Hoofing it Through Myanmar
Our horses arrived in a cloud of dust, clattering down the gravel road to where I and my two children (Dow, 8 and Orly, 5) stood outside the Lilly Guest House. Their manes were a little shabby, their saddles worn, but they looked sturdy and lively, capable of the two day trek that would take us out of the hill station of Kalaw and into the pale mauve mountains above.
We were nine months into a year long trip around Southeast Asia and Australasia, just the three of us. Already we’d taken risks I would never have taken at home. We had ridden motorbikes in Vietnam, all three squashed onto one, avoiding collisions with kamikaze local drivers. We had swum with elephants, cycled through busy city roads to jungle temples. We had dined with Hmong shamans in Thailand, stayed with orphan children in Laos, and tramped through killing fields in Cambodia.
Horse-trekking in Myanmar was another risk filled adventure. Orly had only ridden once before, at a farm in Australia. I watched him clamber confidently onto his horse now, slouched like a cowboy used to years in the saddle, chatting busily to Suri, the green eyed man of Bangladeshi descent who was leading him.
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We set off, our destination the Hti Tain Monastery where we would spend the coming night. The track led us out of Kalaw, an old colonial town that sits on the western edge of the Shan plateau at an altitude of 4500 feet. Up through a misty narrow mountain pass, clad with pine-trees, and a valley of bamboo, dotted with wild flowers, that dropped away sharply beneath us.
Cochu, the head-guide, was leading our little procession, his face hidden under the shade of his leather hat, a machete swinging from his belt. At intervals he walked alongside the boys’ horses, juggling stones and performing tricks with disappearing sticks.
The scent of sun-warmed leather seeped up from our saddles, mingling with wafts of steamy horse hide. There was something magical about the natural rhythm and pace to riding, and the tender feeling of gratitude we felt towards our steeds as they clambered up hills and down, saving our own limbs from exertion.
Above, sun-birds flew like torn kites through the fresh clear air, and the sky was blue, sunlight everywhere, except for a few clouds that hovered ominously over the horizon. It wasn’t yet the end of the rainy season in Myanmar.
“It’s not going to rain, is it, Cochu?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said simply. “Later it will rain.”
Sometimes a single downpour here can cause the ground to slide away from beneath one. Houses can disappear down steep slopes; trees, whole forests.
“I hope not before we get there,” I said, looking down at the steep valley drop to the right of us.
“It will,” Cochu replied.
We trekked on up the pass through thick mud that squelched beneath our horses’ hooves. We passed groves of oranges and fields of green-tea, dotted with the bent backs of women in conical hats harvesting the leaves. On and on we trekked, the smell of mimosa and ginger on the wind, our horses never floundering as the sun moved across the sky and the clouds swelled closer. We trekked on up through hill-tribe villages populated with Pa-O, Danu, and Taungthu people, past bamboo stilted houses with squealing piglets, and children rolling old tyres downhill.
But the further into the mountains we walked, the thicker the mud became and the darker the sky grew above us. We were starting to slip and slide now. At intervals we dismounted to pull our horses out of the mud and onto the ridge. Our boots were mud-caked, our clothes mud-smeared. Time became unpredictable. One hour, two, then four.
“How long, Cochu?” the boys kept asking.
“Not long,” he replied, as always.
In the opposite direction came a young boy and girl, dressed in tattered straw hats and clothes hanging scarecrow-like from their frail frames as they led a grumpy water-buffalo up the muddy path. It staggered and slid, its cow bell clanging.
“V.I.A,” Cochu, told us. “Very Important Animal. Without buffalo we have no rice. Without rice we have no food.”
As we passed each other on the steepest slope the buffalo suddenly stopped, refusing to budge. It stood in the middle of the path, its nostrils steaming. The children heaved futilely on the ragged rope. Suri joined them. Cochu joined them. Then I joined them. In the end it took all of us to pull the stubborn creature off our pathway and up the hill, and by then the sun was slipping behind the horizon like a hot metal spoon, coloring the sky vermillion.
“You know it's only the red bits that are heaven, don't you, Mum,” Orly said, panting with exertion, as the herdboy and girl hid their smiles of gratitude behind their hands.
We remounted, only to hear a neigh and a stumble behind us and I turned to see Dow, my eight year old, falling from his horse which was floundering in the mud. His foot was caught in a stirrup as he scuffled frantically to escape the kick of heavy hooves. His ribs were bruised. His confidence wounded. Bravely he hid his tears. Bravely he got back on his horse.
“I’m alright, Mum,” he said, shinny-eyed, and then my own horse slipped, depositing me comically on a muddy mound.
“Don’t you have to fall off to be a proper rider?” Dow grinned.
“I think so,” I replied, remounting.
The clouds were above us now, aubergine colored and blocking out the stars and the silver sickle moon that was lying on its back like a smile. I was beginning to fear the oncoming night, the oncoming rain.
“Are we nearly there, Cochu? Will it rain, Cochu?” we kept asking.
“Yes, yes,” he would reply to both, until finally there was a flicker of lightening that streaked across the sky, a rumble and a clap. Rain drops, the size of pomegranate seeds, came hammering down, bruising our skin and soaking us in moments. We could barely see in front of us. It poured down our faces, drowning us and filling our boots.
“See,” shouted Cochu. “I told you it would rain.”
I looked over at the two most precious things to me in the world - my boys, their heads tipped back, drinking water from the sky, their expressions full of exultation. They had always loved the rain, had always rolled in puddles and ran out under wet skies.
“I laugh in the face of thunder,” yelled Dow, bright eyed and invincible in an Usain Bolt lightning stance.
We rode on, cold and shattered, heads down against the wind and the rain that smashed from the heavens, until finally and Oh so thankfully, small lights appeared to the right of our track, like a beacon drawing us onwards.
“See,” said Cochu. “I told you we would get here.”
We reached the monastery just as the lightening and the thunder were directly above us, forking down from sky to ground. We were greeted by a monk in maroon robes, a vision of sanctity from the wrathful night, who helped us remove our shoes and softly led us across a creaking wooden floor, to a fire that brought steam rising from our damp clothes.
That night we fell asleep to the sound of monks chanting, curled on comfy mattresses, fed and watered, warm and dry. Our limbs were a little stiff, our ribs a little bruised, our whole beings a little tested and weary. Perhaps we had been dancing with death in our own small way. But it hadn't felt like that. It felt like we had been living life to its utmost, drinking water from the sky, on our trusty steads as the world passed by in a blur of color.