Walking through a street in Southeast Asia, I always find myself reminded how impossible it is to adequately describe the experience with words and pictures. Neither can transport the sounds and smells, the movement and the atmosphere. While a video will still fall far short of really showing what it’s like, it does give a slightly deeper impression. Hence here it goes, five minutes in the streets of a small town in the Shan state.

Just as I had done in Luang Prabang a few years ago, I wanted to go for a two-day/one-night hike in the Hsipaw area. Sadly there weren’t any tours going and I didn’t feel like paying for a guide just for myself. So instead I went for the available option, which was a one-day trek to one of the villages in the hills. Our group of seven tourists, one guide and one apprentice guide started out at 8:00 in the morning, just outside the city limits.

Aaaaaaai really don’t like bus rides. Especially not the painfully slow ones. After leaving Mandalay yesterday afternoon around 2pm, the (reasonably decent) bus crouched up the narrow and winding road towards the Shan Hills. Traffic is heavy and many times the bus has to stop to let another heavy vehicle pass a narrow turn. Two hours into the trip we stop at Pyin U Lwin for some 20 minutes. Enough to get food poisoning at the dodgy looking food outlet - there are actually a couple of takers.