Riding adventure bikes across Myanmar
Welcome to Myanmar
29 April 2015 Thailand - Mae Sot Myawaddy – Bago – 360km |
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Our guide Jimmy arrived with his team to our hotels car park, introductions where made and the back of our new support vehicle loaded with our adventure gear. Myanmar was by far the most expensive country so far and we planned to make most of the perks. With our bikes noticeably lighter throttles twitched as we were escorted to the boarder.
Jimmy arranged the harder paperwork behind the scenes leaving us the easy task of stamp collecting. Unfortunately for Dan, an easy to make calculation error and unforgiving Thai border lady resulted in Dan paying a small “fine” for overstaying his visa.
Entering Myanmar we were once again greeted with a whole new gambit of road users. Heavy duty tricycles now hauled their various massive loads. The South East Asian special – the popular overloaded scooter, now appeared in many new variations.
At the boarder Jimmy had laid down some basic easy going ground rules. We didn't have to follow right behind as we feared but he was happy to set destination points ahead allowing us to race off at full adventure speed searching for our set landmark. I think in this area we prospered due to the hard work of motorbike groups before us, Jimmy knew our type all too well.
Our first Myanmar obstacle was a simple right hand turn at a Y - intersection. The right was to lead us over a treacherous mountain pass. The left was a brand new highway only just opened and designed to take hours of the alternate dangerous mountain pass road.
We reached the Y and found in our excitement we had remembered the direction diffidently. Armed military made an appearance adding an air of excitement to our confusion. After a small discussion the way ahead was determined and we road into the mountains.
Tight winding roads clung to the mountains steep face, falling away where it had lost its tenuous grip. Gravel sections of road filled with pot holes featured heavily and acted as car traps, making inside overtaking fun as we blasted our way past. Often bumps in the road could be used to launch rad airs, or at least full height suspension lift creating the sensation of rad air. Small houses built on the side of the mountain appeared raising curiosity, why where they here? What did the people who live in them do? And the most baffling, why did they all have random hoses fixed to poles pumping water out? Check points filled with friendly faces and peeps with guns waved us on. Road work teams crowded their job sites with an obvious let’s get some shit done attitude. We constantly stopped to admire the view while the cars we just sped past slowed as they passed to either smile and wave or scold us for our recklessly rad overtaking maneuvers. I experienced only several out of control moments, most involving surprise gravel on tight corners. My favorite however was towards the end on a tight switch back where I thought it would be rad to lock the back wheel up skidding down and around the corner old school BMX style. The road and the super Sherpa's Tyers had their own plans though, gripping in the apex of my rad skid sending me into some ungraceful tank slappers off the road and crashing into a discarded 44 gallon drum. I narrowly escaped still upright learning a valuable lesson - I am invincible...
Up and over the mountain we arrived alive in a small town whose traditional buildings hosted a hive of activity. It was here in the tree lined street that my mind set towards Myanmar changed from expensive obstacle to gnarly adventure worthy radness, after all there's not many people who can claim to have ridden a dirt bike through Myanmar.
We pulled into a restaurant and while Jimmy organized a round of beers we reviewed the menu. Soon we had local Myanmar beer in massive chilled mugs, Jimmy had won our trust so I was happy to receive some recommendations on the house specials. Over launch we got to know Jimmy and Myanmar better. We were full of questions particularly about armed military, plain clothes peeps with guns and random hoses. Turned out the recently opened highway we avoid in favor of the more exciting mountain pass was not because we looked like rad adventure men but because the previous day saw violent gun clashes between the military and the rebels. The smiling peeps with guns turned out to be rebels and perhaps most troubling the random hoses remained a mystery. At this juncture Jimmy may have thought he noticed an air of concern arising from his captive audience. To quell our fears he informs us - "not to worry if approached by an armed man wanting to take us into the bushes" And to simply "find me and ill sort it out". Now the mood changed and I wondered if everyone else had stopped pondering the hose question and was now busy running what is in the bushes scenarios, then Jonny Bang answered my question by asking if they had any fried crickets? Turned out they had plenty of fried crickets and food test pilot Jonny Bang hopped right in.
