Sounds more adventurous than it was: We had planned to hike and had hired a guide. Unfortunately we had underestimated his intentions for the night before - it seems they celebrate New Years as least as intensely as we do! So our guide was drunk and unable to walk on January 1st and we ended up doing the hike with a last-minute stand-in, who had never before led. He was one of the most impressive people we met there - grew up in a tiny village, unable to marry, as he couldn't procure the necessary dowry in time and now was too old. He had made money by wandering through the jungle to different villages carrying wood to build huts, smuggling bulls to Thailand etc. and basically lived as a nomad without a home. After a nasty bite by a poisonous snake in the leg, he had a large hospital bill to pay and and needed to look for something else to do. SO he worked as a porter for some fancier treks where he picked up a rather impressive (by Burmese guide standards) English.
He was truly incredible as he knew anecdotes about any place we went, lots of the locals we passed, spoke all the local languages (there were at least five different ones), told us about the everyday life of people there and how they were - or weren't - affected by modernisation. He also made sure that money we spent went directly to needy local people (like a widow without an income cooking for us etc.) and kept us off the beaten track.
I'll stop here before this becomes a travel diary post!
Thank you for the kind words, wstam and Double Negative.
@Double Negative: I keep trying different lenses, but nothing pleases me as consistently as the 50 Lux! (VC 35 1.7 is getting close though!) Great site by the way!