Myawaddy to Hpa An: Dust & Diesel: the essential vitamins and minerals of cycle travellers

March 10, 2016

10/03/2016

Kawkareik: finding my cycling mojo again.

Ok, maybe all it takes is a couple of days R&R...

My original plan was to just cross the border, stay overnight at Myawaddy and start early the next day to make sure I could make the distance to KawKareik in one day. It’s only about 65 km distance, but there is a hill and based on recent experience, I was a bit worried. Once I crossed the border, I wasn't really inspired by Myawaddy and the hassles of finding accommodation didn't inspire, and it was early morning and a beautiful day…. So after changing over my money with a cute young girl sitting at a desk under a roadside awning counting wads of money, it was off for the hills.

First temple, Myawaddy. They won't feature prominently in my journal - seen one, seen most, if not all.

You have two choices to get to Kawkareik, left over the new highway, four lanes of new pavement and no big hills. Or turn right at the fork in the road and head up the old road. I decided to turn right onto the old hiway, and as Philip Malone said in his journal, it was a great ride. There were two police checks before I left town, the boys manning the second check told me to turn right for the old hiway.

I had the entire road to myself apart from the odd motorcycle and pick-up truck at the beginning. I made the summit without too much difficulty. Maybe all it takes is a couple of days R&R to restore my cycling mojo. There is running water everywhere, harnessed into standpipes and roadside barrels – great for cooling down. Even had a short snooze at noon at one of the many abandoned roadside stops.

There were probably more than 100 of these abandoned roadside huts on the old hiway to Kawkareik. Once the traffic stopped, they just died. Seems to be the fate of old hiways the world over.

Tight and twisty you could often see where you were headed or where you had just come from a few minutes before.

Near the summit, the road up the hill is down there somewhere. It's still very smoke hazy as they continue to burn off the bush in preparation for planting.

Tight and twisty two - with road works ahead.

It didn't get too hot going up either and there was a coolish headwind all the way up the hill. Going up was technically easy, even though it was a rough track, because I went so slow and spent all of my time concentrating on picking the path. Going down the other side was a different story. I had to ride the brakes all the way on the descent and carefully pick my way through the boulders and hazards. Breaking a bone or hitting your head or heavens forbid going over the edge was an outcome to be avoided. At one point, the road was very narrow with a steep 400 metre drop off. It did pass my mind that had I gone over, I doubt anyone would have ever found me.

The narrow road with steep drop off, old hiway.

Same road, same drop - focuses the concentration to the task at hand. If you are riding with a friend and they see you go over, they can at least point to where it happened. "He went over about here, officer." On your own, they'd never know where to look, let alone notice you were gone in the first place.

The entire day was spent either standing on the pedals to let my legs absorb the bumps and ruts of the road, or pedalling up hill, sometimes both. Headwear was bush hat for the ride up the hill and helmet for the ride down.

The back half of the mountain was in full sun by the afternoon and it was hot, maybe 35+ with a hot headwind blowing up the mountainside. Bouncing my way down the mountain, I was about 15 km from town when I got to the bottom.

My welcoming committee at the bottom of the hill Buddhist temple - hamming it up for the camera. They watched as I sluiced off/cooled down in the roadside water troughs and took great delight in ringing the bike bell.

That last 15 km into town was hard work. I hadn’t eaten anything since morning and was starving and running on empty. Stopped for a feed and refuel at the first restaurant. Two cokes on ice (I hate coke and normally never touch fizzy drinks, but riding in the tropics does strange things to your judgement) and a plate of chicken fried rice, it came to about $3 aud.

Riding up to the hotel I met Joe, a young Japanese mad keen fisherman and Surly LHT rider. He cycles with a fishing rod slung across his back like a Samurai sword. And at the hotel we met Paddy/Annie on a tandem. Their bike blew out a rear rim in Thailand. The rim’s pinned joint pulled out and up. They rode it for a week like that and limped into Bangkok. They bought a new set of Andra 30 CSS rims and had the wheels built by Bok Bok Bikes, same guys who built my wheels. They are meeting up with Syska and Geart and hiring a guide to get into China, then off across the Stans to Europe…. I get my second invitation to join this adventure….