Blasting away from lunch heading to our next check point I was excited to be amongst the colorful road scene. Sometimes I can’t decide whether to concentrate on the joys of riding or on the challenge of operating a DSLR camera while riding, Myanmar was keeping me busy. The combination of friendly peeps riding steampunk like vehicles with lush green trees bordering the fertile farm land was keeping my trigger finger busy.
Flat farm land soon gave way to a green jungle of trees and before us giant tree covered mountain peaks emerged. Racing toward the towering odd peaks I thought we had another mountain pass to climb. However this was not the case as we skirted the very bottom of the mountains we followed their curve finding ourselves immediately in an instant valley. Mountains towered either side of us, I felt dwarfed by their mighty presence. It was obvious we all got pretty excited in the canyon as we all slowed, stood up, sat down, sped up, swerved, pointed and yelled. Dan got some awesome shots on his GoPro.
Leaving the canyon run we caught up with Jimmy at yet another military check point. He explained that the highest point was 800 foot high and of a religious significance, I could certainly understand why. The crowd at the check point was slow so he asked us to roll on and to meet him at the bridge.
Jonny Bang pulled onto the foot path of the bridge and we all followed. A brown river flowed far below feeding the fertile plains laying amongst the scattered mountains. I raced out further along the bridge to try to capture a rad photo. Soon I heard a commotion and turned to find an armed military man waving us on. All the bridges we have passed thus far have had maned guard towers at either end and this mighty bridge was no exception. I raced back to my bike resisting the urged to take a photo to watch Jonny Bang take off on the foot path and then launch of the unusually high gutter, movement from the guard caught my attention and I turn back to see his mate pointing at Jonny Bang laughing while the guard also seemed impressed. As their attention excitedly averted to Dan the next in line for the gutter jump I hurriedly started my bike and got my camera ready to sneak a photo. It would seem that a smile can disarm even an armed man. My turn came I did my best to lunch the Sherpa into orbit, I could have easily cleared a small street cat if it were asleep in the gutter.
We waited for Jimmy for over an hour before we got restless and decided he must have snuck past us so we moved on. I did manage to capture the allusive happy family on a scooter shot which has evaded my lens to date.
Sunset welcomed our arrival into Bago where we were each given our own comfortable rooms and sent to bed...
Our guide Jimmy arrived with his team to our hotels car park, introductions where made and the back of our new support vehicle loaded with our adventure gear. Myanmar was by far the most expensive country so far and we planned to make most of the perks. With our bikes noticeably lighter throttles twitched as we were escorted to the boarder.
Jimmy arranged the harder paperwork behind the scenes leaving us the easy task of stamp collecting. Unfortunately for Dan, an easy to make calculation error and unforgiving Thai border lady resulted in Dan paying a small “fine” for overstaying his visa.
Entering Myanmar we were once again greeted with a whole new gambit of road users. Heavy duty tricycles now hauled their various massive loads. The South East Asian special – the popular overloaded scooter, now appeared in many new variations.
At the boarder Jimmy had laid down some basic easy going ground rules. We didn't have to follow right behind as we feared but he was happy to set destination points ahead allowing us to race off at full adventure speed searching for our set landmark. I think in this area we prospered due to the hard work of motorbike groups before us, Jimmy knew our type all too well.
Our first Myanmar obstacle was a simple right hand turn at a Y - intersection. The right was to lead us over a treacherous mountain pass. The left was a brand new highway only just opened and designed to take hours of the alternate dangerous mountain pass road.
We reached the Y and found in our excitement we had remembered the direction diffidently. Armed military made an appearance adding an air of excitement to our confusion. After a small discussion the way ahead was determined and we road into the mountains.
Tight winding roads clung to the mountains steep face, falling away where it had lost its tenuous grip. Gravel sections of road filled with pot holes featured heavily and acted as car traps, making inside overtaking fun as we blasted our way past. Often bumps in the road could be used to launch rad airs, or at least full height suspension lift creating the sensation of rad air. Small houses built on the side of the mountain appeared raising curiosity, why where they here? What did the people who live in them do? And the most baffling, why did they all have random hoses fixed to poles pumping water out? Check points filled with friendly faces and peeps with guns waved us on. Road work teams crowded their job sites with an obvious let’s get some shit done attitude. We constantly stopped to admire the view while the cars we just sped past slowed as they passed to either smile and wave or scold us for our recklessly rad overtaking maneuvers. I experienced only several out of control moments, most involving surprise gravel on tight corners. My favorite however was towards the end on a tight switch back where I thought it would be rad to lock the back wheel up skidding down and around the corner old school BMX style. The road and the super Sherpa's Tyers had their own plans though, gripping in the apex of my rad skid sending me into some ungraceful tank slappers off the road and crashing into a discarded 44 gallon drum. I narrowly escaped still upright learning a valuable lesson - I am invincible...
