The Road to Mandalay

The Road to Mandalay

Kipling was it who coined the expression? Is there a song somewhere?

Well actually I had flown in so the road was pretty irrelevant.

I have long regarded Myanmar as off-limits because of the politics but it has been slowly improving and many people recommended it. I figured if Obama can go then so can I.

Mandalay is not the most beautiful of cities. It has something of an African feel to it. Bad roads, poor shops, that sort of thing. So why Africa, not Cambodia say? Now Cambodia is piss-poor but at least Phnom Penh has a few buildings over 10 stories high (and it is eleven years since I have been to Phnom Penh).

Tony Hawkes in a book called "Beating the Moldovan Football Team at Tennis" or something of that ilk goes on about the number of holes to fall down in the pavements in Chishenau - the capital of Moldova. I have been to Chishenau and all I can say is that Tony Hawkes obviously ain't been to Mandalay. The storm drains are under the pavements (sidewalk to the yanks) and you are lucky if you can go ten metres along the pavement without a decent sized hole to fall down – obviously with pretty stagnant water in the drain so the mosquitoes can breed.

It is not an old city - essentially it was created by the king of the day in the 1840s. He must have been some rich dude because there are masses of temples, stupas, palaces etc. dating from his time and that of his son. The British turned up and stopped all this fun in the 1880s. One of the famous temples is made out of teak; quite interesting with some nice carvings but only faint traces of paint so the wood is bleached on the sunny side and dark on the north side. The thing was painted all over originally so why don't they paint it now. Doubtless some idiots would say "Ooh, you can't do that you don't know what the exact colours were." So what - paint is to protect as well as decorate. The temple is a contemporary of the Forth Railway Bridge (near Edinburgh) and they have allegedly been painting that continuously since it was built. Imagine what state the bridge would be in if some idiot said - "Ooh we can't paint it because we don't know the original colour." They should paint the damn temple and who cares exactly what colours it was originally - they might have been horrible anyway.

The main road to Yangoon (Rangoon) is dual carriageway but it is difficult to find a stretch where the driver can get over 60 kph – the bumps.

Cheap! It makes China loook like Europe. On my first night I found this not to slovenly sort of place. Chose a few things to barbecue add fish soup and two 640 ml bottles of Myanmar beer (not bad) - $11. After Liz arrived restaurants had - of course - to be Lonely Planet approved with the commensurate rise in prices. Myanmar is not big on night life. We tried a couple of things - some dancing show - awful and some alleged political comedians - truly appalliing. They were not funny, had awful songs and dances and a fair amount of anti-goverment stuff but funny? In a foul mood with a hangover I can fart funnier stuff than they produced. However, they had referred us to a restaurant (not approved by LP). Myanmar food is mostly pretty poor but once it is affected by their neighbours, whether Thailand, China or India, the food can be pretty good and this was excellent.

Stupas everywhere. Stupafying - sorry. To give even the vaguest idea I was stood at some joint with loads of these looking across the Irrawaddy river so the far bank was about 2 km away, I had a field of vision limited to about 30 degrees and I counted eighteen completely separate stupas on the far bank. They take the old Budhist stuff quite seriously here; there are loads of temples and a significant proportion of the male population are monks. They are not intolerant of other religions - there are a few churches of various types in Mandalay plus a couple of mosques and a Sikh temple. Of course the chaps are only monks for a few years, most of them - it is not a lifetime occupation so a large percentage are not adults - many give the idea up when lust gets into their mindset. Budhists strike me as a pretty harmless lot - tolerant, peaceful, not prothelertysers etc. - unlike those people who subscribe to the three awful sanctimonious, smug, conceited Middle -Eastern religions.

The reason why there is so much religous stuff around Mandalay is that the capital of the "Burmese" state in its various forms has been in the area (i.e. withing 20 kms of modern Mandalay) for most of the 600 years before the Brits turned up,

Even in Myanmar's second city everything closes by 9.30 - you to have made sure that your room was adequately provisioned long before that time.

Out for a day walk with Wellington as our guide. He is even older than me but very knowledgeable and not afraid to say that he doesn't know - a good trait in my book. It is rather a disconcerting walk in some ways. Once out of the town/city of Kalaw you see a mixture of agricultural development and fire damage. The bottoms of the valleys (which are steep-sided) have plenty of water - even in the dry season - to grow a good variety of fruit and vegetables. The natural woodland on the sides of the valleys have been replaced mainly by tea but also oranges and other fruits but disconcertingly large areas have just been cut, burnt and left for the ash to wash down the hillsides in the rainy season to become fertiliser.

