A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
Kalaw, Myanmar continued

I'll cut this account of the trek short and just relate the two most interesting things that happened during the remainder.

First, I learned one of the dangers of being a solo woman traveller. Dinner in the village was a deux with Sein (my guide) by candlelight (no electricity) and I think the setting may have given him some unwarranted ideas. After dinner, lying on our respective pallets in the main room, we engaged in a 30 minute "conversation" in which his part was to try to get me to sleep with him, and my part was to alternatively scoff, explain the idea's total impossibility, discuss issues of personal morality, laugh at him while trying not to hurt his feelings, and endlessly roll my eyes in the darkness at each new gambit. If he hadn't been such a teddy bear I'd have been alarmed -- it did teach me that there are potential perils to a woman trekking alone with a guide. One must choose one's guide wisely, or recruit other tourists to come along.

The second interesting thing that occurred was that during our day 2 hike back to Kalaw (in which incidentally I once again selected the lamer option without steep muddy trails) we happened upon a newly formed militia troop practicing ineptly near a village school. It seems that as a result of recent events (bloody massacre of democracy demonstrators, arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi, US embargo, UN pressure, Thai government interference) the generals went to villages and towns around the country and requested young male "volunteers" (read: forced labor) to join the militia and protect Myanmar from Thailand and the United States, the two most hated opponents. They didn't give them guns, of course. In fact, I have heard that for many months during actual military training the soldiers practice with wooden guns as it is all too likely that they will point the real variety in the direction of the government in one way or another. This crew of militia looked decidedly unenthusiastic about their assignment, for obvious reasons. Even rice farming looks better than an unpaid position under the boot of the Burmese military.

Copyright 2003 Katy Warren




posted by Katy at 1:29 AM