November 13, 2019
The Stinking Heat
Ah Thoke to Pathein
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The Stinking Heat
We left our guest house at 6AM because they did not provide breakfast. The only other time we got such an early start was from the “Keeping House” in Tada U. Keeping Houses don’t need to provide breakfast because few guests stay long enough to see the sunrise. We got to wondering, then, if Moe Myint San Guesthouse was also a Keeping House. At any rate we got an early start but no breakfast. It’s kind of sad that the only way we can get on our bikes really early is if no one gives us breakfast!
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We hadn’t had dinner either. We had walked around the tiny town of Ah Thoke searching but we were fairly certain that the food we saw would have made us sick. We had entered what we call, The Burmese Diet Plan; either we get sick or we don’t eat. It’s also called a Clif Bar Dinner or in this case, a Clif Bar Breakfast.
The humidity was so high that our mirrors were fogged over for the first two hours and it was hard to take photos due to fogged over lenses. We were completely drenched in sweat by 6:30. With the road surface again a continuous patchwork of asphalt we knew it was going to be an intense day.
As you know, our journal is titled Unmettled Roads which then begs the question, ‘Why are we on mettled roads/‘ Unmettled, or gravel, roads would actually be preferred to what we were riding on but there were not enough unmettled roads parallel to the highway and we wouldn’t have enough time to get to our destinations. As it was we couldn’t really go faster than 5 or 6 miles per hour or we would have been shaken to death.
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Otherwise, however, it was a lovely day. We have not seen a drop of rain while riding this entire trip. Again, the harvesting of the rice was in full swing all around us and everyone was back at other jobs for the first day after the big festival holiday. Again it was flat.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysphania_(moth)
4 years ago
4 years ago
I thought it was dead when I picked it up but I saw a bit of movement. I was so sad to have this beautiful little being dying in my hand after being hit by one of the noisy diesel belching vehicles on the road. I hope I had some impact on it. One never knows.
4 years ago
Today’s highlights were all about interactions with local people. I think I’ve mentioned that one of my favorite things to do in Myanmar is to go to the tea houses mostly because I love the tea which is a deep rich frothy sort of thing with sweet milk similar to Indian chai but uniquely Burmese. At the tea houses you also rub shoulders with the locals. They are instantly happy that you have come because they too love the tea houses more than just about anything in their country it seems. Tea houses are usually buzzing with lots of customers.
Being so far out in the country they are harder to find and not large when you do find them. But that makes our interactions even more personal. Our first stop of the day was at a tiny tea house run by a husband and wife. The guy who owned the tire shop saw us and immediately came over as did another man, each smiling and curious with a smattering of English.
We communicated enough for everyone to be happy and learn something. A hit with them is to tell them where we started and then rattle off a bunch of Burmese towns and they get the outline of our route. They are always impressed especially if we can’t get across that some of that travel was by train and car. But that doesn’t matter. They love that we are riding bikes through their country and probably they have seen no other foreigners do that.
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The simplest things break the ice. The husband was quite tall so I stood up and we measured and I acted really impressed by how tall he was. He and his friends all agreed that the Bamar people ARE tall and it was no big deal. But he smiled a huge smile and then was off across the street to their house to keep the baby swinging.
I had seen him go across the street and into the back end of a house several times and finally I saw what he was doing. He had a makeshift hammock made from a blanket and inside it was their baby. He would get that thing swinging wildly and then beat it on back to talk with us, not wanting to miss anything.
We had a lot of half discussions. They thought our shoes (Keens) were funny looking (I agree) and then attention went to the hair on my legs. The man who pointed it out, again the husband, put his leg next to mine and he actually had quite a bit of hair, more than normal. I said, “Bamar men are hairy!” They understood and lots of laughter ensued.
I love these simple interactions because they are not so simple in the end. I have said this before; We must be little ambassadors when we travel and it’s the little things that are the most important because then we are completely on their level. Of course we are much more privileged than they but that doesn’t matter to them if we joke about hair on legs.
And when we were finished having our quite long interaction with them I said, “Have to see that baby.” I went running across the street and right through their house to the swinging blanket. And there was the most adorable little sleeping one-year-old. Andrea and I aww-ed a great deal and told the parents, who were looking quite proud at this point, how beautiful their baby was. I took some blurry photos and a video of her swinging. It was a special moment that I believe none of us will forget anytime soon, if ever.
