Mysterious Girlfriend Read online

  Within fifteen minutes, the driver slammed on the brakes as he found the road ahead littered with rocks and small-scale fires. Clearly, the peasants were revolting (over the government’s planned sale of oil to Chile, it transpired). We cowered on the floor as the bus was bombarded with rock missiles hurled at us by people with faces portraying anger and aggression, as the driver pushed the bus urgently into reverse and parked up a safe distance from the centre of the disturbance to consider options. Calling the British Embassy looked a promising idea, but it was closed for the weekend; ‘open on Monday morning’ their answerphone advised. At this point, the guide decided to lock the occupants in the bus ‘for our own safety’, but the general feeling was that we had become sitting ducks without any cards in our hand to play. As midnight approached and two more attempts to get through the roadblock forced us to retreat, the driver, with lights off, made a third attempt before suddenly swinging off the paved road, running the gauntlet of the ever-present rocks and fierce fires, lurching across the pitch-dark tundra with temperatures by now well below zero at 13,000 feet above sea level.

  Were we now back on our way at last into La Paz? Not really. Within half an hour, the bus ran itself into a dried-up riverbed where it got stuck with its rear wheels in the air. In the middle distance, blurred human figures loomed out of the darkness, friend or foe, we knew not. Time for all the men, shivering and still dressed in shorts and sandals, to put shoulders to the wheel, so to speak, and try and dig it out. Eventually, it shifted, and as we approached the outskirts of La Paz at 3am, our guide went on to autopilot: “Welcome to La Paz, capital of Bolivia, with a population of two million people,” just what we were all dying to know. She offers us a tour the next day to Death Road, ‘the world’s most dangerous road’. What a sense of humour!

  Chapter 4

  Burma/Myanmar

  Including Rakhine State

  It remains impossible to use the internet effectively in Burma or Myanmar as it is now called, as all emails are restricted, so keeping a blog is problematic. This means entries must be made before entering and after returning from the country, and, keeping our fingers crossed, in between times.

  However, the plan is to start, as usual, in Rangoon/Yangon, heading south to the site of the precariously balanced Golden Rock, then on to Mandalay back up north, before heading into the Shan States and by rail up towards the border with China. We then retrace our steps back to Mandalay and the serene Inle Lake with its curious ‘one-legged’ fishermen, and finally up to Rakhine State on the border with Bangladesh. Travel will involve planes, trains, cars, ox-carts and assorted rivercraft.

  Myanmar is divided by the government into three security zones: white (safe for visitors), brown (occasional disturbances) and black (no-go areas). Last year, we stayed white; this year, we went brown and to the fringes of black, as it were.

  To put it another way, we moved from majority Burmese areas, Yangon, Mandalay etc. to minority and hill-tribe areas: Mon minority in the south, Shan/Palaung in the north east, Chin in the north west, and the Rohingya in Arakan/Rakhine province near the Bangladesh border, the most interesting and unexplored part of the country by tourists.

  After a two-stop flight to the seaport of Sittwe (known by the British as Akyab) and the first part of Burma annexed by Britain in 1824/6), we took an ancient rusting tramp steamer for eight hours inland to the ancient capital of Mrauk-U founded in 1431. Our journey was a bit hairy at times as we hugged the low grassy river banks, because we were advised that five Spaniards had drowned here last year in a freak tornado, and because our boat appeared to have no communications equipment at all, and not much lighting equipment either, as we crept up the increasingly narrow river tributaries, I was asked to turn off my torch as it prevented the captain, who looked about twelve years old, from reading the stars for tracking our route. It felt a bit like Humphrey Bogart in the film African Queen as we inched up ever-narrower channels towards our goal: a town difficult to make out in the pitch dark, as the only generator in town had broken down five days earlier, and there was only the odd candlelight showing. Not a promising start.

  Mrauk-U, an ancient city which four hundred years ago traded with Portugal and the Netherlands, has a population of about 60,000, mostly very poor, and about fifteen motorised vehicles exclusively used by the army or the occasional tourist; I was keen to make it clear to the locals we passed that we were in the latter group. The military is none too popular up here. The vehicles were all sixty years old US Willy jeeps left over from WWII and held together with string and Sellotape, but fully protected by swinging Buddha images on the mirror and sotto voce praying by the driver. Our vehicle broke down completely in the countryside on the last day, but fortunately all drivers have to be keen mechanics to survive.

  The temples, built over the course of 350 years during the city’s heyday, were utterly amazing, especially the Koe-Thaung temple, also known as the shrine of 90,000 Buddha images, where we had the place to ourselves. Here again, you could count the number of foreigners on one hand, on some days less than one, no doubt put off by the lack of access; roads exist but minorities get low priority for maintenance, medicines, power, schools etc., so the area is effectively cut off from the rest of the country except for river supplies.

  On day two, we headed further north to the border of the ‘black’ Chin state, bordering India to see the famous Chin women with their heavily tattooed faces, apparently designed to ward off the attentions of randy princes in days gone by. I guess the Cinderella story is not big in these parts. The three-hour boat trip each way was interrupted on the way back by the propeller getting snagged on sacking, but my trusty Swiss knife saved the day and got us home before dark, just as well with the number of huge bamboo rafts strung together transporting goods south to market.

  Inevitably, our departure by boat was not problem-free as the battery on the rust-bucket back to Sittwe was dead as a dodo, so a new one had to be located, no mean feat in a country that may be rich in rice, vegetable and fruit but seems here to have little beyond the ability to feed its people such as technology, communications, power etc. However, we were pleased to be able to make a donation to help set up a school for the Chin hill-tribe, but saddened at having to turn down frequent requests for medicines for the numerous children, average five per family, all dressed in rags and with runny noses and skin sores, but happy as Larry, playing with handfuls of dirt or a stick, and sporting huge welcoming smiles.

  The other highlight was that we hit the annual elephant migration from their logging activity in the south to retirement in the north (it takes several months to move them hundreds of miles). The procession of eight of these creatures together with two foreigners (us) at the same time was just too much excitement for the children who gathered along the route. In fact, at times, I was worried that there would be an injury in the scrum for sweets or the chance to see themselves on the camera screen. There was a sizeable Bangladeshi immigrant population here, all Muslim and really desperately poor. Handing out sweets was like Christmas come early and I hope not patronising.

  We managed to retrace our route further south (by plane) to the newish resort of Sandoway/Thandwe for a couple of days to rest up and meet up with a few other foreigners, even the occasional Englishman. In the three weeks to this point, we had only come across a handful of fellow citizens, but many more (well not that many, except in relative terms) French, Italians and, of course, Germans. Apparently, the Spanish come in droves in the middle of the cheaper monsoon season, very strange as it sounds horrendous, 250 inches of rain in a few months. Anything for a bargain.

  ***

  These days, the country receives about five thousand visitors a week, or about a quarter of a million per year, insignificant compared with neighbouring Thailand, now well into the millions. Consequently, it is a different travelling experience as one rarely sees other visitors outside major cities. Really a bit like Thailand was forty years ago – I know as I paid my first visit to Thaila
nd in 1965.

  As mentioned before, we used four methods of transport: road, boat, train and air travel, much improved and safer than twenty years ago when I first came to Burma and there were several plane crashes with the national carrier: UBA, Union of Burma Airways, significantly reducing the size of their modest fleet of aircraft.

  Rail travel is still important in such a large country, and as with so much else in the country’s infrastructure, the rail network is largely what the British left behind before independence in 1948. This maybe explains why we saw a train stationary while the driver and fireman sawed up sleepers to supplement the meagre supply of coal needed to get it moving again.

