At the time of writing this, I am finishing up my 8th
day on the this trip, trying to think back to what it felt like on
the 2nd day, the subject of this blog, my first day driving on the motorbike, from
Naypyitaw to Kalaw. So much has happened since then that it makes it
hard to remember, but I think, in a word, that first day on the road
was one of exhilaration.
My motorbike, with luggage
As I've mentioned in previous blogs, I have been anticipating
this. I've been in Myanmar nearly two years now, and as I've always
wanted to do anywhere I've lived, exploring the place, on my terms,
at my own pace, stopping when I want to stop, going where I want to
go is how I want to travel. You can't do that on a tour or with other
people. You can only do it on your own. Now that I own my own
motorbike, I can do just that.
Joko, stop now.
Most don't understand. It's been asked why would I needlessly
subject myself to re-injuring my back just two months after I had
major surgery? (Answer being is that I had the surgery so that there
wouldn't be any chance of re-injuring it) The few Myanmar friends
I've explained this trip to sort of understand it, but at the same
time, think I'm weird. Driving a motorcycle isn't fun; it's just a
means to get from one place to another. Certainly, they think,
there's nothing enjoyable in a 200 km motorcycle ride. Okay. Agreed,
to some extent. Riding a motorbike IS fun, albeit 200 km of it can be
trying, I'm buoyed by the thrill of seeing lots of new stuff I've
never seen before. See, I'm a foreigner. Everything I see here is
new and interesting.
Maybe some of my motivation is that I need to prove to myself and
others that I'm still a young man. I can tame the iron horse and go
where none of you have ever been. A mid-life crisis, if you will. I
dunno. All I can say is that I'm having experiences, compiling
memories and learning about myself and the world more than I ever did
during my years just grinding it out working in Amerika.
Lots of what's interesting on the road here I actually have seen
before, here, many times, and if you follow me through this trip on
this blog and my videos, you'll see many times too. Ox carts on the
highway. Roadside pagodas. Flocks of goats and cows. Vehicles piled
high with the most amazing combinations of people and goods; all of
this you'll see in this series of videos. Even though I've seen them
all before, it still gives me a thrill to be driving along and run
into something quintessentially Myanmar.
And don't wear feet.
This video also taught me a few things about using my GoPro Camera, things which I've applied in continued shooting. First off, camera angle. In that vid, it was too low: too much road, not enough surroudings. More importantly, holding my head steady, something I didn't do in these shots. Normally, when riding a motorbike, your head is in constant motion; checking the sideview mirrors, you gear and speed on the dashboard, what's coming up around the next turn. That leads to jerkiness in video. I'm shooting better now.
I'm in the second half of my vacation now, which is mostly beach time. Time I can work on new videos too.
Road Report: Distance: 221 km Time: 6.5 hours Road Conditions (see the key): Excellent 5%; Good 65%; Fair 30%
I've been hooked on motorcycle touring ever since I was in Thailand. Riding a motorbike through the roads of a developing country can be tiring at times. Perhaps even a little dangerous. It's worth it. Getting away from where the foreigners usually are allows me to see the country more as it really is, as opposed to how it's presented.
As I've said before, having the motorbike has been the best part of moving to Naypyitaw; motorcycles are banned from the city streets of Yangon. My travel companion Chris and I were planning our first multi-day journey. The goal was to visit Taungdwingyi, a small city about 100 miles west of Naypyitaw, visit the ruins of 2000 year-old city called Beikthano, get a hotel there and then drive back via a different route the next day.
I was interested in the ruins, but the real thrill was going to be the drive itself. You can see the route we'd planned on the map above, but let me expand on it by explaining a bit about the geography of Myanmar. As you can see on the topographic map, the country is bounded on either side by tall mountain ranges.
The center of
the country is a big valley, but the lowlands themselves are split down the middle by a range of hills. They're not that tall, but we were expecting them to be scenic. Naypyitaw sits in the eastern half of the valley. Taungdwingyi is just on the other side of the hills in the western half, the Ayerwaddy River valley. The cool thing about this trip was that we had a boundary to cross; an obstacle to overcome.
We left early in the morning and as soon as we got out of the sprawling metro Naypyitaw area, the beauty, the intense greenness all around, and eventually, the rolling contours of the Bago Hills just had us smiling ear to ear. This is why we're here: to explore a new country.
The people we passed, sat with in tea shops and interacted with were very curious about us. Full of smiles and often dumbstruck when we appeared, this was obviously just as new for them as it was for us. If you think about it, Myanmar has been closed to outsiders for 45 years before opening up in 2010. Up here in the capital, most of the foreigners here are older than Chris and even I, so on the whole, they're not the kind who go out and adventure. Our Taungdwingyi Loop certainly isn't on any tourist guidebook or website. Despite being close to a
Was that a caucasian driving by?
UNESCO World Heritage Site (the Beikthona ruins), Taungdwingyi doesn't have a page on Witkitravel.org, isn't mentioned at all on TripAdvisor or Lonely Planet. Even go-myanmar.com ignores it. It's certainly within the realm of possibility that we were the first westerners the hill-dwelling locals had ever seen in their entire lives.
Myanmar is a nation of lots of different ethnic groups. One of the largest is the Karen people who mostly live in the mountains on the east side of the country as well across the border in Thailand. I found it interesting that I noticed lots of Karen-style costumes on the people of these hills. After looking at a map of the ethnic groups of Myanmar, I saw that these hills west of Naypyitaw are inhabited by Burmo-Karen people, i.e., a mixed ethnicity. The woman in the picture above has very Karen-like facial features, but her grandson is wearing thannaka, a wood-based facial sunscreen that is traditionaly Burmese.
My friend Chris had recently purchased a new toy: a GoPro video camera. These miniature cameras record in HD, are rugged and durable and come with a variety of accessories that allow you to do things like attach it to the top of a motorcycle helmet. I so want one.
The video I made uses clips from my camera as well as new perspectives made possible by the GoPro. I'll share some screen grabs before the video. Please watch and comment on YouTube!
The Bago Hills had a big sky.
Getting to ride on the top of a truck and seeing foreign tourists in your area for the first time makes for a happy occurrence.
We filled up three times on our journey. Up in the hills, this is a gas station.
Funny framing on this one. Toddlers now available in convenient plastic containers!
Rush Hour on Myanmar's Highway 2.
The gas pumping committee.
A lovely young lady whose job was to collect the toll for the road to Taungdwingyi. Mind you, the toll was 100 Kyats, i.e., 8 cents.
I was worried about the roads, this being the tail end of the rainy season. We've been foiled by ruds-turned-to-mud before. There was only one small stretch of that on the journey to Taungdwingyi.
I've had an interesting (to me, anyways) last couple days, and so
I thought I'd take a little time to journal a bit. Record some
details from my life here in Naypyitaw, Myanmar.
My morning class didn't go so well. The curriculum I'm teaching to
my government employee students includes a lot of case studies and
role-playing activities, which I think is great. These kinds
activities are excellent learning tools. It gets the students communicating
and being spontaneous in the use of English while at the same time
can be designed to focus on target language.
When they work, role-plays are great. When they don't, they really
crash and burn. In other words, student-led activities are a bit
risky. Yesterday's role play didn't work at all. The students went
off on tangents, sat there talking to each other in their own
language or just clammed up, stunned.
It's on me, really. As Sun Tzu said: if the troops don't follow
orders and the orders are unclear, it's the leader's fault.
Fortunately, my work day is only two hours long, and that torturous
class ended at 10 AM.
Time to take care of some personal matters. About a week ago, I
noticed this weird blister thingy on my eyelid. Some kind of growth,
an irritation of some kind, growing just above my left eyeball. It
didn't hurt or affect my vision in any way, so I just hoped it would
go away on its own. A week later, it hadn't. It had even gotten
slightly bigger. Well, the eye is nothing to mess with. It was time to go
find a doctor here in Naypyitaw. I didn't think the problem THAT serious, so my initial
thought was to go the market area and look for a clinic or GP.
Me with wind-visor-sunglasses-thingy
I'm driving down the main road and I needed to stop because I'd
dropped my wind-visor-sunglasses-thingy. When I stopped, the bike
died, and when I tried to re-start it, nothing. It wouldn't turn
over. No power, no lights, nada. Hmmm. What to do? I supposed I needed
a mechanic. I called my teacher liaison and gave her the phone number
of the dealership I've only owned the bike for 3 weeks, so I figured they needed to take care of this. I wasn't in the
middle of nowhere, but pretty much anywhere in Naypyitaw is a long
way from somewhere. I wanted the dealership to send a mechanic to my
location. It was really hot (95F/32C). There was little shade. There
was some back and forth via text message as the dealer wanted to know
exactly where I was, and during this, I thought to myself I can
try to fix this. I've owned motorcycles my whole life and have done several basic
repairs myself, but none since moving to Asia with its abundant and
inexpensive bike mechanics.
