A trip further up the river

Riverside villages

In addition to temple viewing, we also booked a tour to some rural Chin villages.  Chin state is located in the mountains north of Rakhine state.  It is known as one of the poorest states in Myanmar.  The Chin village tours do not go as far as Chin state, rather stop at Chin villages located in Rakhine state.  The tour included a guide, transfer to the jetty approx 1 hour away, and the boat trip up the river.  Our guide happened to be a nurse who worked in Yangon and Singapore, and acted as a guide while he was at home.  I wonder how similar the rates of pay are.  His words of wisdom: ‘to be a nurse you have to be very patient’.  How very true, even on the other side of the world!!!  

A bamboo log boom

On the trip up the river we passed by many bamboo ‘log booms’, where people appeared to be living on.  Our guide told us that the people float down the river with the bamboo to sell, and then head back up the river to repeat the cycle.  

A hut in the village.  This is the kitchen

The unique feature of Chin women are that in the past they used to tattoo their entire faces.  This practice stopped years ago, so nowadays the only women with face tattoos are in their 60s or older.  The first village we stopped at we met a 71 year old woman, and had lunch in her hut.  I didn’t take any photos of her, as I didn’t feel comfortable doing so.  We toured her tiny village before heading out to the next village.  According to the Lonely Planet, tours to the villages provide them with the money for schools, that they would not otherwise be able to afford.  I hope that is the case.  If I had known in advance, I would have wanted to bring school supplies or something since we have so much here at home.   

A one-roomed schoolhouse

In the second village we visited another Chin lady who looked unwell.  It turned out that she had been hospitalized in Sittwe for tuberculosis.  She had children working overseas, and I wonder if that’s how she was able to afford the long hospitalization.  In the village school, there was a map of the world.  I noticed that there were an awful lot of labels in the Canadian North.  We had our guide translate some of the labels.  As it turns out, Iceland and Greenland are located in Northern Canada!!