camping Archives - Page 3 of 9

Cherry blossoms and earthquakes

After a little over a week in Japan it is high time to share our first impressions. In this short time Japan has thrown some extremes at us and we haven’t yet had a moment to sit down and process everything. Today however we have some downtime. We are waiting for the rain to stop in a guesthouse in Imabari, the starting point of the famous Shimanami bike route across several bridges and islands from Shikoku to Honshu. Following is the first part of our Japan adventure, cycling around the Kyushu island.

Ohayu gozaimasu Nihon!

Good morning Japan! Our 8am landing in Japan is much softer than expected, with less of a culture shock than anticipated. Maybe this is because Fukuoka is on the rural island of Kyushu and a pretty relaxed city, or maybe it is because many things feel familiar. The fresh air from the sea, the small houses and narrow roads, the cycling people who just like in Amsterdam use the bike to bring kids to school and go to work. Everything is clean and tidy, if a bit drab: beige is the go-to colour for houses and clothing. But the weird Japan from fiction and news presents itself quick enough: as soon as we roll out of the airport we bump into two girls, dressed to the nines in sweet Lolita fashion, a particular Japanese subculture. They wear frilly pink dresses, lace stockings, accessorized with cutesy umbrellas and suitcases. Kawaiii!

We head straight for the harbor to sample our first plate of rice and sashimi for breakfast. We have landed in Japan! We will repeat this to each other over the next few days. Japan! We have traveled for eleven months and now we are here, our last destination. It is hard to believe we have finally made it. JAPAN!

We spend a couple of days in Fukuoka to find our feet. Our first Japanese city is really nice, almost too nice. Where is the colourful market, where are the waving and shouting kids, where is the wild side? Everything and everybody is contained and courteous and no one (openly) pays attention to us. Our apartment is small and has plenty of rules. The overall effect is a little bit claustrophobic after free and easy South East Asia. Are we doing everything right? Are we not offending anyone? We stop at every single traffic light even if we could easily have crossed. The upside of this strict adherence to the rules is that we can relax in the traffic, as there are no overtaking cars, no swerving and certainly no honking. Everything is clean and the food is delicious, even the cheapest take-away from the convenience stores is healthy and tasty.

There is no charming way to slurp that Ramen

Fukuoka is quite large, even if it doesn’t feel that way, and one the many harbor cities of Japan. It is on Kyushu, a Southern island blessed with an early spring. It’s a beautiful sunny day when we arrive and we have hours to kill before we can check into our room.

We visit the parks where people are enjoying the sakura blossoms. Newly married couples in traditional kimono and geta take their wedding pictures under the cherry blossom trees and in the nearby Zen garden.

Fukuoka boasts a very good museum that focuses on modern Asian art. It is great to see contemporary art by emerging artists from Mongolia, Bangladesh and other developing countries. The below work is by Kim Tschang-yeul from Korea.

We also visit our first Shinto shrine, with a huge tori gate made out of massive tree trunks. Our stay coincides with the arrival of two cycling friends from Tajikistan, and together with Kathi and Flo we enjoy a meal and a couple of beers out in a typical hole-in-the-wall eatery.

You enter these places through a curtain that shields the inside from outside looks, so it’s always a surprise what you find. Inside is usually very small, with only enough space for the kitchen area and a row of stools facing the kitchen. The chefs shout greetings in unison when someone enters or leaves. Plates are served, beer is drunk and curious patrons talk to us. It’s a great night out.

Kyushu’s coastline

From Fukuoka we head South, towards Nagasaki. We take three days of cycling and one ferry, mostly hugging the spectacular coast line.

The weather stays mostly fine and we find some great wild camping spots. The first one is at an old mossy Shinto shrine in a small copse, where we are discovered by elderly village people who gather in the morning for a day of work around the shrine. They are super sweet, and one lady even indicates that she would have hosted us if she had known that we were there. We give them a deep bow when we leave and they give us a round of applause when we get on the bicycles.

Shrines are good places to camp since they usually have running water and a toilet. We treat them with respect, not staying near the actual sanctuary and as always taking our rubbish with us when we leave. Since Shinto worships the kami or spirits of places that are of particular natural beauty they are usually beautiful spots. The tori gates indicate where you enter the holy area of the shrine, away from the ordinary world.

