Again I’m on my way to Taunggyi via Kengtung. The plane in Yangon Airways, flight YH 737.

It seems to have raised its prices. In September I must have paid something like 69,000 kyat ($69). Now it’s 77,200 kyat ($77). My Burmese cash has run out but fortunately the airport at Tachilek accepts Thai money. So I got away with it.

All in all, I have been given a near VIP treatment by the officials from Myanmar Peace Center (MPC), Immigration and Military Affairs Security (MAS) until I’m at last seated in the plane. So I have only appreciation for that and nothing to complain.

As usual, I’m up to my usual truck, when I’m on a plane, looking up for something to read.

And I’m not disappointed, because there is a new in flight bi-annual magazine Swosone waiting for me, And there was a lot to read and kill time during my nearly 2 hour flight to Heho, known by Shans as Haiwo: about current Kachin situation, the current Pyu cities and the upcoming Kekku festival in Taunggyi, among others:

The reader is reported that renewed fighting broke out between the two sides “after the Tamadaw tried to force the KIA (Kachin Independence Army) to withdraw from the site of the Depein Hydropower plant being built by a Chinese company.” Only just short of saying that it was the Tatmadaw (government military) that violated the ceasefire. Luckily the publication may be getting away with it too.

On Sriksetra, Hanlin and Vishnu (Aeikthano), long known as Pyu cities, the writer repants of the recently published “History of Myanmar since ancient times” written by Michael and Maitoii Aung-Thwin, who have argued that what is commonly called “Pyu period” should instead by referred to as the “urban” period, despite evidence the Pyu had their own language based on Sanskrit.

Which reminds me of Mr Aung-Thwin once writing that the “Threi Shan Brothers” who became prominent during the late Pagan period were not Shans.

Well, as my history teacher once said, history is about facts and who’s telling the story. I just hope he got his facts right.

A week from now, the Kekku festival celebrating the 2,000 small pagodas in Kekku, 42 km (26 miles) south of Taunggyi, is going to start.

The writer says architectural style suggests that they were built in the 16th century. It did not say who built them. But it is likely that they were discovered by the PaO who are the dominant nationality in the area.

Shans however say it was their cousins Tai Yan coming from the east who were the real originators of the Kekku pagodas. In fact, Shans in that area speak a dialect which is closer to the Tai Yan than the standard Shan, known as Tai Long.

I was welcomed by an airport official U Soe Win Kyaw at Heho and my sister.

It was an hour’s drive from the airport to Taunggyi and the Taunggyi Hotel where I’ll be making my home for at least 4 days.

As we enter the city’s center which looks busy, I ask my young assistant who is going to be my camerawomen throughout the media conference, 4-6 March, “Well, how do you feel?
“I feel right at home now,” she answers. She has been with SHAN for 5 years now.