I was up at dawn on a cold and dry morning in Hsipaw. There
was a nourishing quality to the air. My cold lingered, but had retreated from
my body and was now garrisoned within the chambers of my head. My sinuses ached
and my nasal passages were blocked, but my spirit was roaring in anticipation
of the adventure to come.
The motorbike I had rented for the week arrived just as I
finished my breakfast. Manly, powerful, and stylish, it was not. In fact, to
call it a motorbike was to stretch the definition of the word. Most two-wheeled
motor transport in Asia is fusion. What appears to be a motorcycle when viewed
head on looks far more like a scooter when viewed from the side. I heard a
German couple refer to them as ‘mo-scoots’, and the term seems to fit. Escalating
the whimpiness quotient is the fact that they are tiny, both in stature and power.
Like most things economical, they’re enough to get the job done, but not much
more.
I went for a ride around town to gather supplies and test
out the bike. I picked up a length of rope for the luggage, and bought a cloth
mask to minimize debris in my already taxed respiratory system. My throat was intolerably
dry from breathing through my mouth all night, so I decided to make a trip to
the pharmacy as well. Lord knows what I could buy over the counter in Myanmar,
but thanks to the Internet I could figure out what was what. Decongestants were only available in
combination with either antihistamine’s, which make you drowsy, or cough
medicine which apparently, at high enough doses, can cause dissociation, feelings
of euphoria, and strong hallucinations. I opted for the latter as it sounded
like a much better way to go compared to falling asleep at the wheel.
I tied my luggage to the back of the seat, and with a head
full of cold medicine I tore out of town. After only a few kilometers, I found
my turnoff towards the mountains. In an instant, I was a lone journeyman on an
empty, laneless road walled in by parched trees and dry hedges. Peppered with potholes
and noticeably domed, the thin, crumbly asphalt carried light traffic in both
directions.
It was almost 10am and the temperature was beginning to rise.
Wind blow across fallow fields and brambles arrived at my face like hot breath.
On the horizon was the mountain I was to be climbing all day, speckled with
sepia tone deciduous trees which complemented the rest of the landscape. The 32
kilometers of road that led to Namshan would bring me some 1500 meters closer to
the heavens, but the trip had already reached a new zenith.
I motored along at around 35 mph, occasionally passing by or
overtaking the odd motorist. The large and ancient trucks that ply the roads in
Myanmar were the most common obstacle, for they take up two lanes and can hardly
manage to lummox along much faster than a joggers pace. To overtake one
required squeezing by on either side after signaling with your horn. Approaching
one head-on meant slowing down and perhaps coming to a stop on the shoulder,
its exhaust pelting you with balls of air as it puttered by.
I continued along this road for an hour or so, making a
barely perceptible ascent. I was still in the flats, and had gone around the mountain
so that it was now to the left of my field of view. I came to a roundabout, the
first intersection of any kind, with two options: continue straight or turn
left and head toward the mountain. To the right of the roundabout were a handful
of structures and parked vehicles. Ruddy dirt from their surrounds made for a
seamless transition of asphalt to earth. I came to a stop and, except for my
idling engine, everything was quiet and still except for the livestock which
milled about. A tumbleweed animated by whooshing wind would have made perfect
sense.
I approached one of the open air structures and noticed the
by then familiar cadre of cookware which indicated noodles were served. I
parked and entered upon a small group of locals that seemed to be the owners.
One of the two women present was tending to a messy child as two older men sat
relaxed and drank tea. The other woman approached me and understood my request
for Shan noodles with chicken. The two men looked up with delighted surprise,
and the child stopped fussing around to take a look at the unexpected foreigner.
I acknowledged the old men with respect, and then switched my attention to the
child so that I could make silly faces. The childlike happiness I get from
travel was yearning to be expressed in its purest form. I presented a
restrained grin and wide eyes to the child, and exhaled a genuine and playful
‘blub-blub-blub’ of the lounge. I’m not sure who was more amused, me or the
child, but it seemed to go over well.
I exchanged general information with the adults in limited
English, and answered such questions as “What country you come from?”, “How
long you stay in Myanmar?”, and “Where you go now?” with gracious simplicity. I
smiled and ate my noodles in silence as they went about their business of the
day. When I left, they made sure I knew the correct way to Namshan. As far as I
knew there was only one road, and my plan if lost was to ask people, in the
universal language of gestures if necessary.
The road that headed directly towards the mountain, and
therefore Namshan, deteriorated rapidly. Asphalt became gravel, gravel became
smooth dirt, and smooth dirt became a wide but stony path, all in rapid
succession. The incline had become much more pronounced, and long straightaways
were replaced by zigzags. The scooters in Myanmar looked, felt, and had a reputation
for being cheaply made. I was already delivering some punishing blows to the
machine, and wondered if this thing would fall apart before the weeks end.
The distinct smell of tar met my nose and around the next
bend there I came to roadwork in progress. The distinction between how things
are done in the developing and the Western worlds were more striking than they
had been on the entire trip. The basic road building process what the same:
earth was leveled, covered with bedrock, bonded by tar, and covered in asphalt.
However, it was the makeup of the workforce was that grabbed my attention. Men
were using sledgehammers to crush large boulders into rocks like the chain-gangs
of long ago, but most workers were women. The women gathered the rocks in
baskets and splashed them on the earth to form the bedrock. A man operating a
modern steamroller compacted the rocks into a sturdy formation, but women were
in charge of the tarring too, which was done by hand. Buckets were ladled into
a barrel of tar kept molten by a wood burning fire, and quickly poured onto
freshly compacted rocks.
This moment struck me in a way that I am still trying to
comprehend. I’ve seen how arduous life is for most people in the world many
times over. I’ve seen farmers, construction workers, and even cab drivers for whom
life is very demanding at the physical level. This comprises the vast majority
of people in the world. What stood out here was the percentage of the workforce
made up of women performing a typically male, physically intensive work. Women,
from their teen years into what looked to be their forties and fifties were
hard at work under a hot sun, shoving baskets of rock and inhaling noxious
fumes. And, they looked womanly while they did it! In typical Myanmar fashion, everyone
had enough energy left over to give a dignified and genuine smile to a passing
foreigner.
I would pass the ‘Women at Work’ scene several times that
day on the way to Namshan, and my meditations shifted from the joy of travel to
the joy of suffering. Myanmar is a Buddhist country, and the very first truth of
the ‘Four Noble Truths’ upon which Buddhism is constructed is the Truth of Suffering.
“Life is suffering” were purportedly the first words uttered as a sermon by the
Buddha.
I recall learning this for the first time. It set my head
spinning. I was depressed and searching for answers. I had the preconceived
notion that Buddhism was perhaps the most positive and optimistic philosophy in
existence. “That’s the introductory statement?” I thought. Wanting to throw the
book away, I thought “Well, fuck this! Life does suck. I knew it!”. I quickly
realized the irony. “And, now I back where they start. Those cheeky bastards!”.
I’ve been reading eastern philosophy ever since.
The more I affirm and understand the inescapable nature of
suffering, more I affirm and understand my own life. Of course life is
suffering! You can’t suffer if you aren’t alive. And if life wasn’t suffering,
then why was I seeking explanation from philosophy in the first place?
I thought about the laboring women, and how hard they have
to work at jobs they don’t like. Yet in the middle of all that suffering there is life,
there are smiles. I wanted to hug every worker I saw for being so brave. What
difficult lives they had! What difficulties we all have. "Life is suffering" says Buddha. How odd. And so it goes, this bewildering song, this strange dance, this mysterious play.