Our next camping spot is on a small island where we get to by taking a ferry, thus avoiding the bottleneck of a busy highway. We jump from one island to the next by a series of bridges and end up on the Westernmost tip, looking at a last uninhabited island that is only sometimes connected by a land bridge at low tide. We clamber over the rocks to the sea. The water is so crystal clear here, and we see anemones in the rock pools. The sun sinks behind the islet, and after a last sip of sake we are in bed by 7pm.

The coastal road to Nagasaki is spectacularly beautiful and with little traffic. The only nuisance is the big fish eagles. They circle closely overhead when we are having lunch outside and we can only scare them away by jumping up and down and waving our arms. Later on we hear that they do attack people, and that we should never turn our back to an eagle. Scary!

Nagasaki

Near Nagasaki we stay two nights with Yukiko and Soichio, our first Japanese warmshowers hosts. They live in a beautiful cedar wood house, with the lovely perfume of untreated cedar wood permeating the atmosphere. We sleep in the attic room where a big window overlooks the harbor. Soichio works as a ship building engineer, Yukiko used to be a bike mechanic. They give us some insights into Japanese culture and we spend a day sightseeing in Nagasaki.

The first thing that everybody associates with Nagasaki is of course the nuclear war crime that destroyed the city on August 1945, when the USA dropped the nuclear bomb Fat Man on a residential neighbourhood, 3 days after wiping out Hiroshima with Little Boy. When I was little I walked in anti-nuclear protest marches with my parents so I knew about these cities from a young age. The fear of nuclear war was very real and ever present, before the fall of The Wall and the end of the Cold War in 1991. We spend the afternoon visiting the memorials and marveling at how this city has bounced back from the worst imaginable disaster. Today it is a lively and friendly place. The most poignant reminders are not the grand monuments but the garlands of paper origami cranes in all colours of the rainbow, imploring all the people of the world and its leaders to practice peace.

Nagasaki has a lot more to see than the memorials however. We visit Dejima, an artificial fan-shaped island in the harbour. It is now completely enclosed by the city but when it was still an actual island it was the only place where foreigners were allowed to live and trade with Japan between 1641 and 1853 . During this period of extreme isolationism only the Dutch were allowed to live here. David Mitchell has written a great book about it, the thousand autumns of Jacob de Zoet.

We wander around and because of the book, the restoration work and clear explanations it’s easy to conjure up the kind of lives the people must have led on this tiny parcel of land in a culture that was so alien to theirs. One historical figure in particular stands out. Doctor Von Siebold can be credited with bringing Western medicine to Japan, healing many people and teaching many Japanese students. Overall the exchange has benefited the Japanese as the exchange was conducted strictly on their terms of agreement and they were keen to learn the new technologies that came with the trading ships.

Natural disasters

After enjoying the friendly face of sunny Japan for a few days we encounter a cloudier side of this island nation. Because Japan is a highly geologically active series of islands earthquakes, volcano eruptions, typhoons and tsunamis are fairly common. On top of this the weather is volatile as well, with extremes in climate from South to North and sudden changes in the weather because of the influence of the sea and mountains. Our sunny days are over, and from now it is mostly rain. After Nagasaki we head inland towards the Unzen and Aso volcanoes, stopping over at the Shimabara castle and historical samurai neighbourhood before we take a ferry across to Kumamoto.

Aso San is with 1592m altitude Japans largest active volcano and of the largest in the world. It has a caldera that is large enough to accommodate a couple of towns and lots of farmland.

