Keng Tung Favorites

Favorite thing: Kengutng has been important town in past and seen better days than present. Its location in Shan state makes it still off the beaten paths for majority of tourists because you have to fly there from mainland if you want to visit it. Sometimes, when border with Thailand remains open for foreigners, it can be visited by bus or shared taxi - it's 3 hours long journey throughout scarcely populated area in the bottom of valley, hills all around. Being the capital of Eatern Shan state it has a lot of things to display; from old customs, stories, attitudes, buildings from the past to new, modern signs of progress. It's a place where a lot societies and ethnic groups meet and melt together, like descendants of Indian Moslem traders, Bamar, Tai, Wa, Lahu, Shan etc... all with their own distincitve interpretations of life and living, food, music, beliefs and survival.

Fondest memory: It is worth going beyond the city limits although you can find Kengtung interesting place by itself already. Well, if interesting means shopping malls, luxury hotels and restaurants and swimming pools then this is not.
Here and beyond, you'll find beautiful hilly landscape, fields in the bottom of valley, traditional farming, arhitecture and customs. It seems no unusal to see many men, even very young ones carrying some very old guns, probably from colonial times. It's no danger though, they have it for hunting and not to scare people away. The area is also full of birds in spring, which makes it potentially interesting place for birdwatcher.

One remark though, famous Shan palace was destroyed in 1990'ies and its location became a place for large hotel. And it's good to have some knowledge on the area before you come, you may be surprised on what you'll see.