The Civilian, Zo and a Jaunt Through the Mountains

September 16, 2007

Burma is a land of mystery. It is the tarnished, uncut diamond of the modern world. Burma, now Myanmar, has faced extraordinary difficulties that have only even recently been noticed by the word at large. It is a magical, but broken, place that is about as far away as one can get from the Western world. Travel to Burma, too, is a difficult and highly political event. Some see the gross human rights violations there as grounds to never set foot in the place, vowing to not support a diabolical regime with their tourist dollars.

It’s a shame, really. Anyone who goes there, and spends their money carefully and wisely, will be blown away by the charm and warmth that pervades there. Then maybe people will sit up and take notice, will go out and try to change the systems in place there, instead of glossing over it in the lofty pages of the New York Times or on the BBC.

But enough political ranting. This is a website devoted to stories, and a story my dear reader is what you shall get!

I found myself in Burma with a group of university students, two botany professors and one intrepid guide, Zo. Zo holds a degree in biology, having gotten it at a Burmese university only a few years before the state closed the doors of all institutions of higher education. He works as a tour guide because there no market for someone of his skills and knowledge in Burma. He is probably one of the most brilliant tour guides on the planet.

But Zo is actually one of the lucky ones. He has a decent job, a home and a car. He was even fortunate enough to be able to leave the country to go work as the manager of a coffee shop in England. Most Burmese will only get the opportunity to leave their homes when the government kicks them off of their land in order to clear cut the forests or grow poppies for the booming heroin trade.

We hopped on the one plane flying that day, from Rangoon, and eventually made our way into the heart of the Shan State, the epicenter of the drug industry in the country, and landed in podunk Kyeng Toing. The flight process would have made the FAA blush. Bags weren’t checked, ever. There was no security. There was no screening process and little to no organization. There is only one plane that flies, crisscrossing the country all day, dumping passengers off as quickly as possible at one of three or four towns with landing strips. Military planes dominate the skies in Burma.

We arrived in the middle of monsoon season. Our proposed trip was to hike around the foothills and mountains outside of Kyeng Toing, stopping at various native villages along the way. We had two vans to drive us around, each Kremlin era boxes of rust, about the same condition as the plane we had flew in on– maybe it was a package deal from some fallen Soviet nation. One van was brandished with the name ‘Aviator,’ while the other was ‘Civilian.’ I generally chose to ride in the Civilian because the driver had a certain air of invincibility about him. Despite a crumbling car and horrendous roads, he never looked concerned, or even seemed to notice that the whole set-up could crumble into a rumbling, smoking hulk at any moment.

The accommodations we were given was a place called ‘Private Hotel.’ Everyone was excited because we were sure, we told ourselves, that we would be staying at a local home of some sort, sharing in the bounty and warmth of some upstanding Kyeng Toingian family. Instead, it turned out that our “private hotel” was simply a crummy, dirty, decrepit dump called ‘Private Hotel.’

We were reassured by Zo, however, about the quality of the place. It, apparently, is one of the nicest hotels in the Shan State and it had a wonderful generator in case the state power should shut off, which it does almost everyday there– so we would never lose power. Within three minutes of getting to my room, the power shut of completely. I was left dumbfounded in complete and utter darkness and, along with everyone, stumbled out of our respective rooms with rueful smiles on our faces.

Infrastructure, as you may have gathered, is hilariously poor. Roads, for the most part, are made of patches of gravel, sand and cow dung. A dead end is totally open to interpretation. If you’re in Burma, and you think you’ve come to a dead end, it is a purely theoretical and speculative moment. Is this still a road, or is there just less cow dung? Hey, this road is actually kind of gravelly! Are we on the interstate? We mostly drove at a brisk walking pace, which sometimes accelerated into a light jog. Being monsoon season, we were in about a foot of water at all times. The driver merely smoked his cigarettes and drove like an omnipotent god.

We were lucky, we were told, because a high ranking big wig had recently toured the area (perhaps, in lieu of our arrival– the country may be poor, but not poorly monitored) and the roads had all been recently fixed up. Perhaps not, though, because if what was laid out in front of us were the new, renovated roads, I can’t even imagine what the poorer roads would have, or could have looked like, and still even vaguely been considered a road. Burma is a land of mystery.

What would befall us later, though, would prove to test the mettle of both the brave Civilian, our transcendent driver, and ourselves, to the fullest of our abilities.