Author: jennings@princeton.edu

Teddy had laid on a day in hills for us, visiting a series of villages. We had little idea of what lay before us: one of the most fascinating days of our lives. Cynthia had urged us to start really early so that we could see lots of villages, but we managed to hold her off until ten. So we had breakfast—eggs for me, enough Shan noodles—and then headed for our first experience of the really huge and very famous market down the street. The market brings together the town residents and tribesmen from the surrounding hills. It was only in Kyaing Teng that we began to understand what it means that Myanmar has 135 separate tribes.

Much of the market is given over to vendors selling everyday items—household wares, clothing, cell phones, etc.—but the really interesting part was the fresh fruit and vegetables at the rear.

This section was packed with things we had never seen and really couldn’t imagine.

On our way back to the hotel, we found another huge area given over to small restaurants: tea rooms, noodle shops, barbecue joints.

When Cynthia and Teddy appeared at 9:45 we went back in order to buy snacks for the kids in the villages. Like so much information we had before—no credit cards, only dollars, no Internet, no cell phones (all wrong)—we had gotten bad advice on what to take into the villages. The pencils and pads, etc., that we had schlepped half way around the world and hoped to give to the kids for school, were totally useless: most of the hill villages have no schools. Cynthia had us buy tons of “snacks” instead: chocolate bars, cookies, etc.

Thus armed, we headed for the hills. Teddy’s older brother drove us in an SUV, and Teddy and Weh En, one of Cynthia’s students, accompanied us. We bounced along a main road, heading north through a broad and very fertile valley. We bumped along and soon encountered a work crew on the road: women hauled big rocks from piles alongside the road and threw them down into the new roadbed, while other women carried towelfuls of fairly dry cement to dump on top of them. After about 30 minutes we turned west onto a deeply rutted track, and bounced and thrashed for another 15 minutes. At the second village, we left the car at Teddy’s uncle’s house; he had been the Baptist pastor of this Akah village. His daughter is now the pastor, and I asked Teddy about their training. His uncle had attended a seminary in the south, and then taught his daughter. Hard to know how formal these seminaries are. Ba Win later told us that one town in Chin state had 32 different “seminaries!”

We were now on foot, making our way through the Akah village…where we encountered a series of women selling native wares to the very sparse trickle of tourists who made it here.

Once through the village, the road rose very steeply and the temperature rose right along with it. The views down into the valley were lovely; the terraces of rice paddies were especially memorable.

I was a bit tired by the time we reached our first goal 45 minutes later, an Ahn village called Ho Lang.

This is a tiny tribe, with only two villages of about 500 people each. This village was essentially pre-medieval. No sanitation, no running water, no electricity. The one concession was the sheet metal roofs, paid for by the headman; thatch roofs don’t last long in this climate.

The Ahns are animists, and we soon encountered a nat temple, with very crude images carved out of wood.

We had seen a few kids as we entered the village, but Teddy said they would follow us, and follow us they did.

Sue was soon surrounded by kids eager for a treat; nothing could make my wife happier!

Some of the kids tried to double dip, shoving their first booty down their pants and going back for more. Andrew, ever the economist, tried to bust the malefactors, but it was tough, since the kids milled about, changing places and facial expressions in hope of getting extra!

Once through the village we came to a crossing in our path. A trail led up the hill and, when asked, Teddy said that this led to their fields. “Can we see them?” No. Why not? Poppies. He later told Andrew that this actually wasn’t an opium village, that they are much further back in the mountains, but who knows. Teddy also said that most of the villagers, including the children smoke. Ouch.

We had a choice of two trails leading down, and Teddy mercifully chose the easier one, which was tough enough, since it was really just a steep drainage ditch with a thick carpet of leaves and twigs on the floor. Thoughts of snakes danced in our heads as we descended. Back on the main path, we turned right and onto a similarly broad track that led to a cluster of villages—Pulao, Akah, etc. Passing by beautifully contoured rice paddies, we reached a fairly prosperous Pulao village with a Christian church and a school.

Teddy wanted to push on to the next Pulao village, but, under questioning he admitted that it looked pretty much the same despite their animist faith. We were pretty fried, and stopped at a shelter built by an Akah woman next to her wares. We bought some small purses, and Sue now regrets that she didn’t buy a lovely wall hanging when she had the chance.

Once back in town, we thanked our hosts yet again and set off in search of guess what, more beer. After a couple of abortive attempts, we returned to the store from the day before and retreated to the hotel for a shower, siesta, and a beer before dinner. The Chinese place at which we had hoped to eat was closed, but we found an alternative not far from the Princess: the Golden Banyan tree served up some pretty tasty food—Thai soup and chicken cashew—but, inexplicably, it took them forever to get Andrew his fried rice. It turned out they cooked one dish at a time and fried rice was way down the play card. Good, though!

No rest for the wicked. We had to be at the school by eight so that we could see the classes with the little kids. Foolish us! We were pressed into service again, and taught the little ones for about 90 minutes before we had to take off to make our plane. The kids were really sweet, and had learned a lot in a very short time. Their outlook on life was much more hopeful, and much broader, than that of their older peers. We really enjoyed working with them.

We then took a few pictures of the kids reading in the center’s library space as well as a shot of the whole crew.

We said our farewells and headed back to the hotel, where Teddy and Cynthia put us in the jitney and followed on their motorbike. They had been tremendously generous hosts, and we parted from then with real regret—and with promises that we’d be back to help more. Andrew and I couldn’t have been more wrong about the visit to Kyaing Teng: it was the highlight of this and really just about any trip one could imagine!

The flight to Heho was pleasant and we were soon on the ground and in a taxi headed for the lake. After about thirty minutes we reached Nyaungshwe, the biggest town on the lake. A few more turns brought us to the road along the eastern shore. Fifteen minutes on we turned into an unprepossessing road with no indication that our hotel lay at the end. Even once we had passed through two sets of gates and into the resort, we were slightly nervous about what we were seeing. It later turned out that this was just the maintenance facility and staff housing (120 staff members live and eat on site)–most guests arrive by boat.

We were soon on a teak walkway amid verdant vegetation: it passed by the biggest structure at the resort, the dining hall, then along a covered walkway and into the reception building.

The place was incredibly lovely, and we got our first good look down the jetty at the lake. We had been very lucky: our bungalows were among the first six along the shore of the lagoon (the shore turned north at that point, and the remaining “villas” didn’t have the sunset view that we had).

Our little home was magnificent: all done in dark woods, it had a large living room with sofa and chairs, a huge bath area, with sinks in the open, a closed toilet room, and a huge shower room with a rainfall shower head and glass on three walls. The bedroom was striking for the pure white bed coverings and the white mosquito netting gathered at the ceiling.

What luxury for a couple of peasants!

It was three o’clock when we arrived. We unpacked, showered, and relaxed for a while, then proceeded to one of the two large decks overlooking the lake for even more serious relaxing. After wrestling one of the tilting, form-fitting teak chaise lounges to the ground with the help of an accommodating Frenchman, we ordered some drinks (Sue was delighted to find half bottles of Red Mountain Sauvignon Blanc here, too), and read and wrote until Andrew appeared.

The bar by the lake closes at six, but the bar near the dining room–the Mingala Bar (a play on the Burmese greeting Mingalaba)==is open most of the day and into the night. The sunset over the lake was spectacular. We watched boats bringing guests back to the resort after a day on the lake, and lights coming on across the lake in the villages on the western shore.