 All photos courtesy of Liz Hart who asserts her copyright.

We stopped for a cup of tea in a village. We went into a "house" to have tea which is free but of course we lashed out a dollar each to take away a bag full. The house was one room about four metres by seven in which two families lived - ten people. What do you do if you want a bit of fun and games with your better half?

I haven't read it yet, but Kipling's book was about going from Kalaw (a summer hill station in the days of the Raj) to the aforementioned Mandalay. It took him six weeks, we did the reverse trip in five hours in a shared taxi. This taxi had something which I haven't even seen in China. TVs are everywhere in China, including the back of the front seats in taxis and most people have them on all day every day in their houses. What I had not seen was a rear view mirror that can be turned into a TV. So MTV had been on during the straight stretches of road; the driver had turned it back to being a mirror on the twisty bits.

Sam's map has three categories of thoroughfare - path, bullock track and highway. Highway is anything that has, or has had some contact with, a metalled surface at sometime in its history. The classifications are accurate and this gives a good indicator of how poor Myanmar is. It must be twenty years since I saw the proverbial old woman on a donkey in Europe but in the country bullock-carts are normal although with a good spattering of little motorbikes. Out walking we went well over 24 hours without seeing a car and we went through several villages. Most of the buildings outside of the city have bamboo walls and a good percentage have mud floors. Village shops have little in them - and nothing costing more than five dollars - because the soil is fertile so villagers grow there own food and weave their own baskets and material for clothing. It is not quite the classic subsistence farming (they buy metal tiffin tins and corrugated iron for roofs) but it is as near as you are likely to see in the modern world in a country where they are not all killing each other.

For those of you not familiar with Asia but are with Africa the banyan tree is the equivalent of the baobab; it does not stand so tall in isolation in a dust bowl area. However, it shares the massive girth of trunk (10 metres plus) with the attendant mass. A baobab is largely trunk with a few branches growing out twenty or thirty metres off the ground to give a crown about ten or fifteen metres wide and high enough so Elephants can't eat them. The banyan is often no more than fifteen metres high but can have a spread of forty or fifty metres in diameter. I have seen many banyans before but not like these. Truly impressive and it would take a better mathematician/engineer than me to work out the tensile strength (or is it compressive strength) of some of the branches to support the moment derived from such massive horizontal branches less than two metres off the ground.

We had a contrasting guide from Wellington for a two day walk - she could have been his granddaughter - but also very good if rather less cynical and rather more politically correct. She got more beautiful as the day wore on! This is not the rantings of some stupid old man - for a change. The women put a big gob of what looks like calamine lotion on their cheeks each morning; this is to help their skin and make them look more beautiful. The first may be true for July - yes that is her name; Friday July Clever - does have nice skin but she looked ever prettier as the gunk got absorbed or got rubbed off or in during the day. She is a budhist; they have an interesting attitude to vegetarianism. You can't eat meat that you have killed, you can't eat meat that has been killed for you to eat but you can go to the market and buy and eat meat that has been killed for anyone.

There are no family names in Myanmar so if you don't know people are related you can't guess. You can probably guess where July's first two names come from. The last is added after a few months when the parents have decided the character of the offspring. July did confirm that nobody gets called Thursday May Stupid.

It varies from village to village but they don't really have our concept of a weekend but they do have the concept of festivals for the full and new (they say no) moon. We were having a "homestay" in a village but these are well organised - there are sleeping mats and blankets with a few separate rooms. Our guide brought the food with her and cooked our dinner (she had also done lunch in the same way) so we were well prepared for an early night. Fortunately, I had some rum and July made sure that I had a candle to read by when the lights went out so I was all set. Shame about the people in bed. It was two days before the full moon but there had been a procession from the temple to the middle of the village before dusk when the women disappeared home and came back with various plant offerings - sort of Harvest Festival type thing - and then it all went quiet. Until 11 p.m. when this awful raucous loud music started through a terrible speaker system in the middle of the village. We were a good 200 metres away so God knows what it was like in the middle. This went on all night until 7 a.m. but I had taken the precaution of having enough anasthsetic to allow me to sleep well. July told us that you always sleep outside the village the night before a wedding because of the noise. She said weddings have 2,000 guests but I find that a bit hard to believe; it implies that you go to a wedding every two or three weeks throughout your whole life.

