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  Why on earth did I think I could do this?  I have to be mad.  Here I am climbing this hill, this mountain – Mt. Victoria in the Chin State of Myanmar at 3050m – and  I don’t think I can do it  

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   We were up at dawn in order to make an early start, after two nights in our Mt. Oasis Resort, an eco-complex with charming self contained chalets with cold running water, hot water delivered in buckets by the boys and all  set in beautiful gardens, both vegetable and flower. I had been cold then, now I am hot, my jacket stuffed into my day pack.

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   There’s Pat – our Silk Road Adventures tour leader – up ahead of me, and she seems to think I can do it. But then perhaps she’s mad too.     Oh God!  Look at those rhododendrons, only one or two flower heads because it’s not quite the right season, but the shape of those old, old trees and the bright red blooms – stop, take a photo and breathe deeply.

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   MyoWin, (or Melven) our Myanmar guide has already taken my day pack, my water bottle so I only carry my stick and bumbag. One of the other Myanmar local guides lurks ready to help me over any sticking-out bits on the path. I feel gracious as he hands me across a rough patch. Behind me he and MyoWin are singing cheerfully – Witney Houston love songs, songs of yearning, Unchained Melody.  I find the breath to laugh but not to join in.

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   only an idiot does this – but just look at those mountains peeling off into the distance, we are all above the cloud level, the valleys below shrouded in mist – or is it smoke from the burn-offs that the villagers carry out.  When I stop to look - and breathe - I can see a huddle of houses across the valleys, the families living there must do this all the time.  These villages are called Cloud Islands, such a lovely name, I don’t think I have ever been this high up before.

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   look, those are gentians! A soft blue, not hard like ours at home.   Pause, take a photo, breathe.  And here are the rest of the group, having a lovely sit-down!  ‘Here!’ says Frank, ‘this tree stump is just made for sitting on!  Sit down.’ He gets up to give me his prime position.  Drink, breathe – gasp at the wonder of it all – and the others trot, or trudge off.

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   I can’t even see a bloody mountain up ahead, but the track seems more level.  I think about my birthday in two weeks’ time when I will be 71. Who in their right mind climbs their first mountain at this age?  I have to be mad.  Pat, bless her, sticks with me.  I am a tortoise. Just take it slowly and breathe.

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   there are three people coming the other way.  Local Chin people who live up in these hills – sorry mountains – and who walk everywhere, carrying everything they need in and out either on their heads or in bamboo baskets held across their foreheads.  Pause, drink, breathe.

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   I am not going to go any further.  Next time I stop I will sit down and wait till they all come back down again. Nobody is holding a gun to my head.  I don’t have to do this. I can choose whether I continue or stop.  The mountainside drops down below me into valleys swallowed up in the cloud beneath us.  It’s breathtaking – literally.

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   Oh God look!  Pat is shouting and waving! We are just about there!  On the top of a small rise is a golden stupa!  I’ve made it! ‘F....!’ I cry and skip up the last incline across the dry grassy track, shrieking and waving like the old idiot that I am.  I’m not shattered at all!  Who said I couldn’t do it?  Not me!  We are all ecstatic.

   We sit in the dry scrubby grass eating lunch – hard-boiled eggs, noodles, bananas, we drink water, Sprite or Coca Cola which the ‘boys’ – some of them the ones who lurked around me – have carried up for us.  It’s windy and worth every exhausted step and laboured breath to be there. It has taken us three and a half hours and I am on top of the world.

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   I hope my knees will support me down again, and they do.  Pause for a pee-stop.  Find a suitable spot on a slight but not treacherous slope, a shrub to hang onto, but then can’t go – how long can I squat here not going?  I abandon the idea. Go carefully, don’t ruin everything by being careless.  The boys are still watching over me, from a discreet distance while we squat behind small shrubs.

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   There are the vehicles on the road  below us!  Only one more  brief but tricky bit to negotiate. 

   ‘You’ve done it,’ says Melven. 

   ‘No!’ I say, ‘the party’s not over till the fat lady sings!’ 

   But sing she does and we all chatter wildly about our success as our drivers hand out wet-wipes and fresh, local oranges.

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   Who was counting? What struggle?  What pain or ache?  Do it again tomorrow – not.  Only two black toenails to show for it all, and some photos, oh! and the memories, such wonderful memories.

For the record and because I could never have achieved anything without them, I was part of a small tour group lead by Pat Reedy from Silk Road Adventures (NZ) Ltd, of Greymouth in New Zealand, with Myanmar support from MyoWin from Seven Days tours of Yangon.  My seventeen day tour of Myanmar with Silk Road was something I shall never forget and I will be eternally grateful to Pat, MyoWin and my co-travellers who were all so generous, tolerant and good humoured – and wasn’t the Myanmar Rum good!  Penny

For another story about women travelling in Myanmar - click here