We decided on an early dinner since we really hadn’t eaten lunch (except for the tuna salad pasty on Bagan Air!). We had heard that the food was good, but after our experience at the Governor’s Residence we expected it to be very pricy. Far from it! We started with the European menu: five courses for $23. Soup, salad, a lovely poached butterfish, and a very nice glazed chicken scallopini. Dessert of the day was a fruit tart, which we supplemented with irresistible profiteroles: our first ice cream since we left home. The meal got a bit more expensive when Andrew reverted to his primary wine prejudice: a little Bordeaux for a lot of moolah…which was probably not as good as the Red Mountain cabernet! We vowed to try the bar one of these nights…but our beds were too enticing, and we never did.

We had ordered a boat for the day; Sue thought it was $30 / person, but it turned out to be a boat and a driver for thirty bucks. Breakfast is served outdoors on a broad terrace: a really wonderful, copious breakfast—the offerings included not just the usual fruit, asian food, yoghurt, etc., but a half dozen kinds of French bread, really top notch pastries, and a great omelette bar.

We met our boatman at the dock and off we went. The “Inle Boat” is long, shallow, and very fast.

We weren’t notably prepared, having left the list of standard stops in our room, so we relaxed and let our guy take us wherever he wanted.

As we came out of the lagoon and into the lake, we noticed a lot of traditional Intha fishing boats with one-legged rowers and baskets for nets. Our boatman took us toward two such boats, and the fishermen posed obligingly…and then rowed toward us, brandishing sunfish over the gunwales of our boat. Unclear whether this was a sales offer or a threat, but we gave them a bit of money and we passed on.

When other boats approached ours, our boatmen told us “No money!”…and we didn’t.

We headed generally southeast and found ourselves, after twenty minutes or so, alongside the first, and largest of the floating gardens.

These enormous “fields” are made by retrieving seaweed from the lake, weaving it together and then lashing it to bamboo poles that are embedded in the lake floor. Dirt and sludge from the lake are then placed on top, and crops are planted.

The fields are harvested by boats that pass down narrow channels in the gardens; every hundred yards or so one sees a small house or hut on stilts.

We weren’t sure whether these were temporary work stations or domiciles.

The very large village attached to this garden is likewise completely built on stilts.

The only way to move around is on a boat, so the stores have “parking” spaces in front, often with boys waiting to help the boatman tie up.

I took far too many pictures, but the whole scene was just too enticing. And our boatman was very obliging: he slowed the boat as soon as I twitched with my camera hand.

We floated slowly by the gardens, a series of villages, and several temples, and soon passed by the Inthain Heritage House, to which we would return later.

Our first real port of call was one of the many lotus weaving workshops on the waterways south of the lake.

We saw them spinning the yarn out of lotus (they can’t harvest enough now, and import from abroad to supplement), weaving on three different looms (silk; silk and lotus; pure lotus), and the dye shop.

This is what the raw lotus looks like.

Demand has exploded for the lotus fabric: Loro Piano now makes a sport coat out of it, retail is $5000. After much debate, I bought Sue both a silk and lotus scarf and a pure lotus neckband; we also purchased a couple of pillow covers for the living room, and Andrew purchased a scarf for Lucy.

We pushed on for yet another pair of workshop visits: another silver shop, where I was about 1/4 tempted to buy a small silver begging bowl for my office, and then to a cheroot factory, where five women squatted on the floor rolling tobacco, some local weed, and star anise into small cigars.

Since we don’t smoke, on the way out we handed the manager 5000 Kyat to be split among the women: the women’s face lit up as if they had just won the Powerball lottery!

We then motored through another waterway (all this is actually no longer part of the lake, since the levels have fallen a reported 33% over the years) back to the Heritage House. We walked around this lovingly maintained teak complex, taking in their collection of Burmese cats (which had become extinct in Burma itself), their show garden with native plants, the aquarium with fish found only in Inle, and the resort incorporated into the complex. The foundation aims to retain the local traditions, which are under constant threat from the environment and flight to the cities by the population.

Here are two natives now.

Next stop was Hpaung Daw U Pagoda, the largest in southern Shan state, and holding the most revered Buddhas in this part of the world. Five small statues have, over the years, taken on so many layers of gold leaf that they now appear as amorphous blobs. In the lake’s largest yearly festival, the blobs are put on an ornate ship and taken around the area, apparently to the joy of adoring Inthas everywhere.

After due obeisance to the blobs, we were back in the boat and headed for the day’s final stop, Indian village. The guidebooks had described the passage along the waterway to Indain village as “Apocalypse Now-like.” Hype, yes, but the phrase does get at the enclosed feeling as one glides past shores verdant with overhanging plant life…and the occasional surprise around the corner.

The water passes through a series of small “locks:” the boat glides through a small opening in the center. Our boatman left us at a small jetty belonging to a nice looking restaurant, but, after our brobdignangian breakfast, we couldn’t think about food. The path by the restaurant led us into the edge of the village itself, where the market stalls sat empty (the market had ended early in the morning), and dumped us at a crossroads.

We had been told that a forest of ruined stupas marked the way past a monastery and up onto two “conical” hills with magnificent views. There were a few ruined stupas more or less right in front of us, and a steep (though hardly conical) hill behind, so we went looking for a path up, which Sue finally found behind a shack / restaurant.

Thus began an adventure brought about by our guilelessness! The first hill had about a dozen stupas in various states of repair, with some lovely weathered Buddhas in the niches. The views across the valley, filled with rice paddies, and onto the lake and mountains were good, though not yet magnificent.

We spied a higher hill beyond, with a much more obvious path and a few people, so down and back up we went. Should I note that this was a real scorcher of a day once one was away from the water?

This broader hill had a few stupas and a central stucco building with an open door and a wizened monk beckoning to us.

We went in to find that it was a kind of one-man monastery, with a deeply recessed shrine. The monk placed three glasses on the floor and offered us tea, a really generous gesture. If it hadn’t been for the sedimentary layers of filth that encrusted the glasses, we certainly would have joined him for a cuppa. We put some money in a box for the Buddha and made our escape. The hill was surmounted by a steep, tiny outcropping crammed with stupas and from here the view was indeed magnificent.

We looked out not just onto the plain, but back toward the village…and we saw what we had been looking for. A forest of stupas around a pagoda, and behind them two small conical hills crowned with stupas.

Although our hill trek hadn’t exactly conformed to the description in the guidebook, we were pretty hot by this time and ready to return to our boat rather than see yet another couple thousand stupas. But we spied, toward the center of the village, what looked like a rather large monastery, so we decided to investigate. This turned out to be a large covered walkway that led up to a big Pagoda–Shwe Inn Main. At the beginning of the walkway were the ruined stupas we had been looking for.

The walkway was lined, as per usual, with dozens of vendors.

When we reached the top we were stunned to find a forest of stupas…more than 1000 of them in every shape and color imaginable.

Andrew made a very nice video that captures the sound of the wind in the chimes and finials.

The walk downhill to the boat went by in a jiffy and we were soon passing down through the locks. The boatman had a number of further tricks up his sleeve: a leather workshop, the “jumping cat” monastery, and the floating market at Ywarma. But we convinced him that we were done. Enough workshops, no need for jumping cats, and we had heard horrible things about the tawdry capitalism of the floating market.

The resort beckoned, and we cleaned up, managed to snag a table on our favorite deck, and settled in for some serious evaluation of the day’s activities, accompanied as always by Myanmar Beer and Red Mountain Sauvignon Blanc.

Dinner that night was the five-course Shan option, with a stuffed Inle Lake fish as the centerpiece. It was all delicious, one of the very best “indigenous” meals of the trip. The French manager stopped by to chat. A remarkable life, with hospitality stints in Switzerland, Spain, the USA, Mexico, and several stops in SE Asia before landing in Burma. He started at another resort, but was able to help plan this one from the ground up. His wife, Burmese, lives in Yangon with their children, and he sees her a half dozen times a year.