Image by Batholith (Wikimedia Commons)- NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22579331 — Image of Aso San by Batholith (Wikimedia Commons)- NASA’s Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22579331

We approach the volcano from the West side, hoping to enter through the large gash in the outer crater wall and circle North around the central cone, exiting on the Northeastern side. The weather is shit but at least there is no traffic on the highway that leads into the crater. This should have given us an inclination of what was coming.. After climbing 300m in a steady cold drizzle we get to some road workers who tell us that the road ahead is damaged by an earthquake. There is no way around it, we have to turn, cycle 15km back and approach the crater via another road. This much smaller road is of course chockfull of traffic, and next to a crawling traffic jam we climb to the rim of the crater. It is still raining, and the visibility is down to about 10 meters. We descend into the flatlands surrounding the central cone of the volcano. Because of the thick mist we see nothing of the central cone, but google says that on a good day it looks like this:

Our view is more like this:

The road through the caldera is a straight flat ribbon of tarmac through almost Dutch-looking flat farmland. We see signs of the earthquake in metal grilles and concrete drain covers that have been flipped up and tossed aside like playing cards. The tarmac is mostly intact since it’s quite elastic and very flat, it looks like it just lifted of the ground and landed again. Occasionally the painted lines on the tarmac are interrupted or there is a drop of a few centimeters so we roll over with a sudden bump. The quake happened in late 2016 and many people are working at repairing the damage. The epicentre was right here but there was considerable damage in the nearby city of Kumamoto as well, destroying parts of the beautiful historical castle. The volcano is active and closely monitored which is an awe inspiring fact of nature but a dangerous reality for the many communities who live in the caldera and around the volcano.

Our first onsen

After this long day of struggling in the rain we are soaked through and through, and chilled to the bone. There are many onsen or natural hot springs on Kyushu, and we follow on of the signs pointing us towards an onsen near Ubuyama village. I have an image in my head of a traditional wooden Japanese house with sliding paper doors and a tranquil zen garden and I can’t wait to slide into a hot pool, afterwards retiring to a room dressed in a beautiful cotton yukata. This place however is more like an old people’s home, full of ancient ladies who’s backs are bent in all kinds of shapes like the gnarly trees along the coast line. If they are surprised at the appearance of two bedraggled gaijin on jitensha they never let it on, and we are welcomed to a tatami room with electrical blanket and the use of a private onsen room with 42 degree water. Luckily the bath is private, since tattoos are a big no-no in Japanese bath houses because of their link to Yakuza, or Japanese mafia. Our host in Nagasaki wrote a Japanese note for me in case we try to enter a public bath house: “I have tattoos, but I am a good person, I won’t do Bad Things”. Here it is no issue, and we quickly get warm and comfortable. I cook in the communal kitchen with the old ladies who are very sweet. This is our first traditional room: a simple space, the floor covered with tatami mats and wall-cupboards with sliding doors where the futons are kept during the day. We make our own futon beds on the floor and sleep a deep long sleep.

The day after we continue to our next ferry port from where we will leave Kyushu for the island of Shikoku, the town of Beppu. Beppu is famous for having the highest density of hot springs in the world, 2849 in total. Here we find a backpackers place to stay with it’s own onsen in the basement, this time with tattoos allowed.

To paraphrase Billy Holiday:

“The snow is snowing and the wind it is blowing
But I can weather the storm
What do I care how much it may storm
I’ve got my onsen to keep me warm”

Mingalaba Myanmar!

Right in the middle of the Moei river, the border between Thailand and Myanmar, the traffic has to switch sides. We swerve across and ride into Myanmar on the right hand side of the road. Entering Myanmar is a blast, a real rollercoaster ride. Switching the side of the road we ride on is only the start, as everything is radically different from Thailand. We experience one of our biggest culture shocks to date, in the best possible way I must add. From the very moment we cross the border I have a crush, and immediately fall in love with this country.

First Myanmar impressions

The process of leaving Thailand and entering Myanmar is fast enough. The Burmese official who stamps our passport constantly and confusingly telling the ingele in his office to change seats. It is musical chairs, with a Burmese music video providing the tune. He is patting the sweat from his face. Still, he is courteous and within minutes we are on our way into Myanmar. This is the first visit for both of us. A whole new country! This has us very excited and we jump right in. Traffic is mayhem. A hot and honking, smoking, swerving tide of tuk-tuks, taxis, bicycles, colourful trucks and mopeds rolls off the Myanmar side of the bridge, squeezes onto a pockmarked two-lane ‘highway’ and through the small border town of Myawaddy.

