TimeOut

Magan woman in Myanmar,

 

Beginning of this year, I travelled to Myanmar( Birma) to visit the Magan women in the Chin state, this is the state next to India.
After arriving in Bagan, the place with more then 3000 tempel's and Pagoda's, the view is just stunning, especialy the sunset, and sunrise are famous.
I had seen this before in Bagan, but always beautiful to see, and the real trip could begin.

Some pictures of the sunrise in Bagan.

The airballoons are famous, we didn't had time to do this, but after seeing them, I'm sure is worth the experience.

So now the trip could begin where we came for, the year before i heard about woman who tattood their face, when i heard that i was sure to come back and see that with my own eyes,  we arranged before already a guide, chauffeur, and a good "jeep" the definition of a good car is difficult in Myanmar, not many cars are allowed, so even the very old cars are there something special

The roads are beautiful, the trip to Kanpalet is about 10 hours driving, with many checkpoints, oil-fields, rice-fields, and village's, beside's the visum you need for the country, there are many licences necessary, for every state a couple, so travelling take's a lot of time and preparation.

The monks are famous in Myanmar, every where you see them, always friendly, ready to have a chat, intrested where you come from, it's a great country with very very friendly people!!!

The roads are like this in most of the country side's, many people working on them, and for cars hard to drive on it, only the big city's have good roads.

After having lunch in Saw, a small place 1 hour before Kanpalet, we saw the first Magan woman, with there very intresting Tattood faces.

The story is something like this, there a many different stories, but about 200 hunderd years ago, some Kings and Princess went to Chin state to take the young girls from their parents, because the women from here where the most beautiful one's from the country.
Because of that, the parents diside to make their daugthers less attractive, to tattoo their face's, in the hope their daughters would not be taken.
At this moment the most of the woman are older with the tattoo's, i only saw 1 younger woman with it, the stories we heard where that the don't do it anymore, and it is forbidden by law, but nobody has clear answers on these questions, it is very intresting to see, but nobody would like to do this when it is not nescessary.

The sunrise in Kanpalet, we are going on to Mindat, another place we the woman can be seen.

In most of the small village's we see a church,

We had a walk in Lemon village, a small place between Kanpalet and Mindat, childeren playing in the creek, beautiful nature, friendly people.

On the way back to Bagan, some very intresting days, things i saw never to forget, but first a trip of about 10 hours again

Best,

Michel