Wonderful day!

I was primed for some major relaxation–a day lazing at the resort–but, by late morning, Sue and Andrew were plagued by Wanderlust and they guilted me into coming along. The first plan was to take bikes and pedal into the village down the lake, and from there to pedal up to the “forest monastery” above the town.

After quite a bit of fiddling, the staff just couldn’t make one of the little Chinese bikes any better than a nightmare for me: the seat wouldn’t go up far enough to let me pedal without my knees hitting my chin. I suggested that we take a boat for half a day, but for reasons that only became clear later, my traveling companions insisted on walking so that we could “see the countryside.” The village, which was “15 minutes” by foot, was actually 45 hot, dusty minutes along an unprepossessing road; we walked through numerous dust clouds thrown up by passing trucks and cars. As we finally approached the village, we found a large monastery on the right and, virtually simultaneously, we were approached by a local and his son and by a German tourist. Andrew and I had a long talk with the lovely guy from Frankfurt while Sue let the little guy practice his obligatory six sentences: “What is your name? Where are you from?…” It was clear that his father wanted to offer some sort of guide services, and I warned Sue off between sentences in German. Our friend was probably 75, from Frankfurt, and he and his wife were traveling solo, having planned an eight-week trip to Thailand and Burma by themselves. Really lovely man.

After he had pedaled on, we learned that the guy with the kid was a boatman who wanted to take us wherever. We put him off and said we’d look him up later if we wanted a boat. Just around the corner from the monastery was the crossroad that seemed to lead right to the village and left to the monastery. Left it was, and we walked along a country road for about 15 minutes until we were suddenly confronted with one lane of freshly poured concrete leading up the hill toward the large golden stupa we could see on the hill. Ten minutes or so further along, we found the work crew building the second lane alongside the first.

As we approached, a large group of novice monks came down the hill and, to our surprise, pitched right in, carrying rocks and cement and even taking shifts on the sledgehammers to break up the bigger rocks—a very common site along Burmese roads.

A couple of hundred yards up the road we came to a fork, with the concrete continuing right and a dirt road going up the hill to the left toward the stupa. I asked a young monk about the “Kyaung” (monastery) and, after some hesitation, he pointed right. Sure enough, the road eventually led to what looked like a monastery complex, with white stuccoed terraces ascending the steep hill on the left, potentially affording views into the deep valley below.

For reasons that also remain obscure, Sue and Andrew were convinced that this wasn’t the monastery, so I asked yet another woman who, along with several others, was sleeping in a large shed-like structure by the path. When I said “Kyaung” she pointed further into the valley along a narrow dirt path. I was sure that this couldn’t be the way: no tourist would follow that path. But Andrew and Sue plunged on while I waited for the recon report. They found some women by a stream who pointed uphill and indicated “one:” whether one minute, one hour, or one day was unclear. I joined the party and up we went. But Andrew was soon back down, a bit nervous, and reported that a group of people was descending, that one of them spoke some English, and that the monastery was behind us. It was several hours further uphill to the next village! Andrew had been nervous because they had a dog that began to go for him and had to be called back. After our experiences further north in Shan state, these could very easily have been drug runners.

We followed them back down, and one of them turned out to be a worker at the Novotel down the lake who had been stolen from the staff at Inle Resort, just as the manager had reported the night before. He led us up the terraces we had seen before: this was the forest monastery. But we didn’t stop: we followed him to the top and then down a road toward the golden stupa. We parted ways there and he rejoined his friends. It never became clear what they were doing high in the mountains.

The stupa itself was nice but a bit standard. The only odd feature was an astonishingly lifelike statue of a monk sitting below the buddha!

With pictures from the terrace in hand, we walked back down the way we had come, eventually emerging at the crossroads and finding, guess what, the boatman. We agreed on a price after a bit of haggling and set off through the village. This is one of the stops on Inle’s “Five Day Market,” but the market had closed by mid-morning. Andrew was keen on a very long bridge that linked the village with a floating village almost a kilometer away, so we repeated our U Bein experience, finding the boatman, with his kid at the tiller, at the other end. Andrew insisted on walking to the end…no task left incomplete!

