The Inle area is surrounded by many minority tribal groups. Most of these live on the hillside in small rustic huts and survive by farming the land and raising some cattle or sheep. Once or twice a month they may come into a major centre for supplies. In the wet season this can be more problematic as the trails throughout the hills wash out.
Most of these trails are not very well marked, so I hired a guide. The cost for the day was 10$ for a guide and lunch. I was in a small group with 2 Americans. I always wonder what kind of skills a trekking guide has, but I have always assumed that I probably know more about hiking than they do! This time I think I was correct.
The dirt track here is the trail, so it’s pretty hard to get lost. About one hour into the trek we had just ascended a steep section and the guide was about 30 metres in front of me, when he suddenly turns around and yells “oh f$#k” (this turned out to be his best English), and starts running toward me.
When he realizes the trail is too narrow to pass, the fearless guide decides he would run off the trail and down the mountain! Once he is out of the way I saw what he was running from, a cow. Having had some experiance with cows before, I jumped up with my arms is the air and yelled at the thing. As expected, the cow was not big on confrontations and ran in the opposite direction.
The poor guide clambered back up the hill looking very red. After that we spent most of the afternoon making fun of the guide for being afraid of a cow! Goodness knows what would of happened if we ran into something really dangerous!