Electrical supply regulator, Honey Hotel, Kawkareik. Looked like something out of a museum. They turn the electricity off at around 2200 hrs and you then sweat out the night in your sweatbox closet sized airless room. If this is as good as it gets, then hotels haven't changed that much here in the last 40 years.

Over dinner, I find out that all three of these guys, half my age, bailed out on the hill into Mae Sot, and far earlier than I did. All three of them chose the less challenging new hiway into Kawkareik, too.

I also met Yoly (Yolanda), Basque super cyclist when I started out in the morning, but lost her at the border crossing – hope to see her again soon. She looked interesting. You don’t meet many female solo cyclists and I’ve already met two on this trip.

Got my cycling mojo back.

Daily Stats:

• 65 km for the day, with about half of it uphill
• 800 metres of climbing, but no steep grades
• 4 = the number of touring cyclists I met today
• 2 = the number of police checks heading out of Myawaddy
• 2 = the number of cokes I drank
• 0 = the number of beers consumed (need to improve on this stat tomorrow)
• 0 = dust/noise/diesel intake on the old hiway (highly recommended)

11/03/2016

Hpa An
Dust and Diesel – what more do you need?

We all left Kawkareik at the same time, shortly after they unlocked the gates of the hotel, yet somehow we all lose sight of each other within minutes. I soon lost touch with the group when I took a samosa, naan and tea breakfast at a very busy action and atmosphere packed spot on the edge of town heading out. I could have spent all day there watching the proceedings and providing endless entertainment for the locals.

Today is a hi-viz yellow shirt, helmet and front light blazing day. The road surface is best described as narrow filled pot-holes. Traffic is hectic. It’s only about 1 to 1.5 car widths wide and that far right side of the pavement is more bump and blast than the middle bit, but there is no way I’m gonna even try to ride the smoother middle – I’d be flattened in seconds. At a guess I’d say 50% of the day was spent out of the saddle, either pedalling and/or standing on the pedals to absorb the road impact, one eye on the rear view mirror, one eye on the road surface under my front wheel and one eye looking ahead.

Right hand drive and right hand steering? Oh yeah! For reasons lost in time and to the strange logic of a mad military dictatorship, when they took over the country the Junta decided that everyone would now drive on the other side of the road. For many years they never bothered to change the road signs and there were no traffic lights, so no worries. So you cross over to the other side half way across the border bridge at Mae Sot and then soon realise that although you’re driving on the other side of the road, the cars (mostly imported from Thailand, I guess) all have the steering wheels on the right (wrong!!) side. It must make passing in traffic a hair raising experience for the front seat passenger because the driver can’t see the road ahead until he is fully into the oncoming lane/traffic. From the cyclist’s point of view it means for maddeningly close shaves when a car passes you – the driver can judge the distance between your elbows/panniers and their wing mirror down to the millimetre.

I witnessed some extreme risk taking manoeuvres that I thought would end in certain violent carnage, high impact shredded metal and multiple death. Yet somehow all survived, luckily most of these incidents did not involving me and my bike.

Lotta Dust. Lotta Diesel. The road shoulder is dirt/dust and most of the day cars and trucks are dipping their far wheels into it as they drive along. So the roadside vegetation for 20 metres into the surrounding countryside is covered in dust and there is a constant dust haze and by the end of the day you are coated in dust and salt sweat. Don’t know how much I’m eating and breathing in each day. There are no vehicle emission standards, no vehicle standards fullstop; so the diesel trucks and utility carts often belch out a thick smoke screen of fumes. The single cylinder diesel utility carts and two-wheeled tractors can be heard from a distance as they have a unique note and cadence that you can pick up from a distance as they slowly approach from behind. Each phut phut phut of the piston pumps out a big puff of diesel smoke. The older pickup trucks also blast out a big smoke stream of unburnt diesel, as do the older transport trucks. Thankfully, the newer trucks are much cleaner.