We waited until he came back and then we set out on the tippiest boat on Inle lake.

We were pretty sure we were going to get dumped within a couple of minutes of launch. But then things got much worse: the boatman gave his 8 year old kid the tiller and control of the motor, and we started rocking wildly as we hit every wave.

It got so bad out on the lake that Andrew signaled to the boatman to take over, which he did. We managed to land at the resort without swimming, but were not particularly happy with the boatman. We paid the agreed fee, which was steep, but gave him no tip, and, for only the second time on our trip, he was visibly unhappy.

So our quick walk to the village had taken five hours; we were  hot and dusty; but Sue and Andrew had their revenge for Mandalay Hill! I thought “and then some” but they were sure that the day only compensated for half the earlier climb.

We snagged one of the tables on the far deck and, after taking turns showering, dove into one of our last evenings with Myanmar beer. The late afternoon was punctuated by a mishap: as I got up to go shower, I hooked the camera strap and the whole contraption clattered to the deck. Luckily enough, only the kit zoom was broken, and I put the good lens back on and snapped some portraits in the golden twilight.

We went a la carte for the final night, and Andrew and I reprised the really excellent stuffed lake fish from the night before, bracketed by a salad and more profiteroles. Our waitress had suggested that we split a fish, but we figured she was counting on Burmese appetites. Wrong! We each got a gargantuan portion…which we managed to finish with a little help from Sue. A very nice final meal in a very nice setting.

Back at the ranch, we packed up for our early departure—with no little regret, because our time here had been so special, probably the nicest hotel stay of our (young) lives.

Our taxi was waiting at the back of the resort, and we piled in for our last long taxi ride in Burma. The roads were choked with schoolchildren on their way to school on scooters, bikes, and on foot. Once through Nyaungshwe and the crossroads to Taunggyi, things picked up, and we were back at the airport in Heho.

An uneventful if slightly delayed flight—our only one of the trip—brought us back to Yangon, where a cabbie took all of us to our hotels for $12: a lot better than the $30 we had paid and the $50 Andrew had paid on arrival! We were really ready to just stay at the airport and head home, but back into the Yangon cauldron we went. Our impressions this time couldn’t have been more different than those from just two weeks before: what had then seemed ramshackle, impoverished, and chaotic now appeared modern, prosperous, and highly structured. That’s what a few days in Kyaing Teng and the hills will do for you!

We were back in the same room at the Winner, so everything was familiar. After settling back in and doing a preliminary pack (all the puppets went into the two rolling carryons), we grabbed a taxi on the street and went downtown to Pomelo, a well-known craft store above Monsoon Restaurant. The store was perhaps slightly disappointing. There were lots of beautiful woven things (wallhangings) and silk things (Longyis and pillowcases), but also lots of fake paper mache doodads; the store is run as a charity, and underemployed hill tribespeople create “modern” folk art for sale. We bought some Christmas ornaments (felt elephant, shan bag) and a wallhanging for Ariel. We then set off in search of tea. The proprietor had pointed us to a modern mall (air con, luxury items, etc.) with a small grocery, and we found both the Royal Tea Mix (which already includes evaporated / dehydrated milk) and some Burmese highland black tea, so we stocked up.

A cab took us to the Governor’s Residence, where we had a drink by the pool while we waited for Andrew. Once reassembled, we hopped a cab for Shwedagon—which was a slight mistake. It couldn’t possibly have been as magical as the first time.

We did see some new things, though,  including the actual lighting of the lamps.

A reward will be given for the best description of the emotion expressed below!

As the sun set, though, the old magic returned. There is nowhere like Shwedagon at twilight.

And the pagoda took on new meaning for us as we discussed it in relation to what we had seen.