  We were a bit luckier with our train on – the route that starts in Mandalay, and on a good day arrives fifteen hours later in Lashio, the Burmese end of the original Chinese Nationalist-built Burma Road which linked up with Kunming in Yunnan province in China. The fare, first class in preference to ‘ordinary’ class: six US dollars. We covered the middle section of the route from Maymio, now called Pyin-o-lin, in the Shan hills to the delightful little town of Hsipaw. We were the only western passengers, so the only ones not carrying huge supplies of vegetables, fruit, sacks of rice, ladders, animals and babies. The train windows were quite small and the air stuffy while the train was stationary and not much better when we got moving at, no more than 10-15 miles an hour providing maximum time to witness daily life along the track.

  Eventually we reached the Gokteik Viaduct built in 1904 by the British with American components to scale a terrifying wide ravine way below us. As the structure has received minimal subsequent maintenance, trains are forced to cross this decrepit structure at an almost stationary crawl (no photos permitted, in case it goes over the edge I presume); there are no side rails, just the track attached to the steel-framed Lego structure. We made it, but much praying to Buddha by all on board once we had safely reached the other side.

  As you would imagine, all the stations are crowded at all times with people awaiting the next sales opportunity, supine and motionless in the heat, until, that is, a bell rings to advise that a train has just left the previous station. A buzz goes around, and some shuffling of goods, but not at full speed until the next bell (the-ten-minute-to-arrival bell) when things really hot up metaphorically. In fact, it is a bit like a visit to the theatre with the three- and one-minute bells for the second half of a performance, and in fact, remote airports like Sittwe work the same system: the bell signifies that the aircraft has left the last airport and subsequently is ten minutes away, at which time the customs and immigration staff awake and make their way over the road from the nearby bars to perform their onerous duties once or twice a day. It would not work at Heathrow.

  When the train eventually arrives, the travelling salespersons, usually women, as men are required to keep the teashops busy at all times of day, immediately set up their ‘stalls’, just a patch of ground, to sell off their goods. This is where I had a spot of bother once we had arrived in Lashio, the wild-west frontier town renowned for drug trading, and much else, carried out mainly by the warrior WA tribe, renowned for their past enthusiasm for headhunting and other bloodthirsty activity.

  We had checked into our hotel as required, but this information had not been passed onto the authorities apparently, so I found myself of some interest to a government spy (not easily identifiable to a foreigner), and indeed closely followed, and I mean closely, by an armed soldier. It transpired that they were aware only of the other two strangers in town, two American NGO types, but not of us. All was amicably resolved in the age-old fashion involving palms and grease.

  As mentioned in my last missive, I had hoped to meet up with the nephew of one of the last Shan princes, Sao Ohn Kyar, who was (sic) disappeared over fifty years ago, never to reappear. Guess what? Yes, the nephew had been rounded up and sent to prison for fifteen years only a few months before we got there. The palace (more like a Surrey mock-tudor mansion) was sadly overgrown and locked up. There was much agitation from our minder while we were rattling the gates in disappointment.

  Like the railways, most of the main roads were built by the British more than sixty years ago, and not much touched since then. The exception is an extension of the old Burma Road being extended by the Chinese by private enterprise, not slave labour, primarily to ship Chinese goods from southwest China to Burmese ports in huge overloaded trucks. It is clear to me that all the huffing and puffing by western and ASEAN governments will never have any effect on the government while Myanmar serves this purpose to China as a major trading partner.

  Most of the time, traffic drives on the right but vehicles are designed to be driven on the left. This is because Ne Win, the one-time prime minister and military commander, many years ago had a dream telling him to change to left hand driving to ensure he would avoid being struck by lightning. This seemed to work alright for him as he died in his bed at an advanced age.

  Despite the inadequacy of the roads, everyone uses them: schoolchildren, women bearing huge packages on their heads, clapped-out smoke-belching ancient jeeps loaded to at least twice their standard height with goods and/or human cargo, dogs with 8.5 lives, water-buffalo, tractors straining their inadequate engines to transport even more goods and people to market, cycles galore, Chinese ones available for $20 dollars, Thai models $60, and Japanese top of the range for $200), never with less than three passengers plus sacks, babies, sidecars etc. And incredibly, there almost never seem to be collisions. Bearing in mind the condition of the roads and that nothing moves at more than fifteen miles an hour, perhaps it is not surprising that there are few fatalities.