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Then we rattled our brains and sweat profusely for another ten miles until we needed to buy water again or have tea again. We chose both at another tea house at a larger crossroads. At the next table over was a policeman. I smiled and nodded to him. He did the same in return. I sensed that he maybe wanted to say something to us but I left that up to him because I had no idea if he knew one word of English. The other thing I try to do in these situations is to just act normal, chatting to Andrea, looking exhausted (not hard to do) making faces of enjoyment over the tea and also the chaser tea which is always included. It’s a lot like Chinese tea and it’s always in a thermos on the table. By this time the policeman had observed who we are and how non-threatening we are and has made his decision whether he is brave enough to come over to say something to us.
And he did come over. He shook our hands and asked where we were from, where we had come from, where we were going etc. He did speak a little English and I liked him. He seemed like a kind, gentle person. He told us to be careful on the road because it was too narrow and there were too many trucks and buses. We talked as much as he was comfortable with and then he returned to his table.
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When we were leaving I made sure I went back over to him to shake his hand again and to thank him for coming over to talk with us. He appreciated that and then he said very seriously, “Be careful.”
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And then there was a third interaction at another crossroads. This time the heat was really getting to us and we wanted a cold soft drink. As soon as we had stopped our bikes there was a man who had come from across the street all atwitter over us. He was so excited that we were there that he was bouncing. He spoke quite a bit of English and he was ready to practice it. It was as if he had been waiting for us for years.
Because of his level of English fluency (self taught by the way) we were able to talk about the government, Aung San Suu Kyi and a lot of other touchy things. All the Burmese we have talked with about the Rohingya crises have agreed that the government was wrong. They realize that human rights are very important and they sort of hang their heads when the topic comes up. They want their government to be better than it is. They all still believe Aung San Suu Kyi is a good person and will do the right thing but they also fear that she maybe doesn’t have enough power to change the minds of the military majority in Congress. The generals have their power assured having written into the Constitution that there will always be a slight majority of military officials in Congress.
He wanted to know if we were headed to the beach. He had owned a guest house at the beach but then the government came up with its plan to license hotels and guest houses if foreigners were going to be staying there. He was basically pushed out by bigger, more wealthy and powerful hotel owners. It was sad because he seemed to be the perfect guest house owner, the kind we see in the rest of S.E. Asia. They start small with bamboo huts and eventually they have beautiful bungalows and grounds with maybe a restaurant and are attentive to what the tourist really wants. I hope he can get involved with the tourist industry again because he is smart and motivated but I fear he is the type person the government wants to push away. I don’t understand this and it makes me mad at the Myanmar government all over again.
But it was great to talk with him and give him encouragement. We could have talked for hours, days, weeks, but it was getting late and we still had some hot riding to do - about nine miles. I have to say this, if the heat hadn’t been so intense we may not have had as many interactions with local people because we might not have stopped as often.
By the time we hit good pavement four miles from Pathein the sun was beating us to death. There was no shade. Andrea was reading heat figures from her thermometer and they were all well over 100 degrees. It was so hot……that the old wax inside my ears ran out! We were on a death march at this point. The stinking heat had become relentless and I knew we’d be taking a bus from Pathein to Yangon. But first we had to explore Pathein, a city we had never visited.
Initially, rolling through the old city to the waterfront - a very working waterfront - I was super enthused. Why had I never come to Pathein before? It looked absolutely fascinating and our hotel was new, tall and right on the waterfront. The garage was open and we rolled right in with an attendant smiling and smiling ready to take our bags up to the seventh floor. This time Andrea was doing more poorly with the heat than I. She dismounted and nearly passed out. It had been a horribly hot two-day trip from Hinthada and it was time to relax in luxury for a few days.
lovebruce
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Today's ride: 42 miles (68 km)
Total: 222 miles (357 km)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 16 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 6 |
4 years ago
4 years ago
Yves
4 years ago
4 years ago
What a wonderful comment!! Thank you so much. As Andrea already said, this really does mean lot to us especially coming from someone as familiar with Myanmar as you are. It was really nice meeting you and sharing breakfast on top of the beautiful First Hotel. I remember how your enthusiasm for your bike ride on the other side of the river overshadowed any apprehension about the condition of your rental bike. You knew that if anything broke someone would help.
Also, I think you would enjoy reading in our first journal, Both Sides of Paradise, a particular entry titled, Things May Not Be As They First Appear.
I hope we meet again someday.
Bruce
4 years ago
4 years ago