Had it been an incredible, life changing trip? You be the judge.

We had a bit of trouble finding a cab going in the right direction, so we were late meeting Lois, and Sue was in a state: we reminded her that we were in Myanmar, where nothing ran on time. Lois was waiting for us at the hotel, so we had yet another drink (by the time I had a beer at dinner I was feeling a bit out of it: the heat in Yangon is unbearable, and it was now noticeably hotter than it had been before).

We took a cab to Pandonmar, where we had eaten the first time and has such a miserable experience. The hotel really hadn’t had good alternatives close by (they only recommend Feel Myanmar for lunch), so we bit the bullet. This meal was actually better, there was only one tour group, and the conversation with Lois was lively and interesting.

Andrew elected to walk to his hotel, so we said our goodbyes and took a cab with Lois. Which led to a surprising situation. She was staying with Gill and Kevin, and had the address, but only in English. And Lois couldn’t make the cabbie understand where she wanted to go. She acted like colonials the world over: when the driver didn’t understand her English, she just talked louder. This was turning into a disaster—she thought she could get him there with hand signals—so I convinced her to have him take us to the Winner Inn first, so that I could run into the hotel and have them write out the address in Burmese! This apparently worked, because we continue to get emails from her, or at least from her address.

Exhausted…not just from exertion, but from the sense that the trip was at an end…we slept the sleep of the dead.

Homeward Bound. With a 28-hour journey in front of us, we decided to forego the joys of Yangon and stick close to home. We had a long leisurely breakfast and, toward the end, I saw that the two guys at the table next to us were brewing their own Peet’s coffee! I told them that I thought I was hard core, but this put me to shame. One of them was someone who had made a ton of money in financial services in California and had started a foundation focused on Burma in 1999, four years after his first trip, undertaken in search of Buddhist meditation practices. Partners Asia is now a big presence, with more than 150 million dollars invested. We had a long and fascinating talk about the problems he was helping with and how they did all this amid the restrictive, nigh-on impossible regulations in place. They have forged relationships with foreign corporations to help with currency transfer: a Singaporese mining outfit makes money here, but can’t get the Kyats out, so Partners Asia sends dollars to Singapore and then takes the Kyats in Myanmar! Sue hoped to forge a relationship between his foundation at Cetana, and took full contact information.

We finished packing and went down to meet with Ba Win, the Bard Vice President for pre-college education. A Burmese educated in the US, he sits on a lot of boards and provides expert knowledge. Sue talked to him about Cetana and its opportunities and challenges, and he talked about areas in which he would like to see increased activity. We had started at 11, and before we knew it, we were ten minutes late for our cab. Mr. Aye, ethnically Indian, had picked us up the night before at Schwedagon, and we had his card. His English is pretty good (and pretty funny), and we’ll use him again on the next trip.

We had more than an hour to kill before we could even check in, but we were soon through “security” and in the departure lounge for Silk Air, which was taking us to Singapore. We bought a Shan bag for Andrew at the shops, had a plate of surprisingly good fried rice at the cafe, and, before we knew it, we were at Singapore Airport. The skytrain took us to our terminal and we settled into a very comfortable phone charging area, had a bite to eat, and boarded the plane for our 11:55 PM takeoff. Since it was only 10:30 in Yangon, we were able to enjoy the late night dinner, watch a first movie, and still sleep for seven hours before waking, watching more movies, and waiting to touch down in Frankfurt.

We arrived at JFK at about 9:30. Global Entry gets us through border control, we pick up our bags, and before you know it, we’re in a cab headed for Park Slope. We duck into the Hungry Ghost, the cafe on Sarah’s corner and have a coffee; she is soon there. We load the car and drive to Russki daycare so that Sue can hug the Vivster.

We pull into the driveway at 3:30, the end of a remarkable trip. The hounds are in great spirits, though famished…which they remained for another day. Need to talk to Pamela about their feed!