When: October 2017
Where: Nwaungshwe, near Inle Lake in eastern Myanmar

​We turned left onto a narrow gravel route. I nudged the kickstand back into place with my foot as, once again, a dip in the pebbly road had shaken it loose. The track curved between rice paddies still drenched from the monsoon rains that had only begun to subside. At the turnoff onto this smaller track, four women sat on the ground, peeling bamboo stalks into smooth chunks. We stopped and one lady giggled shyly when I walked over to watch her work. The bright white flesh was sure to attract potential customers heading to or from town, as it proved the stalks had been freshly peeled. These women remained along the main paved route. They did not venture onto our quiet road.

There is a place so unusual, so colourful and precious that I almost want to hide my story from the world. Isolated in the steep mountains of Bhutan’s far eastern region, the villages of Merak and Sakteng only allowed access to foreign visitors in 2010. Electricity arrived a few years later.