On Mae Sai time

Standard time in Kengtung, Myanmar is half-an-hour behind Thailand but sometimes it feels like the whole country is really half a century behind.

Beyond the northernmost point of the Thai Kingdom lies a different world altogether. At Mae Sai, Myanmar lifts its usual prohibition against overland entry to allow access to an isolated corner of its sprawling, mountainous Shan state.

Mae Sai’s main street shudders to a halt at an imposing three-storey border gate. At night, the bustling street market lends a carnival atmosphere. Many of the barrows are labelled in several languages, including the distinctive interlocking loops of Burmese.

At Mae Sai, foreigners may cross the border bridge into Tachileik and continue up to the ancient town of Kengtung, officially Kyaingtong. They may also travel to Mongla on the Chinese border, then back the same way.

Kengtung is the historic capital of the Thai Khun people whose language and heritage offer a glimpse of the old Lanna Thai culture. Hill tribes also populate the region.

The Burmese passport officer waves me towards the tourist officer in the next room, a young man who prepares my entry permit and assigns me to a taxi driver. As for my existing visa: “You cannot use that here.”

This region follows its own rules. In a back room, another man exchanges a thick wad of Myanmar kyat for a few dollar bills; three currencies circulate here.

I wait half-an-hour, then another hour . . . but the taxi driver insists on three more fares before leaving Tachileik. After three hours, we are underway at last.

Until recently, the Kengtung road was unsealed and the 163km journey took all day. Already sections of the newly-tarred road are crumbling. Several times we pull up outside huts housing police, customs, immigration and other officials; further police checkpoints also require the driver to jump out clutching his bundle of papers, which include my permit.

Dusty tea stalls are another reason to stop — one bowl of noodle soup with meat and greens I had here was as refreshing as any I’ve sipped before.

The tropical forest glimpsed along the way is re-growth, dotted with banana trees. Rivers gurgle past thatched hill tribe cabins, as well as the more permanent iron-roofed bungalows of the Shan and Myanmarese villages. Police stations with their slightly sinister “MAY I HELP YOU” slogans (not today, thank you) help identify the townships.

Set in a remote valley carpeted with padi fields, Kengtung is a dusty, hilly town built around three lakes. Motorcycles buzz like flies through the torpid streets, rarely shouldered aside by sputtering Chinese-built farm trucks or three-wheeler taxis.

Independent travellers often make their way to Harry’s Trekking House and Adventure Tours on the northwestern edge of town. This is no mean backpacker guesthouse but a cluster of flashy villas, comfortably furnished. Harry, a former trekking guide, has passed away, but his widow Sai Long demonstrates a sharp instinct for business.

A bone-shaker bicycle jolts me down the bumpy main road to admire Naung Tung Lake before dusk falls. The road encircling the lake is dotted with simple cafés and tea shops, and overlooked by the gleaming golden chedi of Wat Jom Kham.

Dinner tonight, and every night, is a very simple fried rice, even at the grandly-named Golden Banyan near the old Pa Leng city gate.

Mornings are misty, damp even, and the people at the produce market opposite Harry’s are warmly dressed. By mid-morning, the town’s central market also hums with life. Shan women wear their towelling turbans, the Myanmarese women smear their faces with yellow thanaka paste and an occasional Akha woman wears the helmet-like headdress which is rarely ever removed.

In the centre of town, Wat Phra Sao Loang, whose pagoda roofs are embellished with the distinctively Burmese filigree metalwork, houses a Buddha image cast in Mandalay in 1921, and transported here piece by piece. Across the street, an ornate wall is all that remains of the former Haw Sao Pha Kengtung, the local Shan ruler’s palace demolished to make way for a large, ugly government-owned hotel — one to avoid where possible.

The 21st century miracle of broadband Internet greets me inside the air-conditioned Public Access Centre at the post office, but burdened with news of sliding share markets and talks of global recession, I relish stepping back into the calm of the Kengtung afternoon.