Up and over the mountain we arrived alive in a small town whose traditional buildings hosted a hive of activity. It was here in the tree lined street that my mind set towards Myanmar changed from expensive obstacle to gnarly adventure worthy radness, after all there's not many people who can claim to have ridden a dirt bike through Myanmar.
We pulled into a restaurant and while Jimmy organized a round of beers we reviewed the menu. Soon we had local Myanmar beer in massive chilled mugs, Jimmy had won our trust so I was happy to receive some recommendations on the house specials. Over launch we got to know Jimmy and Myanmar better. We were full of questions particularly about armed military, plain clothes peeps with guns and random hoses. Turned out the recently opened highway we avoid in favor of the more exciting mountain pass was not because we looked like rad adventure men but because the previous day saw violent gun clashes between the military and the rebels. The smiling peeps with guns turned out to be rebels and perhaps most troubling the random hoses remained a mystery. At this juncture Jimmy may have thought he noticed an air of concern arising from his captive audience. To quell our fears he informs us - "not to worry if approached by an armed man wanting to take us into the bushes" And to simply "find me and ill sort it out". Now the mood changed and I wondered if everyone else had stopped pondering the hose question and was now busy running what is in the bushes scenarios, then Jonny Bang answered my question by asking if they had any fried crickets? Turned out they had plenty of fried crickets and food test pilot Jonny Bang hopped right in.
Blasting away from lunch heading to our next check point I was excited to be amongst the colorful road scene. Sometimes I can’t decide whether to concentrate on the joys of riding or on the challenge of operating a DSLR camera while riding, Myanmar was keeping me busy. The combination of friendly peeps riding steampunk like vehicles with lush green trees bordering the fertile farm land was keeping my trigger finger busy.
Flat farm land soon gave way to a green jungle of trees and before us giant tree covered mountain peaks emerged. Racing toward the towering odd peaks I thought we had another mountain pass to climb. However this was not the case as we skirted the very bottom of the mountains we followed their curve finding ourselves immediately in an instant valley. Mountains towered either side of us, I felt dwarfed by their mighty presence. It was obvious we all got pretty excited in the canyon as we all slowed, stood up, sat down, sped up, swerved, pointed and yelled. Dan got some awesome shots on his GoPro.
Leaving the canyon run we caught up with Jimmy at yet another military check point. He explained that the highest point was 800 foot high and of a religious significance, I could certainly understand why. The crowd at the check point was slow so he asked us to roll on and to meet him at the bridge.
Jonny Bang pulled onto the foot path of the bridge and we all followed. A brown river flowed far below feeding the fertile plains laying amongst the scattered mountains. I raced out further along the bridge to try to capture a rad photo. Soon I heard a commotion and turned to find an armed military man waving us on. All the bridges we have passed thus far have had maned guard towers at either end and this mighty bridge was no exception. I raced back to my bike resisting the urged to take a photo to watch Jonny Bang take off on the foot path and then launch of the unusually high gutter, movement from the guard caught my attention and I turn back to see his mate pointing at Jonny Bang laughing while the guard also seemed impressed. As their attention excitedly averted to Dan the next in line for the gutter jump I hurriedly started my bike and got my camera ready to sneak a photo. It would seem that a smile can disarm even an armed man. My turn came I did my best to lunch the Sherpa into orbit, I could have easily cleared a small street cat if it were asleep in the gutter.
We waited for Jimmy for over an hour before we got restless and decided he must have snuck past us so we moved on. I did manage to capture the allusive happy family on a scooter shot which has evaded my lens to date.
Sunset welcomed our arrival into Bago where we were each given our own comfortable rooms and sent to bed...
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