Today I'm sending to certain kith and kin the following summary of my late March/early April travels in Burma.
The 25 days I spent in Burma were the longest single straight stretch of time spent without working in a country other than my own. (And, truth to tell, there aren't really that many times that I spend 25 days consecutively in the U.S.) It's obvious that the love affair I have with that country, an attachment that commenced in 1984, rages on. I'll lead off with geographical sketching out of my itinerary: Rangoon to Sittwe (by air) to Mrauk U (by boat, that broke down for four hours in the middle of Kaladan River) to two Chin Villages (how disappointing that those villages weren't in the Chin State, but rather in the Rakhine State) by boat back to to Mrauk U and Sittwe to Rangoon (by air) to Myitkyina (by air) to Sinbo (I had never heard of it, either) by boat, to Bhamo (by boat) to Katha (by boat) to Naba (via 45 minute taxi ride) to Mandalay (by train) to Rangoon (by air). I had never previously been to any of those places except Rangoon and Mandalay. I stayed in all of those places at least one night (and mostly just one night) except Katha, Naba and the Chin villages where I only wandered around.
Does the above sketching out of my travel, which I might add was undertaken in the hot season, sound exhausting? Well, it was tiring--however, "eminently worthwhile" is also a term I'd use to describe them. But the trip was not without its problems. But, hey, problems give us all something to talk about and write about and the solution of same gives travel a certain focus it otherwise wouldn't have (not to mention a sense of accomplishment that is fleeting but satisfying).
Problem #1: Getting stranded in the middle of the Kaladan River. It wasn't clear what was wrong with the boat's engine, but it did seem clear that the problem was insoluble with the tools and equipment at hand. At least that's the conclusion that I drew from the fact that two of the four crewmen jumped off the ship and onto a smaller vessel (just a canoe) that was supposedly going to enable them to find just the tools they needed in the hardscrabble village that was on a not-so-distant shore. I had my doubts--hardscrabble villages are not generally noted for having basic inventories of sea-going equipment. Meanwhile, time passed. And passed. And then, seemingly stood still. Then the success of the two jumped ship guys was apparent and bearing down on us from an unexpected direction. It turns out that the ship jumpers somehow found a phone and called their "headquarters" (which is very probably putting it too grandly) in Sittwe which then dispatched another boat to tow us into Mrauk U. Rescue was at hand.
Problem #2: Operating under the widespread notion that "malaria can't happen to me," I went a whole night in Mrauk U with no effective protection against mosquitoes. "Effective" is the key word. Actually I was sleeping or at least trying to under a mosquito net, but I had the distinct and recurring impression that the mosquitoes were finding a way through it or around it. And indeed they were. By dawn's light I counted 32 mosquito bites on my left hand alone and roughly that same number up and down and here and there. It turned out that Mrauk U in the Rakhine State is notorious hotbed or incubator or both of malarial mosquitoes. If I had sustained just one or two bites, I could lived with the odds. But having over 60 bites seemed to be an instance of pressing my luck. Under the excellent telephonic supervision of the Embassy's Nurse in Rangoon, I immediately commenced a course of treatment--but the nurse made it pretty clear that if the mosquitos or even one of them had really been a malaria carrier, then that would be my fate also. The solution in this case was just sheer luck: the incubation period is now over and I never did get malaria.
Problem #3: En route from Sinbo to Katha on the upper reaches of the Irrawaddy, the boat kept striking sandbars. I had read about those in the "Lonely Planet" guide, but reading about it wasn't adequate preparation for having it actually happen. But the first few times were dealt with by expert maneuvering on the part of the boatmen. Then fellow passengers got into the act by jumping in (up to their knees) and doing their own maneuvering. I too was all for joining the community effort, but my guide strongly discouraged me. I sensed it would be loss of face for him for me to lend my strength (pretty meager in actual fact) to the cause. So I didn't (though my guide hurled himself into the cause). Anyway, we went to and fro in search of a deeper channel. But then calamity befell the boat because a vital part of the rudder was blunted, dulled or dented by the sand it kept bumping against. So we couldn't proceed until the affected piece was hauled out of the water and pounded back into shape. There was drama in the effort, but success was finally attained.
Problem #4: On the night train from Naba to Mandalay I encountered a phenomenon I wasn't prepared for. Through the excellent acumen of my guide, we had purchased an entire sleeping compartment for ourselves (plus another tour company employee who had the key role of keeping the door locked till the train made its way from Myitkyna to Naba). It was a bit after midnight by the time Naba was reached. Perhaps it was predictable that third class or no class passengers would take up squatters occupancy on the hallway outside the sleeping compartments. What wasn't readily forseeable was that one of the more enterprising of said squatters somehow managed to lock from the inside the door leading up to the car from the platform. How convenient for him as he was then spared the commotion and bother of having regular paying passengers crawl over him and having their baggage bump up against him. I later learned that a bribe of perhaps US equiv $1.50 must have changed hands to enable that feat to be undertaken. But such monetary considerations were the farthest thing from my mind as I fumbled feebly with the door from the platform in the Naba train station. It wouldn't open. What to do? It wasn't clear how long the train would be in the station and so a sense of desperation welled up out of nowhere. What if the train departed without me on it? It turned out that the train did linger in the station long enough to enable me to board on another car and then go back, making my way carefully over many bodies including tiny ones, to get into proper compartment. What a relief--which distracted me for awhile from the grim realities of that compartment itself: no airconditioning or even a functioning fan, dirty facilities, windows that opened and closed only with great difficulty. Still, a bed is a bed. (Having a sleeping pill handy that night was very useful.) Don't even ask me about the bathroom on that railway car.
Problem #5: At one of my destinations I was in flagrant violation of the prohibition on foreigners being present. I'm not naming the specific destination because I don't want to get the village immigration chief in trouble (one never knows where an email will be forwarded). I have no desire to incriminate that guy because it turns out that he offered the solution to the problem of illegality. This particular immigration chief happened to own a guest house and those staying in it were not only exempt from immigration enforcement action but also from the cumbersome paperwork requirements that are so much a part of guesthouse registration upcountry in Burma. No paperwork? No problem! And the charge per night was actually quite modest. The monkey (tethered, thank goodness) that jumped out at the unwary en route to the guesthouse outhouse just provided a bit of extra color. Gray.
That's it for now. No, actually I'll provide my current coordinates: I'm in the southern Indian city of Chennai but will soon depart for Bangalore, by air (unfortunately),. But I'll be getting a heaping serving of railroad travel beginning very soon, namely tomorrow. That's when I'll embark on a 6 day package rail journey from Bangalore to Goa. There will be plenty of sidetrips and detours along the way. The basic program involves travelling at night (in my own sleeping compartment) and doing tourist activities during the day. What a great combination!
