Relationships through Cliff Jumping

There is a village we spend a lot, I mean A LOT of time in from January to June, because its the community that is host to an incredible waterfall adventure that MAO operates. It also happens to be the time of year when the kids have time off school, so more time to come and hang out. When we show up, the kids start chattering and by the time we are ready to guide people down to the falls, a group has formed who both participates in and brings joy to both us and our clients. Our guys have become like heroes for these boys and young men, and have an open door to influence them positively. Lots of young men end up using and becoming addicted to drugs in Northern Shan, as this region is a source of a large amount of production, so we are trying to develop opportunities to influence this younger generation to make wise decisions with their future. A lot of them now want to be guides because the men they look up to work with MAO, and guide in their backyard waterfalls, so we need to capitalize on this relationship capital and start investing in these kids so that they make the foundational wise decisions now to stay committed to school, keep away from drugs and addicting substances, so that in the days of their youth they can pave the way for a future. We are right now in the discussing stage of creating a young men’s group that meets a couple times a month, but have yet to set a plan in motion.

Just on the edge of their village drops a waterfall that we’ve coined Dark Horse Falls, as we feel like it is a dark horse favorite for best waterfall in Myanmar. We’ve compiled a video titles Dark Horse Men to celebrate our MAO guys insanity and the courage of the young generation in the village.

Our Myanmar Adventure Outfitters crew has lots of fun engaging with the local kids and pushing our boundaries and skills. 2019 season is coming to a close as the rains come, so celebrating with this cliff jumping edit.

"I Can't Wait to come to Lashio!"

In chatting with a Yangon expat recently in response to our Instagram Story, they wrote to me, “I can’t wait to come to Lashio!” Investing in this place, seeing all the amazing potential, and building deep relationships here, we are stoked that we are putting Lashio on the map. Indeed, it is an amazing place, but few have seen it the way we see it, and we are excited to hear more people exclaim the same.

We have been working at bridging two areas we work together, and this week we’ve found some great things to help push a little further out. We have taken a couple river trips in a remote backcountry area, and made a couple videos we want to share. The first video we collaborated with Nice Studio out of Lashio to edit our GoPro footage. The second video is what happened when we put some of the same footage through the Cameo app made by Vimeo. They have a very different feel, and we are hoping good media will inspire more to exclaim, “I can’t wait to come to Lashio!”