Mingling with the locals

The Myanmar people are very different from the Thai. We see many dark faces, closer to Indian or Bangladeshi looking than the light skinned Thai. People here look taller and sturdier than their Thai neighbours and they carry themselves beautifully, upright and elegant. They are cheerful and inquisitive, shouting and smiling and honking at us. The exuberant vibe is infectious and we cycle on with a big happy grin on our face. Some people wear the conical Tai Yai hat. Everybody, men and women alike wear the longyi. Women wear their colourfully patterned ankle-length wrap with a discrete tuck on the side and the men wear theirs, dark coloured and minimally checkered, with a big knot in the middle. Many people are chewing betel and the man who guards the cash machine grins at me with bright red betel teeth.

All women have adorned their face with thanaka, a traditional Burmese beauty product that protects the skin against the sun. The women make different patterns on their face with the yellowish paste made from ground tree bark. I try it too over the next few days and I really like it, it is cooling, non-greasy and indeed very effective against the sun.

I also try chewing betel but I’m not a big fan of the bitter astringent taste and the rivers of red saliva it produces. The effect is mild and pleasant, but the prospect of red and decaying teeth and gums puts me off for life. For a lot of people this is no deterrent though, and betel is after alchohol, coffee and tobacco the world’s most popular stimulant. It has been used for thousands of years, from India to China, by emperors and peasants alike.

All these different looks and sounds and smells make Myanmar exotic and exhilarating. Every sensation here seems amplified. Some people say that Myanmar is a ‘light’ version of India, or India for beginners. Strangely enough even the weather is different across the border, and over the next few days we experience our hottest cycling days yet.

Big friendly brother

We get a wad of kyat out of the cash machine of Myawaddy and start cycling on the main road towards Kawkareik, a small town 50km away. Myanmars army tightly controls the country, and we cross quite a few army check-points. The guards are very friendly and polite, and the only nuisance so far is the fact that we are only allowed to stay in designated and overpriced hotels for foreigners. These hotels have to pay a hefty tax for their foreign guests which goes straight to the army. It is strictly prohibited to stealth camp or stay with locals so we don’t even try this, although we have heard from other cyclists it is possible to do this if you keep well out of sight and away from the main road.

Meeting like-minded people

Kawkareik is a small town with a fabulous warmshowers host. Susu is not allowed to host cyclists in her own house but loves to meet up with everybody cycling through. She helps out with info about guesthouses along the way, explains Myanmar culture and teaches us our first Burmese words. We enjoy dinner together at her place and team up with Janneke Verhagen, another cyclist who has just arrived in Myanmar.

On the beaten track

After Kawkareik we venture off the busy main road and onto a small road. This much quieter road quickly turns into a rutted dirt track, traversing rubber plantations and later on dry fields and marshy patches. Every now and again we see a limestone cliff rise up over the shimmering plains, usually topped with one or more golden stupas. It looks magical. Along the way are tiny villages full of friendly faces but not many restaurants or shops. It is great to be able to get off the highway and (in this case quite literally) on to the beaten track so quickly and we enjoy the silence and emptiness. A wooden cart pulled by two oxen passes us when we are enjoying a short break in the shade. It is traveling at about 3kmph, with three smiling ladies in the back. Life is slow here and nothing much happens.

Yet even without the busy traffic and no climbing the heat and the bad road surface make it a hard slog. By the time we roll into Hpa An it is getting dark and we are covered in a rusty red cake of sweat, sunscreen, insect repellent and dust. We need two rounds of scrubbing under the shower to get completely clean. From Hpa An we make it to the Buddhist pilgrimage site of Kyaiktiyo in two days. After our overnight stop in the small and friendly town of Thaton a perfectly paved and gently rolling secondary road with zero traffic takes us all the way to Kyaiktiyo where we spend two days. This road is lined by palm forests and cute little villages.

A pilgrimage to the golden rock

There are a lot of tourists in Kyaiktiyo, and most of them are Burmese pilgrims. If there is one similarity between Myanmar and Thailand it would have to be religion. Myanmar has a very diverse population but the majority is devoutly Theravada Buddhist, although we have already seen Hindu temples, churches and a mosque as well. The big draw of Kyaiktiyo is a big boulder, precariously perched on the edge of a cliff face. Lore has it that two hairs of the Buddha balance the rock and keep it from falling down (although last year it was surrounded by scaffolding so there is some human help in maintaining the balance). The rock is covered in gold leaf, which is applied daily by the visiting (male only!) pilgrims.

