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Published: July 25th 2006
The arctic zephyr plays sweetly across my hot and clammy skin, momentarily transporting me from hot and dusty Mandalay to a cooling mountain meadow. I stand in bliss as the air conditioner artificially aids my body’s sweaty-messy attempts at natural temperature regulation. We’d arrived in the late afternoon after a day’s travelling down from the cooling hills into the steamy plains. Then after only a short AC fix we reentered the furnace, the body once again preparing for battle as beads of sweat appeared almost instantaneously and quickly formed a defensive layer of moisture.
After commandeering a cycle rickshaw we were on our way around the Royal Palace’s 4sq. km moat, to catch the sunset atop Mandalay Hill. At the foot of the hill we shed our shoes and began frantically dashing up the 700 plus steps in an attempt to reach the summit before the natural party - which waits for no man - ended in a blaze of glory. Climbing past religious curio sellers and giant golden Buddhas, pausing briefly for breath and to view the Mandalay cityscape sprawling beneath - though despite every metre gained in height, the earth continues revolving at a thousand miles an hour
in its relentless goal of hiding the sun beyond the horizon before we reach the summit.
Admitting defeat we began our retreat with the vow to try another day… we never did. For when we returned to our room, the sweat poured and the AC was tuned for its maximum test; we stripped off our sodden clothes and slumped exhausted into a deep refreshing sleep. I awoke in the middle of the night freezing, my throat dry, swollen and sore. I immediately turned off the AC, drank a litre of water and stumbled back into bed. In the morning we were both struck down with flu-like symptoms. In effect, what we had done was exit a hot and humid Moscow nightclub in winter and foolishly fallen asleep in the frozen gutter. We were out of action for the best part of a week… self-diagnosis pointed to a possible combination of Plague and Bird flu - aka *H5N1* aaarrrgghhhhh!
Cathay, Xanadu, Samarqand, Timbuktu… For me Mandalay has always been the most exotic place name I can think of. In the conflict between romance and reality it was bound to fall short. Amid ongoing illness, and the realisation that there
weren’t actually many ‘attractions’ within Mandalay to lure us from our sickbed, we only ventured outside for essential drug runs and meal times, leaving me just fleeting and disjointed glimpses of Mandalay.
Mandalay was the last capital of Myanmar before the British rolled into town. With them they brought many immigrants and encouraged others to invest. It was the first large city in Myanmar we’d visited and it lived up to its geographical location almost exactly. A city that felt like a hodge-podge mixture of Thailand, Bangladesh, India and China; from the people, the food, the culture, the architecture and the ambience.
After being cocooned in the room for almost a week it was easy to swallow the $16US fee for the tourist boat to Bagan, rather than face the very cheap, very hot and very rickety bus. The tourist boat allowed us to drift peacefully down the Irrawaddy River on Kipling’s ‘Road to Mandalay’ and witness the sunrise illuminating the ancient city of Sagaing before the scenery became uniformly uneventful and I drifted off to sleep.
Myanmar’s premier destination (and arguably South East Asia’s) is Bagan.
Cycling out of town in the pre-dawn darkness on a
big black Chinese pedal bike I felt like a cross between Mary Poppins and Indiana Jones as I passed over bumpy roads among the thousands of temples that make up this archeological wonderland. Three white taxis parked at the foot of Shwesandaw Pagoda told me I’d reached my destination, and after removing my shoes I scrambled up the damp and crumbling 800 yr old steps. Reaching the highest level I came upon three taxi drivers chatting noisily, then seven tourists, silently waiting with cameras poised-at-the-ready for the sun’s emergence. They looked at me with mild disgust, as though I had appeared simply to sabotage their unique experience. I smiled meekly, masking my own very mutual feelings. I settled down at a socially acceptable distance from my fellow viewers and at the point I would usually reach for a cigarette and ponder - my body began its torture. For I had taken the decision in Mandalay to quit the evil weed, though of course when you’re ill it is easy - now that I was fit my body was asking some awkward questions.
