Discovering Northwest Myanmar 9: Mawlaik to Who Knows Where!

Mawlaik. I was in Mawlaik a day ahead of schedule. I’m  guessing my reader has never heard of the town of Mawlaik; I certainly hadn’t until I began planning this journey through northwest Myanmar. Mawlaik is a little town on the Chindwin River in northern Sagaing division. There are no banks.

There’s two restaurants and two guesthouses. I recommend the AKZ Guesthouse; the other place didn’t seem like they were ready to accept visitors. 

My biggest concern as I rolled into Mawlaik was how I was going to get across the river the next morning. The Chindwin is a formidable river and there wasn’t any bridge linking to the two sides. If I had continued further north on the western bank of the river, I would have ended up in India and nowhere to go from there. The  continuity of the “loop” demanded that I cross the river. 

I needed help. I have a new friend who works part-time as a translator, Nikki. So from the AKZ Guesthouse, I called her up and asked if she could help me out making arrangements to cross the river. I was willing to pay whatever it cost, but I said I didn’t think it should cost more than 10,000. I ended up paying 10,000 Kyats ($7). 

In the course of the translated conversation, the locals there in Mawlaik were really against the idea of me going to my next destination, 75 miles up the Chindwin River to the town of Pyaungbin. No, they said, Pyaungbin is controlled by drug traffickers and rebels. You shouldn’t go there. It’s not safe!

Ha. Telling me I shouldn’t do something is a surefire way to get me to do it. 

After a white-knuckle crossing of the river (I was so freaked out by the boat trip! I really felt like I was gonna end up in the drink!), I headed up the road north towards Pyaungbin. After about 10 miles, the road conditions got so bad that I had to stop and think about what I was doing. It had been raining recently, and much of the road was mud. Now, the CRF250 motorcycle I was on had no problem getting through the mud, but I didn’t enjoy it. Too many bad memories of motorcycle journeys being thwarted by muddy roads. Heck with it.

My plan for the next day was to take a road that only appeared on some maps. Guaranteed to be a torturous miasma of muddy roads. So, I turned around.

I wasn’t getting back on that boat, and the next accommodation was some 250 km away, almost all the way back to Mandalay. I got a flat tire along the way.  It was already dark when I rolled into Ye-U.