Day 19 (Tues, March 1) - Trek Day 2 (overnight at monastery)

Another hot sunny day ambling through the countryside, taking in stunning views, meeting locals on the road, and continuing my 'back to the land' education. The neatest thing I saw today was a block of quicklime crumbling when water was poured on it.

I asked Uzo what he thought the greatest invention of the last 50 years, and his answer was: the DVD player. 'Before, you fast forward and rewind all the time, very inconvenient; now you select the track you want.' He likes action movies, and will check out Rambo V (which is set in Myanmar) on Lello's recommendation.

We passed through more villages than yesterday, and Uzo pointed out differences in dress (mainly the color combination of longyi and shirt: dark-dark for one 'tribe', dark-light for another; and how the head cloth is tied differs slightly too). People in this area live on very little, and women and children spend a fair amount of time collecting firewood and cow dung for fuel. Water, of which there seems to be ample supply, is drawn from wells. Lot of different plants are cultivated here, including tea, rice, garlic, chili, turmeric, ginger, squash, papaya, mango, jack fruit, pineapple... and more.

We arrived early at the monastery where all the trekking tourists in the area were to spend the night, so had first dibs on drawing water from the well and washing off copious quantities of red earth in the outdoor cubicle. In the monastery's main hall, blankets hanging over ropes created partitions between the different groups' sleeping areas. We had tea on the porch with lone Spanish traveler Carlos, who refused to hire a guide and had made his way successfully from Kalaw by asking locals the way to the next village on the route every time he hit a fork in the road.