When Ji So made the long journey from Shan State to Cambodia’s Pailin province in 1994, he expected to be greeted by a large community of people like him.
“I walked across the mountains and forests to come to the land of stones,” he said of his approximately 2,000 kilometre trip, which involved a week of trekking, two days on a bus, and another day on foot.
For centuries, the western province of Pailin on the Thai border had attracted Myanmar people who hoped to dig up a better life in soil dyed reddish-brown by deposits of aluminium and iron. Beneath this earth lay pockets of even greater treasures – vibrant blue sapphires and fiery red rubies, some worth more than diamonds.
In full: https://www.frontiermyanmar.net/en/we-were-the-kula-cambodias-missing-myanmar-community/