The thick grey clouds totally enveloped the sky, basking the magnificent scene in melancholy as my body
craved incessantly for its fix. I felt angered and foolish to be here, on Shwesandaw Pagoda, and not one of the 3,000 others. My decision based simply on the fact that it was the highest, and since western minds think alike, biggest is best of course - come join the party! Looking out across this magnificent scene my mind was full of negativity. I was determined not to allow such a useless drug to turn my body against me and invade my very moods with its demands - though if anyone had been smoking at that point I would have willingly succumbed!
Once it became apparent the sun would not be making an appearance, the audience drifted disappointedly away and I was rewarded the solitary solace I head set out an hour before to experience. Hearing a strange sound from afar I strained to hear; it dawned not only in light, but also in sound. I was surrounded by a cacophony of sounds: frogs, birds and roosters all fighting to communicate somewhere in that spectacular scene, in what was essentially a din, I hadn’t somehow, even previously noticed…strange that; I’d heard somewhere that quitting smoking rewards you with a
heightened sense of smell?!
With Jennifer’s illness acquiring new symptoms, pointing now to Meliodosis or Ebola River Fever, we remained in Bagan for five days. A couple more mornings I awoke before dawn, exploring the ruins, though never to return again to Shwesandaw Pagoda. Every day the thick grey clouds were present, yet now they added a familiar ambience and mystique to the setting. On our last evening in Bagan the sun set, predictably behind a wall of cloud…Mother Nature refusing to bask Bagan in her most flattering light even for an instant. For why should she; this scene was built by man and has held out for nearly a millennium against Mother Nature’s attempts to shake its will, with monsoon rains, heavy winds, baking sun and massive earthquakes. So long these manmade structures have adorned this scene, it is hard to imagine a time without, or a time when they will never again be - it seems by proving their endurance they have been taken into the fold and become part of nature. Looking across the scene I was reminded of Christian Cathedrals, Buddhist Pagodas, Mayan temples, Egyptian Pyramids and many more memories besides - their forms seem
to sprout like earthy brown lotus buds from the fertile green plains.
That first dawn in Bagan my discipline had been shaken by a few clouds; I had learned a lot, and thanks to Mother Nature’s lesson I am almost certain to return to that glorious place one day. Yet I am in no hurry; since now I am almost certain to live for another century and people the world with my offspring…for I am a non-smoker;-)
When buying the tickets to leave the following day, the guy said he only had ‘middle seats’. What do you mean by middle seats I asked, “they are in the middle of the bus”…”Oh…Okay… silly me?” …Confused I purchased two tickets. When the bus arrived, we discovered middle seats actually meant sitting in the aisle! So after a couple of hours of Burmese Karaoke sing-alongs and two thirds of Titanic we got stuck in a river. When a couple of tractors failed to pull us out we were able to disembark, stretch our legs, and observe the rescue effort. Back on track a friendly Burman had taken pity on us and allowed us to sit in a real (side?) seat.
So with everyone feeling happy to be on the road again, they decided to skip the rest of Titanic (which I have never seen!) and got stuck into some government anti-drug flick! Though with the help of ear plugs the proceeding five hours flew by…slowly!
After a night’s stopover in Pyay, we waited patiently in the dark at a roadside teahouse for our bus on one of Myanmar’s main ‘highways’. In nearly two hours not a single vehicle passed us by until our bus arrived in a convoy (…and then three come at once right?). Fortunately space was found for us to cram into the back seats, since the ‘middle seats’ on this bus were being used to store luggage. And I’m happy to say the twelve-hour trip through the bumpy windy mountains to the coast proved to be a Diazepam Dream.
Ngapali, our destination, is a very attractive beach with a little literary history; George Orwell used to hang around apparently, and it is here Rudyard Kipling wrote Jungle Book. And for five days I lived like the king of some tropical jungle island: every mouthful I swallowed contained some kind of divinely prepared sea creature. The
Kantayar Beach
with nobody around for miles, I thought this rock looked nice;-)service at our hotel was exceptional and when I wasn’t being pampered I splashed about in the sea in an attempt to de-paste my flesh or hung out in the shadow of a palm tree reading and waiting for the nightlife to begin: Since nature had been a little rough with me in Bagan she rounded off every perfectly sky-blue day with unparalleled sunsets just to prove she still had it in her. So memorable were they, in fact, that I can still remember their names: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday…well you know the rest.
