I was planning to write in 3 or 4 parts for the whole trip. So that would mean writing every 5 or 6 days. However after yesterday, I have to deck that rule. Yesterday was something else.
We started the ride from Prachuap rather uneventfully, and rendezvoused with the rest of the 4 bikers in Kanchanaburi, near this new border. The temperature in traffic was 42.5 degrees Celsius. David and I met with the other 4: all on BMW GSs. Total tally: 1 GSA, a 1200 GS, a GS 1200 LC, 2 GS 800s, and myself on the KTM. We headed for the Pu Nam Ron Border, and home for the night was this accommodation in the jungle nearby.
Up and about at 6 in the morning, and we had to wait til 9 for the customs clearance guy to make his appearance. He looked like just got up after a night of boozing. Figures the punctuality. And we met up with our Myanmar Fixers. They came in a car and a pickup truck, and looked like hombre extras from a Mexican movie. Like Desperado or something. I was expecting them to pull out a slap of cocaine with say, a subtle sidearm like an AK47. And expecting them to end their sentences with “Holmes”.
After much exchanging of papers, and much ado about nothing really, we were finally in Htee Kee, Myanmar. I have to confess, I know little about Myanmar. Other than a teacher who used to own a Burmese cat. And of not being particularly fond of the smell of bamboo-shoot Myanmarese dish, and the fact that their alphabets look like crop circle drawings. And the men wear sarongs with shirts (which look kinda cool actually). And Kipling’s Road To Mandalay, I am rather ignorant of the country.
Hombre Fixer told me that we are the first bikers crossing this new border. I was like, yeah right, don’t bluff. Maybe there are riders who need some claim to glory of being the first to do something. Like they’re in the Starship Enterprise being explorers and looking for alien life forms. Adventure, expedition, whatever. Me? I call it a holiday.
But after riding for a bit, maybe there might be a hint of truth in there. Finally the Road to Mandalay has begun. And as I started riding, the nostalgia and romanticism with reference to Kipling and his text were gone. It was instead replaced by the Lets-Start-Building The Road To Mandalay.
The best immigration checkpoint
It was mostly off-road. Brown swirling dust, jagged rock edges, gravel stretches (if you’re lucky), and excavation works that cut into the mountain ridges. There were steep climbs and descends on slippery gravel. And if you fall off the track, it’s a sheer drop of a couple of hundred meters down, at least. More as the road led up mountains. There were boulders to look out for, and the best part there were these trucks, which are either in the same direction as you. Which means you end up swallowing a lot of dust and your vision is impaired, while you try to look for an opening to overtake. Or if they’re coming in the opposite direction, you’re squeezed to the side of the road, which can be made up of rougher debris, or a steep fall, or impending death, whichever tickles your fancy. To add to that we were told during a rest stop after riding for a long time, that our lodging for the night in Mawlamyine was 370km away. So was most of the riding conditions like this for the 370km?
Probably, because after a while the brain just switches off, and you just doing things on instinct or just plain foolhardiness. I remember roosting the rear wheel for a turn on soft sand for giggles. And braaping away like mad to lift the front wheel over rocks, and to chase away that curious, hungry dog. And not looking over that rickety bridge, while you prepare to pick your line, with only the help of your headlights. Because it’s pitch fucking black. Or standing and going rather fast over things I shouldn’t, and wondering when does this all end? Or scraping the dust off the helmet visor with my gloved hand, because they were that thick.
The best roads
I did manage to get my thick noggin to process some calculations mentally, surprisingly. Which um, looking at the speed we are going, the terrain (off-road, and very slight and very bad bad tarmac), and the fact that we would be riding into the night in these conditions with no street lighting, and thick bull dust, I did a mental calculation that we’d probably arrive around midnight.
I was right.
And it was bloody brilliant.
Braap Brothers 