Bikes, betel nut and beautful women in Burma (Myanmar)

by Tracy Stanley (Australia)

Making a local connection Myanmar

As salty sweat and sun cream combined into small rivulets and leeched into my eyes, I blinked furiously, while trying to admire the surrounding view. I dismounted from my bike and reached for the grubby, green sweat towel clamped on the bike rack. I was suffering because I was three days into a cold. I kept reassuring myself it was not the Corona virus which had transported itself from Wuhan in China to swathes of people across Asia, and was causing wide spread panic, particularly at my parent’s house. ‘Do you really need to go to Myanmar on this bike tour at this time?’ my mother had pleaded. I, and a group of equally keen and equally unfit friends, were four days into the Soft Nut Bike Tour of Burma organised by our mutual friend Chris. Most of us were baby boomers with an average age of sixty. The tour was being undertaken in what is laughably called ‘the cool season’. This meant that it was hot and horribly humid from ten o’clock each morning until four pm each afternoon. The air was also dusty and smoky making breathing difficult, even for those without a potentially contagious lung disease. The bumpy roads were rattling my bike and my resolution to cycle all the way to Dawei, the end destination of the tour. Our indomitable leader Chris turned left off the main road onto a narrow concrete path. It was great to be away from the pre second world war vehicles thundering along at lightning speed. My pleasure at our taking a quieter path, quickly dissipated as we started passing burning piles of rubbish and the concrete path changed to a sandy quagmire. The smoke and piles of rubbish grew higher. I dismounted again, squinting furiously, before pushing my bike forward through the ever-thickening greyish haze. I suddenly saw the benefits of having a cold as I couldn’t identify all of the fruity scents, and pulled out another tissue from my rapidly diminishing supply. I blew my nose, remounted the bike and soldiered on. Our diversion was blissfully short and we were all soon bouncing along dirt roads through fishing villages, returning the smiles and waves of curious onlookers. We arrived at the Bin Le Wa beach and all forgot our irritation at Chris’ short cut through the rubbish tip. A gentle breeze restored our spirits and we enjoyed a seafood feast of fried fish, tempura prawns and tea-leaf salad, followed by a long leisurely slumber on timber slats in the shade. Our avocado shakes were served by a beautiful girl with a giggly baby dangling from her hip. When she smiled, her beauty was somewhat diminished by a set of teeth which looked like sunset at Stonehenge. Like many locals, she was a fan of betel nut and clearly had been for some time. Her lips were stained crimson and her teeth had broken and crumbled. Like all the women we met, she was a model of elegance in her beautiful sarong. We met her partner who was missing the bottom half of his right leg. Motorcycle accident we were told. This news surprised no one as we frequently saw entire families on motorbikes and without helmets. As the sun and temperature began to drop it was time to ride back to the town of Ye where we were staying for the night. Chris avoided our wrath by choosing the main road into town. As we joined everyone else speeding along, I witnessed a huge sack of something very heavy, fall off a small truck in front of us and wondered if, on the route through the rubbish tip we may have had a higher likelihood of arriving at our destination unscathed.