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Published: August 6th 2009
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Joseph wanted a rest after our day trek so his co-worker Mr Aye took us on the second day. Mr Aye also spoke English well but was Chin ethnic. He had served in the military 30 years ago and had battle scars as a reminder of his service. Although you would never have guessed it, he was as fit as a 20 year old and it was like running behind “Road Runner” when we were nearing our destination for lunch.
The best way to describe Mr Aye would be to say that he was the Burmese equivalent of Mr Miyagi (the Karate Kid). He had such a vivacious character, was thirsty for knowledge and information and was the other key person who stood out as enriching our Burma experience. He would frequently stop to talk to us while we were walking about a range of topics and would always start with, “Do you know Mr Matthew/Miss Belinda…”
Mr Aye was very excited about taking us on this trek. He told us that it had been over a year since he had taken tourists on this walk. Most visitors will trek from Kalaw to Inle Lake but we had opted
to do day treks because we wanted to explore the scenery around Kalaw. This track was a lot steeper then the first day, not at all as muddy and the landscape was even more spectacular. We went through Ma Naw Hla village, a second village (perhaps Pa-O) where we handed out some mor mor to kids with great belly laughs, passed numerous tea and vegetable crops, fruit trees and stopped for lunch at a Monastery. After lunch two young monks at the Monastery helped us find a shorter track (although by that time it seemed quite long with my feet aching from the heavy boots) and we ended our trek walking through a large rice field into the town of Aungban. We had to wait a while for the pick-up to be full of passengers before it would take off for Kalaw. The 2 full day treks definitely wore us out. We treated ourselves to some naan that evening and Burmese tea at our favourite tea house “Tet Nay Win.”
It was on this trek at the Monastery that we heard the funniest line of the trip. While we were sitting around waiting for Mr Aye to prepare our
lunch the Chief Monk kept repeating something under his breath. When we asked Mr Aye what he was saying he finally told us, “Sharapova, he thinks you look like the Russian tennis player, Sharapova.” Now I am not that great with tennis players, names or faces so I initially thought she was the brunette one, Jelena Jankovic. After Matt stopped laughing hysterically and explained to me what she looked like (blonde, tall and I later googled it), it clearly made the best line of the trip because we look nothing alike. In fact Serena Williams probably would have been more believable! I said to Matt that next time we would have to donate some more money to the monastery to either get him a (new) television or some help with his vision.
Other random comment’s that people made which came close to this was that Matt and I had a similar face (almost as hit and miss as Sharapova), I had a strange face (I am hoping that the English/Burmese translation is a lot kinder and actually more like unusual) and asked if I was from Germany or Sweden. I can’t say I have ever been taken as German
or Swedish before but at least it has been the only Asian country so far where I haven’t been told that I didn’t look like an Australian.
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