Perhaps the Buddha and his earthly followers, the sangha, can offer some solace. At the nearby Wat Phra Sao Loang, at least two other delicately-worked spires beckon the faithful, but both monks and worshippers seem scarce. A genial, toothless custodian at the Mahamyatmuni shrine offers a leaflet published for the “Temporary use of Decent people by Sai Loang Gyi, ex-MP”.

The Jom Kham pagoda is not the Old Moulmein Pagoda conjured up by Rudyard Kipling, but in the warm light of late afternoon, it seems equally evocative, with a palm swaying gently at its foot and distant ranges shading from a hazy purple into misty grey. Inside the dimly-lit vihara, a Buddha image stands surrounded by saintly figures of all sizes.

Kipling’s “Burma girl a’ waitin’’ is nowhere to be seen, but perhaps she is down on the lakeshore below, sipping weak, sugary tea at one of the cafés. Kipling, of course, took liberties with his geography.

My guide for a day’s hike into the tribal villages out in the hills will be Francis, 27. Enthusiastic and personable, Francis was born to impoverished parents of Akha and Lisu origin, and was raised in a Christian orphanage like his father before him.

After a dusty motorcycle ride, we set out on foot from a village north of Kengtung. A steady climb leads to a look-out over two hamlets — at our feet the home of 26 Eng families.

The Eng are animists whose shaman conducts annual ceremonies to honour the water spirit. The villagers raise pigs, cows and chickens, and grow peanut, soy bean, corn and banana. Their animals share the ground floor with the firewood laid in stock for the monsoon season.

Across the valley stands the Akha village, a community of Catholic converts. The Christian crucifix has replaced the old fertility talismans that once adorned the village gate. The standard of living is visibly higher here, and the women soon appear carrying bundles of necklaces and simply-stitched shoulder bags for sale. A woman’s headdress with metal back board can be mine for US$20 (RM66) but perhaps not.

We rest on a verandah whilst a village elder prepares broth of mustard greens, cauliflower and carrot, wrapped pork balls, steamed rice and sticky rice. At the last village, we peek into a busy primary school where children pore over exercise books in dim light.

Back in the town, dusk settles over Kengtung: smoke wafts from cooking fires, banana fronds stand silhouetted against the sky, clouds blush with pink over the ranges beyond the lake. Young people peer from the windows of a large red-brick colonial dwelling, perhaps a student hostel.

Across the road, the disused 1936 American Baptist Church stands alone in spacious grounds.

I pedal down to Naung Tung Lake for the last time and pull in at the Azure Restaurant for draught Mandalay beer and Chinese dinner. Riding the unlit bike home in the moonlight is no hazard at all . . . the only man-made lights flicker from within simple store-fronts, open to the street.

Back in my room the television flickers with alien images of wealth, glamour, urgency and violence.

“THE TATMADAW [the military] WILL NEVER BETRAY NATIONAL CAUSES.”

I hope that’s not what is happening next morning as a convoy of jeeps, official cars and a pick-up truck, laden with heavily armed soldiers, flashes by the bus station. Earlier, I had noticed the sign above one padlocked wooden door, announcing in several languages the local branch of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy.

Despite the smouldering incense stick wedged behind the number plate, our heavily-laden bus does not reach Tachileik for six hours. After the last checkpoint, the driver’s assistant returns the passengers’ identity cards.

You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone . . . and Myanmar seems light years removed from the bright lights and cash machines of Mae Sai. My watch, still set on Myanmar Standard Time, remains half an hour behind Thailand — or is that half a century?

Visitors must carry baht or US dollars in cash for all their anticipated needs (which, apart from domestic air fares or top-end hotels, are likely to remain modest).

Change money in Tachileik rather than wait until getting to Kengtung. Neither credit cards nor traveller’s cheques can be used. Entry permits cost US$10 (RM33) and allow a visit of up to 14 days. Thai handphones can be used around Tachileik, but no further.

Lonely Planet’s Myanmar (Burma) guide provides detailed advice as well as canvassing the arguments for and against visiting.