All in a Day’s Transport

You have to work pretty hard to get around in these third world countries.  Here is a synopsis of the transportation methods we used on a recent day in which we visited the 3 “ancient cities” that surround the more modern city of Mandalay in Myanmar.  These cities have various sites that are interesting to see.  Like everything else in this country, the sites are mostly Buddhist temples – which, BTW, it’s possible to get a bit sick of, no matter how beautiful they are.

Walking – this is, of course, a no-brainer.  There’s always a lot of walking.

Shared Pick-Up Truck/Bus – this is a popular method of travel in Southeast Asia.  There are all kinds of modified trucks that act like mini-buses, driving around all day on semi-defined routes, randomly picking people up and dropping them off for a small fee (about 20 cents).  These trucks can get pretty crowded.  On this day we were on about 5 different ones.  And we occupied all possible parts of them.  First we were simply in the back, sitting on benches in the bed of the truck. 

For the next journey, when all places in the bed were full, they invited the three big white guys (Dennis is a 6’ 5” Dutchman, and Patrick is about my size) to sit in the front seat with the driver.  This would have been fine if there were only two of us, but with three we basically had to sit on top of one another and duck our heads down to avoid the roof.  It was incredibly uncomfortable and pretty ridiculous.

At the next stop they actually recognized how silly this was, and they invited us instead to stand on the back bumper area, hanging onto the roof (which covers the bed, kind of like a camper shell.)  It’s kind of like the way people do on San Francisco street cars, basically looking like they are going to fall off the back at any moment.  People in these countries do it all the time.

For the next ride there was no room anywhere except, you guessed it, the roof of the camper top.  So we ended up sitting on the roof with a bunch of monks in robes and other Myanmar people.  It was something I had been hoping to avoid, but it was actually fun.  We kind of felt like we were military guys on patrol on top of a Humvee in Iraq, looking down on the world to see if we needed to shoot anything.  We got some good video of this experience.

This is what it looks like

Manpowered Bicycle With Sidecar – we took two short rides on these rickety old bikes, where a guy basically drives you around while you sit in a sidecar.  It’s pretty ridiculous, except it can be quite relaxing.  You don’t get up much speed.  We’re not talking about road bikes like I use with my cycling buddies back in the South Bay.

Dennis Sitting in the Sidecar, Driver Grinning

Horse Cart – to go around to a bunch of different temples in the countryside, we hired a guy with a horse cart, pulling the 3 of us plus driver around on dirt paths through the jungle.

 

 

Three Guys + Driver Crammed Into a Horse Cart

Boat – we took a couple of short boat trips to cross a river both going and coming.   The boat trip was actually sandwiched immediately between the manpowered bicycle and the horse cart.  The sequence at this point actually went: manpowered bike, boat, horse cart, boat, manpowered bike.

Boat Carrying Motorbike

Motorbike Taxi – this was for going up a hill to a temple with a spectacular view.  We could have walked up, but it would have taken a long time.  So we first talked to a guy with a more conventional taxi (though not what you’re picturing – it was still not a proper car, or even close to it) while eating at a restaurant.  He hung around us for 45 minutes, but his English was bad, so we couldn’t fully understand what he was offering us.  We thought he said that it was not allowed to drive all the way to the top, so the best he could do was take us on a short ride, after which we would have to walk 45 minutes up.

We walked out of the restaurant and talked to a motorcycle taxi guy (you just jump on the back of his motorcycle and he takes you where you want to go.)  He said he could take us all the way up, and his English was very good.  So we dumped the other guy (I gave him a tip for being nice).  At this point the other guy practically attacked the motorcycle guy before storming off.  I half expected him to grab some friends and come back and start a riot.  That may have been his intent, but we left before he returned.

The motorcycle guy had one friend, so it was two bikes for 3 of us guys.  That meant Patrick and me riding up on a rather modest motorcycle, together with the driver.  3 men on a motorcycle is pretty silly when two of them weigh 190 pounds, but it was just an opportunity to get more intimately acquainted.  On the way up I had to jump off once because the road was too steep and the engine just couldn’t pull all our weight.  We must have looked ridiculous.  The way down was a bit less challenging.

An entire day of all this virtually constant transportation, covering probably 100 kilometers in total, cost each of us about 7 dollars.  Not a bad deal.  It’s all just another day here in Myanmar.