If you are in a country where most "roads" are bullock tracks it makes sense to bum a ride on the back of a front-wheel drive pickup with shit in it that is powered by a belt-driven air-cooled engine. These wonderfully simple machines are common in East Asia and fairly common in South America. What was the need? Well Liz was told when we arrived at our hotel that the best view of sunset was at some vinyard but she hadn't realised that it was 4 kms out of town. Why it was so important to see this sunset I don't know. We were staying at the town next to Lake Inle but have you ever seen a sunset over a lake (Scottish Sea Lochs excepted)? Anyway it was in Liz's head so had to be done and I approved of the destination. Liz can walk quite quickly when there is something important to do and, apparently, this was important but we would be struggling to get to the vinyard with more than ten minutes to spare - hence bumming a ride. On the way back we were at about 2/3rds that pace naturally. However, the wine was not bad (I would say that after 5 months of Chinese swill) and the sunset was actually quite good with the clouds and the mountains.

Places to go.

Mandalay. OK - unavoidable really but use it as a transit station and do a couple of things if you have a half day or two there. Imwa and other places around are more interesting.

Kalaw - I really rather liked it - 1,400 metres up so nice temperature. The reason we went there was to go on a trek to Lake Inle but Kalaw is nicer; if you go, make sure that you have a walk or two around the area; it is a lot more interesting than the very easy walk to Lake Inle. And I say this despite the fact that we had a beautiful charming 23 year old guide for the walk to the Lake!

Lake Inle. You are supposed to spend your time in boats - Liz did this - but I didn't really get the idea. I cycled around and had a great time. I know that we always say how luuuuuverley the people are when we wander off to somewhere foreign but in Myanmar they really are delightful. You stop at a cafe or restaurant out in the sticks and you are immedately invited to sit with the locals there. English is surprisingly good - not everyone is by any means fluent but many have quite a good grasp of the language. You never have to ask for help, as soon as you stop someone will come up to you and ask where you are going. A small word of warning; I did get ripped off at the lake. In other places you just walk in and ask for the goods or services that you want and they will charge you whatever the price is - usually ridiculously cheap - but I saw this sign and I had to go for a haircut and a shave, didn't ask the price beforehand and he wanted $50 - a local would certainly not have paid a dollar. I paid $20and let it irritate me for the rest of the day. Yes, it was a rip-off but, at least, partially my own foolish fault and he probably needed the money more than me. Having said that there is a sight none of you have ever seen - short hair and clean shaven – but Liz hasn't sent me a photograph so it will remain a mysteryto all except Liz..

Bagan. I thought the area round Mandalay was stupafying - I had seen nothing. The structures here are numbered and there are 8,000 in an area of 20 or 30 square kilometres. It all really kicked off 900 years ago when the local king got converted big time and started building. Others followed and these things must have been going up at the rate of dozens a year for the next couple of hundred years when the place fell into decline. Some of them are pretty chunky, one has a forty metre tall budha and a couple of 30 metre jobbies to boot as well as a reclining budha round the back. Expensive though. A restaurant (in LP of course) was almost London prices, a half bottle of local rum was $2 - twice as much as at Lake Inle. Needless to say when I was without Liz I had a good lunch (with only one beer) for three quid. They hadn't got a licence to sell beer so it was brought by the glass because the police check regularly apparently.

The place has been split into three chunks - the area you want to see and, on either side, a new town and a backpackers town. Liz won't ride a bike or get on the back of a motorbike - the obvious ways to get around - so we parted company for the day and I got a bike. Frankly after six of these bloody stupas and temples I had had enough.

Pyin Oo Lwin. An odd sort of joint. You get the impression fairly quickly that there is a bit more money around than most towns but, although the market is very good - well stocked and great variety - it is not apparent why. The reason for going to the town is the botanical gardens. These were set up a hundred years ago so now are quite mature and worth a visit. They are four kilometres from the main part of town but the stroll there and back is a bit of an eye-opener. The houses aren't made of bamboo! Some are quite big with decent gardens and not the knackered old cars that are normal. Yes this is where Mandalay's Middle Class come to play at the weekend - one or two places were open until after 10!