It is prohibited to cycle so we join the other pilgrims for a breathtaking ride up to the rock. Sturdy little trucks are converted into people carriers with little benches and once they are crammed to the brim they race the 12 kilometer up the super steep single road. The ride is a rollercoaster, including enthusiastically puking and cheering people. We arrive at the top just before sunset and we have a quick look around before we catch the last truck down. The rock is indeed impressive, and the religious fairground around it is quite entertaining. Men carry rich and lazy or infirm people up in sedan chairs, porters run by with an impossibly huge stack of suitcases on their back. Families and monks peruse the shops that sell anything from mini golden rock replicas to food. The atmosphere is more village fest than religious solemnity but this is one of the most holy places in Myanmar. It is possible to stay up at Kyaiktiyo and spend the night outside, to picnic and snooze together with the Burmese families. We would definitely have done this if we had known before.

Religion in Myanmar is fully intertwined with the everyday life of almost everybody, something that no longer exists in Europe. We see this every morning when monks walk in line along the road through the villages, collecting alms from the people. It can also be witnessed in the little Buddhist altars in houses and shops and in big new golden stupas being erected all over the country. One day we witness a procession with horses, flower offerings and a long line of beautifully dressed people going through town, celebrating little boys who are entering the monastery as novices. Many monasteries that we pass by on the bicycles have a speech or mantras or music blaring from their sound systems.

Bago

In the morning we say goodbye to Janneke who is heroic enough to tackle the small roads up North. She later tells us her stories of wild camping and even staying with a family, which is definitely possible if you keep away from the main roads.

We do a long day along ever smaller tracks through small villages full of surprised people. At one point we have wandered so far off the main road that the villages can only be reached by moped or ox cart. We reach the point where the river delta melts into the Andaman sea. This is the first time we see the sea since Turkey! The land here is flat as a pancake and hot as hell. The tracks we follow are so rocky or sandy it is hard to make good progress. After 110km we make it to our hotel, just before it is fully dark.

Bago is pretty mental traffic-wise. The main road to Yangon runs right through the city centre and is used by trucks, buses, tuk-tuks, bicycle taxis, cows and pedestrians alike. There is not much to see. A reconstruction of a historical royal palace, a gigantic reclining Buddha and Myanmars biggest stupa. Officially the Shwedagon stupa in Yangon is the biggest one, but in reality the stupa of Bago can claim this nr. 1 spot. We are daunted by the busy traffic on the highway that intersects this city and a bit depressed by the living standards of the people here. The city appears quite poor, with bad roads, plastic rubbish in the rivers and simple shacks or ruinous colonial buildings for houses, more so than any other place we have seen so far. The poverty is in stark contrast with the standard of living enjoyed by the tourists, who can stay at swish resorts, eat lavish breakfast buffest and get carted around by airco minivan. We indulge in this as well as there is little alternative but we don’t really enjoy it. Staying in Bago is almost unavoidable as it is an important connection for trains and roads.

Midnight not-so-express

We decide to leave the bicycles in Bago to avoid the hassle of train and bus travel with all of our gear. Then we set off on an epic 24 hour train journey to Nyaungshwe by Inle lake. Buying the tickets is an adventure in itself and involves showing up in the early morning and hanging around in the ancient ticket office with a few friendly betel-chewing railway employees and a lot of mice. A couple of frantic phone calls are made to Yangon to find out if there is a sleeper car. Eventually a handwritten ticket materializes. Alas, there is no sleeper car, so we opt for the upper class seat instead, with enough legroom to accommodate a three meter tall Ingele.

The journey is split in two parts: a pretty comfortable flat track to Thazi, in a new-ish Chinese train with air suspension. We witness a stunning sunset over the hazy flatlands while eating our take-away dinner. After another few hours of fitful sleep we arrive at 2am in Thazi to find out our connection to Shwenyaung doesn’t leave until 7am. There is nothing to do but lie down amongst the other waiting people and make ourselves comfortable on the platform, to get some sleep in before the most spectacular part of the journey starts.