One cylinder utility truck: phut, phut, phut.

I will get my daily allowance of dust and diesel fumes every day I ride. What more could a touring cyclist ask for?

At one of my early rehydration stops, Paddy & Annie pull up and say hello. I thought for sure they would have been ahead of me. Later in the day, I stopped around 1300 for lunch and to escape the heat of midday (35+ in the sun). The family who own the place decide to adopt me, I think. Grandpa is older than me by 9 years and we compare notes on parenthood and the vagaries of old age. I ask if I can take a nap and they move me to a quiet corner of the shop, pull my bike into the shade and at one point insist that I sleep in one of their beds out back. I thank them for the offer but am happy to sit under the fan and doze for a while. Just before I nod off, I glimpse Paddy & Annie out on the road as they cycle past in the midday sun. Again, I was certain they would be ahead of me …. Welsh, Irish and mad dogs are out there today.

Sugarcane juice stop, the rowdy audience. I told them I'd take their photo if they kept up the heckling.... they liked that.

Watermelon by the slice - owner and apprentice.

Around 14:30 I rouse myself and head off to finish the remaining 30 km into town. Thank yous and handshakes all around as I depart. It’s still fairly hot at the start and I cope with this by stopping a couple of times to take impromptu roadside clean ups when I spot the big drums and vats of roadside water. They are there mostly for drivers to use to wash the dust and debris from their windscreens. I strip off, soak my shirt and bandana each time and ride in air-conditioned luxury until they dry out about 20 minutes later. About 15 km from town the condition of the road improves markedly. It’s still dusty, but now mostly two lanes wide with a mostly bump and blast free cycling edge. The last 5 km into the centre of town seem to take an eternity as I’m reaching the far edge of my endurance. I try a couple of hotels when I get into town and finally find one (Galaxy Sky) at 20,000 kyat for a ground floor room with aircon and a secure spot for my bike. Paddy & Annie get into town a bit before me and find a good cheap room at the Parami Hotel.

I met up with them at their hotel for dinner. Yoly is there too and she joins us. She looks at me quizzically and says, "your face, it is familiar" - so much for leaving a lasting impression on the opposite sex. Then she suddenly remembers and tells me off for disappearing at the border the day before.

I learn a lot about my cycle mates. Yoly is a super woman. She started in Europe, broke her hand coming off the bike at high speed in Belarus (got stung above the eye by a bee on a descent), rode one armed in a cast for 5 weeks, took the TransSiberia rail to Mongolia, rode Mongolia and then two months of high plateau China, then Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. Now she's heading west for India, the Himalayas, the Pamir Highway and across the Stans to Turkey – alone. One tough lady, she eats 4,000 metre mountain passes for breakfast.

I ask Paddi/Annie how they cope with the bumpy road because on a tandem your cranks are locked in synch, so standing in the pedals is difficult and the stoker can’t see the bumps coming and that’s gotta make for a rough ride. Yoly and I tell them we spent most of today’s ride posting on the pedals and off of the seat. Annie confirms she’s getting quite a jolting there in the back. We aren’t surprised. We also further discuss that ride north to the China border and it’s looking more appealing…

Never did see Joe the Japanese angler/cyclist. He's out there somewhere...

Cycling mojo still intact, but I’ll spend another day here in Hpa An resting up the legs before moving on.

Daily Stats:

• 100 km for the day, most of it flat or small rollers
• Heaps = dust and diesel intake for the day
• 2 = the number of sore knees and legs after posting on pedals all day
• 1 = the number of police checks today
• 1 = the number of fizzy drinks consumed
• 1 = the number of beers consumed (much better ratio today)

Photos will follow when I can find a quicker internet connection ... and that may take quite a while. Wrong - found a bakery/cafe on the river with everything I need: good coffee, good cakes, good WiFi.

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