football and a waterfall

During the whole last week the school’s football-Cup was taking place, so that I had hardly any lessons as the students were either training, watching or playing themselves. For five days teams from each class out of each section of the PDO (so NTTC, Fast-Track and Normal-Track) were competing against each other until there was the final game on Friday morning. The atmosphere was great, the kids were all really into it and cheering all the time and I have to say that there were quite a few talents playing on our small, dusty football-field. And I think I’ve never seen a more colourful audience! In the end one of the teams from the section in which I teach (the NTTC) won the girl’s final match and so we had a nice party in the NTTC building for our victors ;-) and to celebrate properly some of the volunteer and Burmese teachers on Sunday did an excursion with those girls.

 

I was invited as well and so 14 people left the PDO in the morning on the back of a pick-up truck heading in the direction of Pyin Oo Lwin. On this road from Mandalay to Pyin Oo Lwin starts a steep path near the Anesakhan village down to the dramatically set Dattawgyaint Waterfall. After a 30-minutes walk we suddenly stood in front of this beautiful, huge waterfall forming smaller pools underneath it in the middle of the jungle. Even though the water was really incredibly cold we immediately jumped in and partly swam, partly climbed through the natural pools towards the waterfall itself. It was terrific! I felt like dying of the cold and drowning as there was water just EVERYWHERE when we fought our ways right through the waterfall to some small, hidden cave behind it. But we made it and finally we stood there glimpsing through all the water, shivering but grinning broadly. I guess we all had this amazing sensation of feeling more alive than ever, breathing more freely and just being happy right there we were.

 

After getting rid of our soaked, cold clothes, we found a nice spot in the warming sun where we had a very delicious Burmese picnic for lunch. Climbing up the way to the parking lot was quite exhausting afterwards, so that we had to sit down on the top again, drink some nice, super-sweet Instant-coffee and back in the truck almost everyone fell asleep immediately. Considering that the road down to Mandalay is quite bumpy and the whole car was shaking its way through all the turns, it really shows how exhausted everyone was to be able to sleep during this drive ;-)

Burmese Fullmoon-Party

There was quite a lot going on during the last two weeks - especially because my best friend Barbara came to visit me here in Mandalay! She's doing a gap-year as well and she's quiting a blog about her amazing ideas and projects she has for the next few months - so check it out at www.rauszeitx.blogspot.com !

 I guess you can imagine how excited I was to see her again after two months and I was able to show her a little bit of the life I'm living here ;-) together we went to different markets, visited some beautiful pagodas and other places (like the zoo which is always nice and surprising with new adventures - this time there was a tiger just sitting casually in the grass in front of his cage) around Mandalay, climbed the Mandalay Hill and tried the food in almost every tea-shop on our 19th road.    So to put it in a nutshell: enjoying the best of the Burmese life!

This month's full moon was being celebrated similar to the one last month, with the only difference that the festivities are bigger in other towns this time - the most famous surely is the hot - air balloon festival of Taunggyi. So together with four other German volunteers from the PDO we headed to the Inle lake on Wednesday morning. Already the drive there was a lot of fun and we all enjoyed the cool climate as we made our way up into the mountains. We stayed in Nyaung Shwe (a village at the lake) and at night it took us two hours just to get to Taunggyi because the street was so overcrowded by all the people wanting to go to the festival that we partly couldn't even get forward in our taxi.  It eventually we arrived at this huge festival site and soo  found ourselves in the middle of the crowd between all the small stalls, selling everything from food to clothes or toys, restaurants, liquor stores and discotheques sponsored by the latest western brands (Knorr next to Red Bull, just to name two examples). The atmosphere was overhelming and cheerful like on a huge concert and above the thousands of spectators those big, beautiful and all self-built balloons flew slowly up to the night sky. Amazing to watch, but still all the noise and the people got a little too much for us and and so we sat down in a restaurant and enjoyed the rest of the night with an ice cold beer there :-) 

 

 

On the next day we had the chance to see a bit more of the lake as we did a boat trip to the different workshops, villages and floating gardens on it. What an incredible feeling it was to sit in this small boat, just looking at the beautiful scenery around and the infinite, blue sky above you! Afterwards we moved on to Kalaw and on the following day we did another very nice trip. This time to the cave of Pindaya. Already the way there was so much to see and while driving through those Highlands we kinda felt like being in a burmese Toscana, with all the fields, small forests and colourful flowers stretched out on soft hills. The cave itself is impressive as well with smaller and bigger Buddhas sitting or standing in every reachable place there. It's already difficult to decide where to look at first or which small aisle to take and then everything is set in this immense cave. Unfortunately it was almost overcrowded by (burmese) tourists but still we managed to make our way through the tiny ways and finally found a more quite and remote place where we could just sit and take everything in. 

 

 

In the evening we went to the town centre of Kalaw to see the local Fullmoon-Party. It all started with some kind of parade of children carrying candles accompanied by music and a lot of beautiful traditional dances. The crowd slowly moved through town to the festival field which was surrounded by a lot of small stalls and tiny teashops. So the first thing we did when we got there, was to try some delicious Shan sweets in the teashops ;-) this turned out to be a wonderful idea and I think ate the best banana pancakes sitting there on a blanket next to a tiny table with tiny cups of tea on it. There, between all the smiling people from all Iver Myanmar, I could also completely take in the atmosphere. This cheerful, relaxed and thankful feeling was almost overwhelming and even though it was pretty dangerous, I didn't really care as there were suddenly going fireworks down all around us. In this moment and from my position it just looked like it was raining silver and golden stars and everyone around me looked so amazed by the beauty of it. Such a breathtaking spectacle! A little later a second tower of fireworks was lit and this one wasn't that fun anymore, as there were even more fireworks flying and this time directly into the crowds. Strangely, people just didn't seem to care at all when they were hit by a burning piece. The Burmese were just super excited and trying to take pictures with their phones. Not really my type of fun, I have to admit. But we all survived and tiredly went back to the hotel safe and sound. :-)