On the road to Pathein

The last time I was in Pathein in Ayeyarwady Division on the western edge of Myanmar was about 2006. In those days I travelled alone as I was trying to recover from the death of Richard. How much better it is now that I travel with members of my Myanmar family. I learn much more and I don’t get lost, which is a big plus.  

This morning I wondered how I could break the news to Saya Htay and Win San that I didn’t think we could make our target to visit villages in the Ayeyarwady Delta affected by Cyclone Nargis. Why? Because my map showed that the distance between Pakokku and Minbu was less than a third of the distance compared to Minbu and Pathein. We were simply running out of time as I leave the country at the beginning of August.

Before I could become the prophet of doom about not having time to get to the Delta Win San, who is always joyful and optimistic, told how he met a taxi driver while washing the car and the driver gave him news of the road. He had just returned from Pathein and reported that the road was good and it should take us about four hours. I agreed that it was wonderful news.

We arrived at Pathein nine and a half hours later.

We travelled through Chauk that, like Minbu, has petrol oil mining rigs. From Chauk it all goes to China with the payment going straight to the old government. Now things are changing. As did teak, so it will be with oil – the money will go to the people.

Long stretches of the road are being made up. To see women and children, in particular, struggling with huge rocks in the heat of mid-day is awful. I learn the men are paid Kyat10,000 (approximately $9)  a day, women Kyat 5,000 and children Kyat 2,000.

Roads in rural Myanmar are normally one lane, so for an oncoming vehicle one has to slow down and run two wheels along the verge. The verge is usually several centimetres below the road so the slowing down can be at walking pace, which increases the time taken to get anywhere.

There are many other users of the road besides motorists. Flocks of goats decide to cross once they see a car. Cattle are other slow-down features. If a calf is separated from its mother they all mill around the centre of the road until the lost has been found. Dogs play Russian roulette with the traffic and an occasional toddler causes a heart-stopping braking.

The scenery changes as we travel further south. In the dry zone it is all cactus, toddy palms ground crops of peanuts, yellow beans and sesame.

There are also some Eucalypt trees which surprises me as Eucalypts are known to suck up surrounding water which I would not have thought a good idea in such an arid area. Then I learn that the Chinese like Eucalypts as their wood makes fine furniture, which can be of the same high standard as that of teak.

I am puzzled to hear from Win San that many of what I take to be tributaries of the Ayeyarwady, or small rivers, he calls canals. Having started life in England I think canals always as man-made waterways with steep sides, lock gates and much organisation. Here canals may be hugely wide watercourses that dwindle to small streams or burgeon into rushing torrents when there are storms in the mountains or indeed on any other higher ground. So, on many occasions when I ask if this is the Ayeyarwady the reply comes back: no it’s a canal.

The further south we drive the more lush the scenery becomes. Teak lines the road and it is flowering. Bamboo towers upwards, its lower branches scrambling over everything. All is green but in many shades and degrees of intensity. Rice in the paddies varies between emerald as it grows and a piercing yellow-green as the ripe seeds emerge.

The rainy season commenced some time ago here and the Ayeyarwady (old name Irrawaddy and known as the The Road to Mandalay) has burst its banks. Villages both sides of the road are under water and what I took to be a fair with people selling goods from tiny huts almost in the road turns out to be the villagers trying to sell their produce to passing motorists. The people of Myanmar have so much to contend with it is amazing that they are so cheerful or at least give the impression that all is well come what may.