time flies by as we listen to music, joke around with the driver, and cruise along the narrow road back to Mandalay.
Stopping for a break along the way, we see a small truck with the back packed full of chickens, cramped in woven basket cages. Stressed and panting under the hot sun, they are all piled up on
top of each other. The driver is throwing out the ones that have died, either from suffocation or heat exhaustion. This is a sad sight and I feel strange taking photos. Their scared eyes stare back into mine. More animal cruelty. I hear the driver’s companion say
"Just leave 'em there, we'll pick 'em out later!”. Let's hope when
aliens come down to earth and find out how tasty we are, they don't decide to eat us. Their reply to our cries of
"please don't eat us. How can you treat us like food?" would be,
"we will treat you as you have treated the chicken." We are doomed.
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