I never encountered a single hawker in my time on the beach… and it seemed the few jet setters in residence at some of the fancy hotels never strayed beyond the confines of their parasols. Feeling adventurous one day we ventured next door to look at just how the other half lived. $420 for a cabin-with-a-view! Not bad, but for a bargain $180 a night, you could get a cabin with a ‘partial’ sea view… and whilst admiring one of these rooms with ‘24hr electricity’, idly chit-chatting to our guide, she asked what line of work we were in. Working fast on my feet, I thought
of a profession allowing a hairy fellow like myself to afford such a place: “we are NGO’s,” I said, with a big smile. “Oh really, we’ve got some more coming tomorrow.”
Despite the beach’s undoubted beauty, I can never really see it on the backpacker circuit of South East Asia, with no nightlife to speak of, except that already mentioned, and with the cheapest room at $15US. Increased popularity will only drive prices higher and since Ngapali beach already seems to cater predominantly to ‘high net-worth individuals’ I just can’t imagine the average crystal clutcher in search of enlightenment fitting the profile.
I was actually sad to leave, but leave we did, in search of a completely uninhabited beach. Seven hours south along the coast along pot-holed roads is Kantayar, not on most maps, and since it is seven hours from the nearest airport: overlooked by tourists. The beach was officially ‘opened’ in 1995 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the military. They built the rather attractive Kanthayar Resort Hotel to cater to the influx of visitors, though, due to the beach’s location and Burma’s appearance on the politically uncool tourist destination hot list, nobody really bothered to
Beach life...
close to Ngapali Beach come…until now!
We got there around 10pm, a one street town with three restaurants servicing the couple of buses that pass through every day. At that moment I realised I’d left my memory stick in Bagan (containing all my photos from Thailand), then I dumped Jennifer’s backpack in a rather fetid-fishy-smelling dog turd. Both events combined would usually have driven me to the smokes…ha! We set off down the road and after 10 metres we were shrouded in darkness. Fortunately someone led us with a torch down a darker path in an attempt to find someone in charge. We waited patiently until a man arrived bearing candles and opened up a cabin containing three beds, some 40’s-style furniture and a bathroom.
It appeared the town received no electricity (ever) and our cabin had no running water. The guy sat opposite us in the darkness, barely visible apart from a flicker of light from the candle underneath his chin and then politely asked $10 for the room. After explaining we would find better amenities in a cave and suggesting a more reasonable price he just sat there motionless, the candlelight flickering off his face and the sound of waves
crashing on the beach just a few metres from the door. This continued for at least a minute until I sensed some kind of weird poker face-play going on and then offered the advice “Okay?” …”Okay!” he said and jumped up as if startled, leaving us in the darkness only to return after a couple of minutes with a bucket of water “Okay!” he said and left again.
With candles set up around the room it now felt like some kind of pagan sacrificial chamber, and with the smell of fresh doggy-dirt still polluting the air, it became apparent that we had some lodgers. On hearing the familiar buzzing of a mosquito around my head I turned to obtain an attack bearing when a bat swooped down in the darkness from our loft and took the skeeter clean out! I was beginning to like this place - it had Hollywood horror written all over it…would we even survive the night?
When daylight arrived we discovered the beach was indeed virginal and vast, and that in fact our cabin was the best of the bunch - the others having been left to the elements years ago. That afternoon there
was no spectacular sunset. This was replaced by a spectacular storm; with visibility down to a few metres, the rain coming down with fury, coconuts falling from the trees and bolt lightening dancing into the sea, I stripped off my clothes, safe in the knowledge we had no neighbours, and went down to the beach to experience its full force.
When I got back to the room, trinklets of water flowed down the walls and pooled on the floor, and as I frantically salvaged my possessions my foot went through it! I stood there with a smile - I liked this place, it had character - who says you need to spend $420 a night to enjoy life?
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deleted_3265
deleted_3265
Nice !
Thanks for the pix and the great writing. We'll be following (some of) your tracks soon.