To Namhsan

En route up the mountain. Manic road construction, all manual. Stones are broken with pick axes, sorted by size and laid on the road. Tar is heated in barrels and then ladled over them. Migrant families live under plastic all the way along.

We can't work out why so much investment in a road that seems to wind upwards to nowhere. But hey, someone big's wife comes from the region, and though it looks poor, the endless erosion encouraging tea plantations make it rich - the hills look blasted and good for nothing: it's dark green tea plants on dry red soil. The local ethnic groups no longer want to work in the plantations and can afford to immigrate to China, Thailand and Malaysia, sending remittances to aging parents - who pay Burman workers from the plains around Mandalay to do the grunt work. Not sure how this will play in the long run: already we see so many old people working.

Eventually the pickup stops and we're bundled out onto the wood built main street of Namhsan. A different, high up world. Evening sun on teak monasteries and endless hills. We are tourists two and three in town - but our prospective guide seems to have disappeared with the other one. We spend the afternoon searching for a guide, and by 7pm have agreed to the odd decision of a 3 day hike back to Hispaw.