Speaking of knackered old cars. Myanmar is an old British colony so naturally they drove on the left side of the road. Now they drive on the right. I assumed that this change must have been pretty recent because all the taxis we went in the driver sat on the right hand side of the car. However, the change took place in 1970 so not even the cars in Myanmar are that old. They have right-hand drive cars because they are cheap! Japan's tax system more or less forces people to change cars once they are six years old. So where do the old cars go to? Japan drives on the left so the cars are right hand drive. I saw very few vehicles where the driver was on the "correct" side of the vehicle.

Hsipaw. Part of the reason for going there is the train ride - but not if you are in a hurry. I had a good look at the track and it rises and falls (each rail seperately), and sways about quite readily on a one metre guage track. You can get seasick riding it. There is a rather large viaduct built by some Yank company 100 years ago; it was refurbished in the nineties and, to be fair, wasn't rusty. It is measured in feet, obviously, because the Yanks don't understand the rest of the world. It is over 300 feet high and about 2.200 feet long (600+ metres). I timed the train across it and it took 5 1/2 minutes (plus the bits in front of and behind me). I make that just above fast walking speed and that is faster than it felt like.

Hsipaw itself is nothing special but we did another trek from there. Our guide this time was only eighteen and was obviously a reserve but, in practical terms, the best of the three. He is a carpenter's son so knew all the trees, a tremendous spotter for birds and highly flexible. We got to our destination village for the first day but it was only 2.30; he was happy to go on for a couple more hours and stay in another village. Liz got a touch of food poisoning and, after a couple of hours the following day, wanted to get a tuc-tuc back into town. Tuc-tucs are reluctant to go to the point on the "highway" that we were at because the road was quite likely to shred their tyres. Liz was whingeing that she wished our hotel was organising her escape but our man came up with a big truck that would take her into town for a dollar in twenty minutes time - as opposed to $35 for a tuc-tuc in an hour. When we walked the road later I could see why there was reluctance. He (Little One he is called) also took me to his home, to the shops on his motorbike and Liz to meet his 93 year old teacher. That is what I call service. Another budhist who only lasted a week as a monk - two meals a day were not enough for him. As you can see Liz neede a little assistance boarding the big truck.

One interesting thing about our night stop on the trek. We were sitting outside the homestay at about 6.30 when a couple of army guys turned up in full camoflage with AK47s (or whatever they use these days, I did not ask to look at their guns - yes, I am a coward). However these were not Myanmar soldiers but Shan State soldiers making sure that there were no federal soldiers in the village. This is a good illustration of what Myanmar is, a rather uneasy collection of different tribal groups with quite a lot of fighting in their recent history (and present day in two areas). The Burma people are the biggest group at about 60% of the population and they live on the plains. Up in the hills the people are different with their own cultures and languages, although educated people speak Burmese as well. University education is conducted in - you've guessed it - English. Aung San Suu Qui is wrong, the country should not be called Burma but Myanmar. Imagine if the UK was just called England - wouldn't are Celtic cousins love that!

One other thing about "The Lady" - she is popular all over the country as far as I could work out - her photograph can be seen in many houses. The only other photo you see quite regularly is a "General". However, this was a revolutionary hero who was assassinated at 27; the fact that he was Aung San Suu Qui's father (she was two when he died) is rather more relevant today.

Would I recommend Myanmar? A guarded yes. The people are great, communications are easy (spoken, not the internet - many places have wifi but there just isn't the bandwidth) and it is cheap but there are limits on what is interesting - unless you like stupas and temples by the truck load. The six places I have named are all in the Lonely Planets top nine - I would suggest being more adventurous if you visit - bikes, wandering round villages, longer walks, remoter areas - that sort of thing. Some areas are off limits, allegedly because of opium growing although I suspect it has more to do with political issues. The military are still very much in control although this does not impact you as a tourist. Towns of any size have ATMs that work but it is still a good idea to take a few hundred US dollars in clean, high denomination bills. Wildlife - lots of beautiful butterflies, a few interesting birds but saw no large wild mammals and only interesting dragonflys of the invertebrates - but then I do have the powers of observation of a deaf mole.

Finally, I think this is Liz's best picture on a wooden bridge across the end of a lake– pity I can't remember the exact location!