The bike came with a little toolkit, and so I began to undo the
screws for the battery cover. I figured the problem was obviously
electrical and so the battery would be the place to start. Presently,
a truck pulled over and a good Samaritan jumped out, offering to
help. Through gestures and my basic Burmese (I know how to say this
doesn't turn on), I conveyed the problem. With the help of gestures again, he replied
Have you thought about using the kick-starter?
Oh. Right.
It's got a kick start. I forgot about
that.
Gave it a kick. Turned right over.
Crisis averted. My eye problem took a back seat as I set off for
Pyinmana, the neighboring town where I'd bought the Kenbo motorcycle.
I pulled into the dealership, showed
them what was wrong and they all nodded their heads as if it was a
simple thing. It was. It was the fuse. They replaced it in a minute
and off I went. I wondered why the fuse blew; I hadn't been doing
anything unusual.
Bike repair done, I was off to find an
eye repair place. I reconsidered looking for a small clinic. I didn't
recall having ever seen one in and around any of the commercial districts,
so I decided to visit a hospital instead. Best of all, they're all clearly marked on my
phone's Google Maps app.
I stopped halfway back to NPT from
Pyinmana and checked my phone. Aha! A hospital was very close by my
location and so I headed towards it. I spent 20 minutes circling the
hospital campus never finding the entrance. I'm sure one of the road
signs said “hospital this way”, but they're all in Burmese, so
there we are.
I gace up. I had noticed on the map that
the Naypyitaw General Hospital was near my hotel, so I went
there instead. Found it easily enough too. I couldn't miss the
entrance as it was quite busy. Hundreds and hundreds of people (I
hesitate to use the word peasants, but that's probably the
most illustrative) were hanging around in the shade of the trees in
and about this very large (1000 beds a sign at the entrance proudly
proclaimed) multi-building hospital complex.
Again, all the signs were in Burmese, which I can't read. Now, the medical profession, anywhere
in the world, requires a knowledge of English, and so I knew if I
could find a nurse, any nurse, I'd be directed where to go. So, I
parked the motorcycle and walked into the nearest building which was
marked with a sign that said simply 'medical ward'.
As I mentioned, there were lots and
lots of ordinary people all around, and the sight of a foreigner
visiting the 'people's hospital' was an extraordinary thing in their
eyes, so I was drawing a lot of stares.
I found a nurse and she directed me to
the emergency room. The ER? Really?
So many buildings here are painted this light green color, including the NPT GH.
Okay, I'll go where I'm told.
The lobby of the ER was packed. Dozens
of people waiting. Many more assumedly hale family members in groups
looking distressed. There was a large group of very worried looking
people clustered around one of the doorways out of lobby; there
must've been something quite serious happening beyond it.
I got to the triage station and said
“eye problem” while point to the pustulant growth on my eyelid.
They gave me a check-in form.... again, all in Burmese. I mean, I am
in Burma, after all. They helped me with “name”.. “Family
name” (wait, I wrote my full name in the 'name' box')... address...
also address... they stopped there.
Immediately, I was lead into the
treatment room. However much I sometimes complain about differential
treatment I suffer as a foreigner in Asia, just as often, if not more
often, that differential treatment is in my favor. No waiting for the
white guy!
The treatment room was intense; so much going on! A little kid
with a broken arm crying here. A nearly comatose looking guy hooked
up to an oxygen mask and a heart monitor there. Immediately next to
me, in a place that as I sat on the examination table I just had
to look at, was a guy who had been in what was most likely a motorcycle accident.
He had road rash all over him. Because
of the many body X-rays, which were hanging on a stand right next to
me, I saw he had two broken legs. Worst of all was his face.
His nose was nearly gone. His forehead was so swollen it nearly
covered his eyes, and in the midst of that swollen forehead was a
huge gash that must've gone all the way down to the skull. At least
his skull wasn't cracked as I could see from his X-rays.
It seemed a silly place for me to be
with a little blister on my eyelid.
After some time of me watching my
neighbor writhing in pain, his family members holding him down and a
doctor attempting to stitch up this massive head wound, Myanmar
George Clooney approached me and introduced himself.
Dr. Aung McDreamy
He was 6'3” or so (a giant by Burmese
standards), stunningly handsome, very well spoken, and of course, a
doctor. His features showed that he was Indian by descent which along
with being at most 25 was probably why he was working at 'General
Hospital' and not someplace nicer. Anyways, the George Clooney of
this ER looked at my eye and told me that I had an infection at the
base of my eyelash follicle. It should be drained, but the eye
surgeon should be the one to do that.
