November 24, 2014
Loikaw or Bust!
Clustrophobia in Sankar
Nyaungshwe to Sankar
Dear little friends,
You can just start calling us the bike touring beasts. Hear us roar!
Yes, yes, it was only 44 miles and many of you could do that before your second breakfast but not on the road we were on.
We had one last delectable breakfast at our beloved Remember Inn, watermelon juice, Shan noodle soup, a banana and a small orange, coffee. A lot of coffee, maybe some tea thrown in for good measure. Then we packed up the bikes and wheeled out the door.
The staff wanted to know: "Where do you go?"
"Sankar. Then Loikaw!"
Lots of skeptical glances between themselves. "Oh. Very far."
The seasons have changed into perfect "high season" weather, with comfortable daytime sunshine and coolish nights. The locals of course think it's on the verge of polar vortex freeze bomb weather so they are wearing hats and down jackets and such. It's also kite season in Nyaungshwe but there doesn't seem to be much wind so boys are running up and down the alleys in vain as their little square kites get hung up on wires or the jagged-glass-shard-topped garden walls. It's also the season to tidy up after the rainy season so there is a lot of crap burning all the time in little piles, dead plant material and plastic garbage, it's a nasty smell and surprising for a town that wants to appeal to tourists.
Nevertheless, as we set off on the east side road, our spirits were high. The road had been paved since we were last on it in 2005 on rented bikes, but we recognized several places we had visited then, and we stopped to rescue a tiny puppy fast asleep in the middle of the road. Its litter mates arrived to coach it along and suddenly there were four puppies endangered on the road instead of just one and we got the hell out of there before we had to witness any puppy carnage. We have never seen so many puppies in Myanmar before, they are as common as salt in a shaker. The dogs here are quite mellow and sweet-faced, we've only had dogs threaten us if we surprise them near their puppies but 99.99% of them have been non-aggressive to the point of cowering. There are just far too many of them, dogs here, dogs there, dogs sleeping in every sunny spot or making little nests in piles of road-project sand. But ah, the nights! At night the dogs come alive and have all sorts of social dog drama, gang wars, howling, carrying on like dogs do when left to their own devices with each other. Hence all the puppies.
| Heart | 1 | Comment | 0 | Link |
Merrily we charged south along the lake, although the lake is only glimpsed from afar, the floating villages have covered nearly all the shoreline area with floating gardens, and ugly resorts block the view as well. Speaking of ugly resorts, from the downhill of our previous ride on the opposite side of the lake we had spotted what we immediately termed "the clearcut", a hideous and huge rip into the mountainside that stretches for miles where some kind of resort community is being carved into the forest and stone. Now we passed right in front of it, and it is a shocking ecological disaster in the making.
In 2005, just days before we arrived in December, the entire Myanmar national government packed up in the middle of the night and moved to a secretive new capital carved out of an area in central Myanmar. This ghastly capital, Naypyidaw, is all huge boulevards, empty roads, big overdone buildings, and a general lifelessness that makes it anathema to all the people who were forced to move there. This new development looked like Ye Olde Naypyidaw Golden Crony Resort 2.0, the broad boulevards with about four times the width of your average national highway being graveled by hand by women throwing baskets of rocks down onto the tar. It was appalling, and sobered, we carried on past it.
We had been told that our destination, Sankar/Samkar/Sakar was 25 miles south of Nyaungshwe. We shall not name our source but in this regard he was a lying fool. At about 30 miles our reasonably well-paved road (for Myanmar, in Montana it would be akin to a Forest Service road) turned into Hell Road, that made the despicable track to A Myint look like a freeway.
I get it. Dirt roads turn to crap in the rainy season and ox-carts, tuologgis and motorbikes wallow around in them for months at a time and they become truly nightmarish. But, really? Rocks? I would really like to get to the bottom of this whole road building scheme in Burma because there is so much wrong with it I don't even know where to start. But let's just review here: First a layer of dirt, then rocks the size of my feet broken with mallets and arranged by hand. Then some slightly smaller stones, also broken by hand, then smallish sharp-edged gravel, then tar hand-ladled over this gob from a 50-gallon drum over an open fire, and some sand or more gravel thrown from shallow pans by women who do not look like they are doing this voluntarily, if you get my drift. Sometimes there is a small steam roller sitting around, sometimes not. There is always a Guy in Charge sitting in the shade and chewing betel and making cracks about the weird looking foreigners on bikes.
So our road was at the juvenile stage of the hand-arranged rocks. Big rocks. Sharp rocks. This would be a good time to tip my helmet to the good folks at Schwalbe, who made us tires that did not lie down and die on that road. Bike touring forums may discuss rolling resistance until the end of time, our concrete tires took us on that road and then some, absolutely amazing durability saved our asses. Of course we were not on those rocks, we would have died, plus we would have disturbed the hand-arranged loveliness, no, we were relegated to a single-track on the side with plenty of stray sharp rocks to attempt avoiding, the ox-cart ruts on the other side, or at one point, a little jaunt through a cornfield. Picking dead corn stalks out of the spokes and chain, now we had seen it all. Still, we pressed on.
| Heart | 2 | Comment | 0 | Link |
Our diabolical plan had been to make it to a monastery south of Sankar where we were told we could stay the night, and if our road had not bitten it so badly that would have been a good, if far, plan. As it happened, we overshot Sankar a bit, found a village monastery with some surly monks (yes, they exist, more than you'd think) who ordered some boys to lead us to a hotel in Sankar, the only one in these parts. We knew what that meant. A Resort. Something we avoid in Myanmar because they are so effing expensive and probably owned by government crony poopyheads.
The Little Ol' Resort at Sankar was overpriced and a bit pathetic in its attempt to seem resort-like. Dark, quiet, creepy, and the turned-down sheets or fancy linen bathrobes did not change that. There was one foreign guest who looked like he had washed up there by mistake and apparently knew one word of greeting "Euh" which we replied to with equal enthusiasm and that conversation was over. The shampoo was kind of nice though. And the hot water was solar, so that's cool. Some other visitor who had kindly set up their Wifi had the same impression we did and the password was misspelled "clustrophobia" which seemed apropos and sort of reminded us of "clusterf****" which our off-the-beaten-track adventure seemed to be turning into.
Needless to say we did not eat up at the lonely and expensive dining room, but retired to our dark room where six different atmospheric lights did not even start to bump up the gloom factor, and ate a bag of potato chips and the last of our oranges. We were completely beat. We were completely despondent at paying 80 bucks for what would be a ten-dollar room in Thailand. Our grand adventure to the back of beyond seemed to be turning into a disaster. But isn't that what adventure is? You don't know how it's going to turn out, do you?
Today's ride: 44 miles (71 km)
Total: 160 miles (257 km)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 2 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |