Kalaw Cross Country

This is Mr Robin. As we were about to find out, he was going to be our guide for the much-advertised trek from Kalaw to Inle Lake (Inle means Lake Little so Inle Lake would translate into Lake Little Lake, if you fancy exact academic names).

We were going to spend three days and two nights roaming across rolling hills and valleys and eventually get to Inle, some 50 km away. Mr Robin, our Sikh host in Kalaw said it would be a breeze eyeing my co-hikers, the three German teachers who signed up for the trek. He said his 20-something years of experience had taught him that German people are strong and fit and will not have any problems along the way. So were Polish people but they were too bad-tempered. Mr Robin never acknowledged the fact that I was to come along (and, hopefully keep up the pace). He didn’t have very much experience with Romanians and, most of the times, he was convinced that I come from Budapest or, sometimes, Bulgaria… surely it was something beginning with a B.

He did have strong political opinions, both about Myanmar and about the world in general: the Russian threat would prove to be an enemy to be reckoned with and soon it would overwhelm Europe like a furious parasite. His own country was something special, he said. I would never know what Myanmar was all about because most of the things the Lonely Planet was telling me were the exact opposite of what was really going on. No, it was not better that the country had opened up and no, tourism did not play a major role in the development of the country and no, I wasn’t right, I simply didn’t know what I was talking about.

All this he told me while waiting for the Germans to get ready. I still didn’t know he was going to be our guide so I felt confident that, once we leave this depressing person behind, the trek would turn out great. And when we figured that we would be guided by the 53 year-old Sikh, little buds of doubt bloomed into all our minds.

By the time we left the city, walking towards the freshly cut forest, Mr Robin had already explained the better part of Myanmar’s history and felt that his job was done for the moment. Accordingly, he bolted in front at the speed of a frightened deer, leaving us to wonder where all his energy came from. This little incident marked our whole trip: all of us lingered and lagged behind, feeling speed-challenged compared to Mr Robin. And in the rare moments he waited for us, he would explain a new and wonderful fact about the surrounding world, chuckling lightly at what he said: ‘There are 200 different species of banana in Myanmar. Most of them live in the area where tourists are not allowed…’

Most of the first day’s trekking was done on (or really close to) the railway tracks to Kalaw. We didn’t even realise that, after we had lunch at a small train station, we doubled back almost retracing our steps to the medicine man’s village, where Mr Robin had a wonderful time drinking tea and eating sweets offered by our host, while chatting with the old man about daily affairs. Did I say ‘medicine man’? Well, yes, that’s what he was. Mr Robin told us to ask any questions we might have but, as he started another politics discussion with us, the medicine grandpa fell asleep and nobody had the heart to wake him up.

Mr Robin’s knowledge about plants from Myanmar was, indeed, astounding: he would point out to something and explain its various medicinal uses with the confidence of a medicine man. ‘There are 50 ways to use this plant in Myanmar but most people have forgotten 40…’ If I had various types of diarrhoea or endless skin diseases, Mr Robin would surely have found at least 15 different types of plants to help me with my sickness. In fact, he was so interested in nature’s healing powers, that he became somewhat of a walking (running would be more accurate) botanical encyclopaedia of Myanmar. But, as he raced to our first accommodation along the way, he stopped caring about our botanical education. He had new and important discussions with our hosts as his last trek had been over one month before, so he had to catch up on the latest tribes’ news. That’s right, we stayed at a hills-people’s house, namely the Pa-O tribe, who offered each of us a nice blanket on the floor and a great outdoors shower without a door. But our cook (yes, we had one) came up with a wonderful dinner and we were quite satisfied. The evening ended with us 4 playing cards and me losing spectacularly at German card games.

The second day went pretty much along the same lines but the medicine man was substituted by a long well-deserved siesta after lunch. The only possible explanation is that we were so fast that, if we hadn’t taken an extra break, we would have arrived too early at our second homestay.

That night we tended to our newly-emerged blisters which would shame us more the next day, when Mr Robin frequently disappeared out of our sight. Fortunately, two of the four trekkers were up to the guide’s challenge, so that left me and the third German to mimic a hunt through Myanmar bush land for an unmistakable Mr Robin:

This is how I shall always remember Mr Robin

At noon we finally arrived at the lake, had lunch and navigated through stunning floating vegetable gardens and the mandatory jewellery-on-the-water-front store. Mr Robin had already left us with a ‘We will always try to remember you’, so typical for his personality that all of us hooted and watched him run away at the same speed he always employed, looking like he was on a mission to save Myanmar.

Bonus: here's some different ways to travel on Inle. Which would you choose?