An old train rocks and sways over a 1300m mountain pass, covering the steep inclines by making a few ingenious switchbacks up the mountain flank. Our train neighbours are a Buddhist nun and her two grandchildren. One is a mini monk, the other one a little rockstar with a tasseled leather jacket. When we make a stop little shops with fruit and snacks float by our windows, carried along on big dishes on the head of village women. The views are wide and mostly forested once we start climbing. The scenery is not very green however as everything is very dry and dusty in this season. We pass by the highest point Kalaw, a former colonial hill station and tea plantation.

Getting close to home

After months of continuous travel we are immensely looking forward to settling into a real home for a week. Our friend Patrick has generously offered us the use of his house, and as we are slowly trundling towards Nyaungshwe we are excited to get to his place. It is the first time since our forced two-week stop in Chengdu that we have the opportunity to unpack and relax for a while. I’m most excited about the kitchen. We will be able to make our own breakfast, at home! As we are getting closer to the end date of the trip we are both quite happily anticipating settling down in one place again. Our stay in Nyaungshwe will be a sweet little taste of this luxury: having a place to call home.

(sorry, no pictures. Internet says no)

Towards Thailands border

We left Chiang Mai about a week ago, this time on our bicycles, to start our last week of cycling in Thailand before we enter Myanmar. As always it feels really good to be back in the saddle again, even if the first 100km heading South out of Chiang Mai are on a straight and very busy road. We make one interesting side trip to a museum dedicated to Ganesh, the Hindu god with the elephant head. A somewhat eccentric Thai believer has collected all kinds of statues, masks and other depictions of Ganesh from all over the world and put them on display in a garden.

Ganesha, god of obstacles, study and prosperity

After this stretch things quickly get more interesting. From the small town of Hod we turn West, towards Mae Sariang. We climb over a range of hills but the gradients, the road and the traffic are altogether doable. We enjoy a couple of nights of camping and roll into the border town of Mae Sot where we will relax for a couple of days.

Cyclists paradise Prathet Thai

Thailand is, apart from the steep climbs, one of the easiest countries we have cycled around in. Almost too easy, and where’s the challenge in that? We would definitely recommend it as a country for a first time bicycle tourer, as you can experience a different culture while not really missing out on the creature comforts from home. There are great bike shops that stock good components. You can put up your tent just about anywhere, and there are perfect (free) camping spots with cold showers and toilets next to gorgeous waterfalls, maintained by kind park rangers.

The gold and glittering wats are beautiful. The people are super nice, and many speak English. Shops and restaurants stock food that we know from home. Despite the ubiqitous 7-11 and other Western brands there is a strong Thai cultural identity, and there is much on offer in natural and cultural sights. Most people think of Thailand as super touristy, but it is very easy to get away from the beaten path.

Here are our Thailand pictures

The most beautiful spot we found in the last few days is the Mae Um Long Luang hot spring, just before reaching the town of Mae Sariang. We don’t find much info online apart from that there are two tubs with hot water. We make our way down a small road, then a dirt track, and end up at a rickety bamboo bridge over a river, with a real hot spring paradise on the other side. It is a large garden area built upon the hillside, with outdoor pools, bamboo huts, a cafe with cold beers and pot noodles. A local family runs the place and they make us feel right at home. The old man of the family looks a bit like a wandering monk, with orange elephant trousers, a wispy white beard and a line of dots tattood on his forehead. We can walk our bicycles through the riverbed so we don’t have to take the bouncy bridge across. There is a huge hot tub in a bamboo house just for us and a nice little camping spot overlooking the river. We spend the rest of the afternoon soaking our feet in the outdoor pools with Thai families. Hot springs are our favourite stopovers!

Myanmar in our sights

Before getting to Mae Sot we conquer one more climb, over a range of hills that brings us down to the river that separates Thailand from Myanmar. This last climb is a lot tougher than expected. Some climbs hit 20% gradients which are impossible (for me at least) to pedal up. We hitchhike a short distance after we have climbed more than 1500m and the midday heat is burning us up. But, at the end of the day we sit at the verandah of a simple wooden hut, looking at Myanmar on the other side of the river. Life there looks different from life in Thailand, even from a distance. It is no longer just the women who wear the sarong (htamein in Burmese), the men don similar long skirts. People from the village across wash in the river, which looks like fun until you realize this is probably because they have no running water in their own home.