  ***

  The last two reports seemed to have dwelt on difficulties and challenges, but I realise I have failed sufficiently to emphasise the highlights of what this interesting country has to offer the visitor.

  Three or four sights in particular are outstanding, starting with the third most famous Buddhist site in the country: Golden Rock, located in Mon State, south east of Rangoon.

  As the names implies, it is a huge natural rock, which pilgrims over the years, have been covered with gold leaf; it sits atop a mountain peak only reachable by a steep climb and a hair-raising trip in the back of an ageing truck grinding its way up from the valley below. What is so magical is that this huge rock balances on a few square inches of its base on a rocky promontory, swaying in the breeze, seeming about to roll off to the depths below, but never quite doing so.

  The second most magical location on this trip is that of Inle Lake in Southern Shan state. About twenty miles long and up to five miles wide, often quite shallow, the lake has been inhabited by migrants who came here aeons ago from the deep south to farm and fish, but who carry these tasks out in a unique way. The ‘fields’ are all constructed on floating reed beds, secured by water hyacinth and bamboo poles, and the rich soil produces wonderful crops of tomatoes and other vegetables, tended mainly by women in dugout canoes.

  The fishermen are now world-famous as they manoeuvre their long-tail boats upright, wrapping one leg around a pole to punt themselves forward, freeing up a hand to spear their prey into wicker basket-frames. They look like Venetian gondolieri with a leg deficiency. Today they perform more for tourists than for any useful purpose.

  The other major site, not far from Lake Inle is the Pindaya Caves. I will not bore you with the history, but merely say that the major cave is now tightly packed with Buddha images, often four or five feet high and mostly covered in gold leaf, as is the local custom. What saves these sites from being outposts of Disneyworld is that they continue to play an important part of people’s daily life and are not some defunct memorial to a past civilisation kept alive for tourists.

  If I have not mentioned it before, tourism is still at a fairly low level (in 2006 before the country opened up), at less than a quarter of million a year, so had not reached the frenetic levels now witnessed in Thailand and Cambodia, where numbers are now in the tens of millions. One has to acknowledge
that the generals’ efforts to keep the country closed for so long has meant that Myanmar today still feels like the Asia that used to be: untainted by the full panoply of materialism, a great pleasure for the visitor, and, who is to say, perhaps a boon for the Burmese, who still enjoy their old way of life built around agriculture, the social and economic importance of the daily market and a powerful religious life.

  The major draw for visitors to Myanmar and one of the most religious sites in the country, Schwedagon Pagoda, the Burmese equivalent of Notre Dame in France, of St Paul’s cathedral in London, is one of the most magical places in the world in my humble view, especially at sunrise and sunset. The shrine is approached by one of four steep covered walkways from each corner, as are most such places in Myanmar to protect pilgrims from the elements, either torrential rain or incredible heat, (often in the 40 ˚C at certain times of the year).

  The huge recently re-gilded dome at the centre of the complex is surrounded by spotlessly clean tiled floors around which an ever-moving throng perambulates clockwise in shoeless silence, stopping often to offer prayers or offerings at one or other of the various smaller shrines located around the main dome. After several visits over 25 years, it is a place I shall never tire of seeing again. If ever the country really opens up to international tourism in a big way, I fear that the calm of such places will be lost forever to the marauding hordes. Postscript: an elevator has now been built to make the visitor’s access less demanding.

  Chapter 5

  Laos

  A welcome return to the cultural capital of this onetime mountain kingdom, now a ‘democratic’ socialist republic, welcome because it seems to have largely survived the modest increase in visitors since our last visit five years ago.

  A greater number of backpackers but also significant numbers of senior citizens from a wide range of European countries, and from the USA. These increased numbers have not submerged the local population, as is now the case in Cambodia, and traffic is still largely made up of motorised rickshaws, bicycles and small vans rather than large tourist coaches.