Eye surgeon? Sounds serious, I told
him. He explained that the instruments for doing this were very
delicate and one needed a very steady and experienced hand to use
them. That made sense. I didn't want anyone poking around my eye
with a knife who wasn't sure what they were doing. Dr Aung McDreamy
wasn't perfect; he didn't have the necessary steady hand.
10 minutes later, handsome doc came
back and said the eye surgeon couldn't come because he was in the
theatre. The theatre? He's watching a movie? What the heck? Then I remembered that
'theatre' is British English for 'operating room'. He told me
he'd give me some antibiotics but to come back tomorrow anyways.
I sat another 15 minutes or so watching
the poor guy next to me getting his face put back together, and then
another emergency occurred. Two guys got rolled in on gurneys, both
pretty messed up (again, I'm guessing motorcycle accident). The
second of them was being attended to by a swarm of medical staff,
which made me think he was on death's door. There were no empty
spaces in the ER at this point, and so they were working on him in
the middle of the room.
Umm... I'm just waiting on some
meds. I don't need to be here. Oddly, no one came up to me to
express this. Again, differential treatment; no one would dare tell a
foreigner to fucking move it! So I got up and stood next to nurse's
station. They immediately moved the guy over to my vacated corner and
began hooking him into the heart monitors and stuff.
I dunno what happened to him, but I
hoped he lived.
Eventually, Dr Aung McDreamy came back
and gave me my script. I asked where the cashier was, and he kinda
shook his head and said, “No, no, no. This is a free hospital”.
A free hospital?
Myanmar is the second poorest country
in all of Asia (only Afghanistan is more destitute). The military
government here has never really been known for always having the
best interest of their people at the front of their mind, but they
have free healthcare. I'm a foreigner, and they even gave me free
medicine.
In America, I've heard of things like
free clinics in some areas, but never would there be a free General
Hospital. Good for you Myanmar and the government here. The hospital
may have been second-rate, but it was free.
I went back out to the parking lot, hit
the electric start on my bike and got nothing. Dead. Again. The new
fuse had lasted a couple hours.
* * *
Day two.
Today is Friday and my morning teaching
went much better. This class is the most advanced of my three
groups, and they understood my instructions, although after
yesterday's fiasco, I took things slower.
After class, back to the free hospital. I
got directed to the optical department and once again was confronted
with a waiting room of 100+ people. I walked to the front, gave them
my medical file and was immediately let into the secondary waiting
area.
15 minutes later, I was in the
examination area and was asked to do a vision test. An eye chart, but
the letters on it were in Burmese. Fortunately, the alphabet here is
based on incomplete circles with openings on one side or another, and
so I just had to identify which side the opening was on. When I got
to the doctor herself (one doctor to help so many people), she didn't
think the infection needed to be drained, reinforced that I take my
meds and prescribed hot towel treatment over the effected eye.
Again, my charge for this treatment was
zero.
On my way back to my hotel, the rain
poured down. One of the things I've liked about NPT is that although
it's still the monsoon season, it rains maybe 1/4th of
what it does in Yangon. Today, that quarter caught up as it poured
all afternoon.
There was a break in the late
afternoon, and so off I went to Pyinmana to get the fuse on the bike
replaced again. Halfway there, the skies opened up.
Drenched, I pulled into the dealership
and said the fuse had blown again! Something must've been wrong. The mechanic
said that the rain had gotten into the ignition and that had caused
the fuse to blow. But..But..It hadn't been raining when the fuse blew
the second time! That was yesterday! Unfortunately, the language
barrier prevented me from explaining that. Besides, non-waterproof
electronics is still in no way acceptable on a brand-new motorcycle!
On the way home, the thunderstorms started again forcing me into a roadside restaurant. Good BBQ! Can you see the bump on my left eyelid?
Tomorrow, maybe the next day, I suspect
the fuse will blow again and then it's time to bring in an
interpreter to complain properly.
Well, that was eye-health and
motorcycle-health last couple days. I said they were interesting
days, but not so unusual. Most days here are interesting.
A few days ago, my friend Chris and I
went on another bike trip. $10 isn't a lot of money, but it's the
principal of the thing. Maybe since I got the free healthcare, I can
go back and cough up the entrance fee to the National Monument Park.