I am currently reading The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh, a book about the recent history of Myanmar as told through the eyes of different generations of one family. It is hard to comprehend that Myanmar once was the richest and most developed of the South East Asian countries, until the British colonization and subsequent political mess plunged the country into poverty. Myanmar is a construct, an uneasy federation of different tribes who speak different languages and have different cultures and beliefs. They only formed a country to shake of British rule together, with an option to step out of the union ten years after it was formed. This option was conventiently scrapped by the Burmese government who sought to consolidate their power, with or without the consent of the different tribes and their states.

One of the results of this ongoing state of internal conflict is a huge number of displaced Karen people who live along the Burmese border in Thailand. I had read about them before, in the well researched and poignant book The Invisible Ones by the late Dutch author Karel Glastra van Loon. Currently the Rohingya people are in the news because the Burmese army is blatantly harassing them in an effort to rid the (mostly Buddhist) country of this muslim minority. The story of the Karen people is equally sad but not so widely reported in the media.

Teak trees

Back to The Glass Palace book. In the beginning of the book there are some beautiful descriptions of the tough life at teak logging camps some 100 years ago. There are English overseers and elephants and the wood is being transported to Yangon by wild mountain rivers in the wet season. The teak trees are true jungle giants that can rise straight up to 40m or more. It is a tree that loses its leaves in the cool season, and as we are cycling along the huge dry leaves are coming down around us, like big rustling brown paper bags falling out of the sky.

It is strange to experience this falling of the leaves, which for us is so strongly associated with autumn and cooler weather. Here the leaves are falling but it is still well over 30 degrees.

The Karen of Mae La

The leaves are used to make a traditional roof covering of the bamboo huts we see in villages along the road. The roofs look somewhat flimsy with their cover of brown leaves but they blend in nicely with the hills and tropical foliage. When we get close to Mae Sot we spot a large group of houses with these typical roofs. We stop to take some pictures and notice the houses are grouped very closely together, unlike the houses in the villages we have seen before. There are only narrow winding lanes between the houses and only tiny patches of vegetable gardens, it looks more like a rabbit warren than a village.

We notice more as we cycle on. The ‘village’ stretches alongside the road for miles and miles and up onto the hills on our right. Mae La is huge, the biggest place we have seen since Chiang Mai, but built entirely of basic bamboo huts with teak leaf roofs. We notice it is closed off all around, by a simple bamboo fence with barbed wire. Every 500m there is a gate with Thai guards who wave at us and give us the thumbs up as we roll by. We see a sign that says ‘temporary shelter area’ and realize this is one of the Karen refugee camps.

As Glastra Van Loon describes in his book, some of the people here have been here all of their lives, having been born in the camp. It was established in 1984. The Karen people can not go back to Myanmar for fear of prosecution by the government. In Thailand they are not allowed to work or study, so they cannot build a meaningful existence. They can only wait for change, which might not come anytime soon. The gross injustice that allows us to cycle by as we please and keeps them in limbo is unbearable.

Someone asked us the question, but what are we going to do about it? Well, reading and writing about it and raising awareness is one small thing. We are on holiday but we are not closing our eyes for the less than pleasant things in the world around us. There are options to volunteer with the families in the camps here but also back home. I can recommend volunteering with Stichting Vluchtelingenwerk for instance and helping the Amsterdam refugees with language and integration into Dutch society. There are many small ways to reach out and let them know they are welcome, they are not invisible.

Goodbye for now, Thailand

The seasons are turning and the teak leaves are falling, even in the tropics. We recently booked our tickets to Japan, meaning that the end of the trip is coming closer. In little over a month we’ll land in Fukuoka, in the South of Japan. Another two months of cycling in Japan and we’ll be in Tokyo. We are in a contemplative mood and tentatively making plans for what happens next.

But first, Myanmar. A friend of Cyril has generously offered us his home close to Inle lake, and we are eagerly looking forward to our time there. A home away from home, a place and a little bit of time to stop and think about what comes after this trip.