A day of adventure and drama on the road to Kyaiktiyo

A day of adventure and drama on the road to Kyaiktiyo

2nd Feb 17

We set off at 8am to do battle with the morning traffic..by now my brain is recalibrated to cope with the road chaos; nobody looks, nobody signals; bicycles, cars, trucks…and the miriad mopeds, some carrying the whole family; dad driving, small child in front of him standing, then child 2 & 3 behind dad and finally mum at the back holding the baby! Everyone is fighting for the same piece of road; somehow it all works.

It was decided to take a minor road rather than route 1, the main road south..turned out to be big mistake! Started ok then turned to gravel then to dirt, then to hardcore in readiness for a new surface. The hardcore was jagged rocks.. not chippings, but rocks..it’s is put in place rock by rock by hand by women workers; this stuff is really difficult and dangerous to ride over! Every now and again bikes could come off and take a track by the roadside that was deep sand and we were enveloped in clouds of dust; this went on for 50kms! We were well strung out by now, the front group stopped at a little shack for some water.

We received a message that Paul from up north had crashed; I was sure someone would on that road; he suffered broken ribs and slight concussion. He had hit one of the larger rocks and was flung over the handlebars, his bike collected a puncture as well!

So we had quiet a wait at out little shack. We were in deepest rural Myanmar the locals had never seen people like us before in the flesh and our arrival created a great deal of interest. They were so friendly; we met their grandmas, wives, kids..their cows and the pigs. We laughed so much together; photos were taken on both sides.. we had a tour of their houses and mini village; brilliant, such lovely people and great for us to see how they lived up close.

Finally it was time to move on, Paul with no option but to ride, so back to the road from hell. Ultimately we reached some tarmac again.. relief! But then we were stopped by police and immigration waiting at a crossroads.. they wanted to see all our passports and paperwork .. by now it was 35degs.. hot! 45 mins later we were allowed to leave, with a crowd of kids watching us, but could only turn right..to the left was restricted and foreigners not allowed! Lunch was another shack and all they had was pot noodle. Now we were on route 1, the main highway south. Paul was in pain and looked bad, no way he could continue to ride. By now our support vehicle had caught up so his bike was loaded onto someone’s truck and Paul put in our support van for the rest of the journey.

This road is clogged with massive trucks.. most are right hand drive even though they drive on the right in Myanmar, so unless they have a passenger they can’t see to overtake! Very dangerous road, we missed trucks by inches. We were tired and it was hot, we stopped to get fuel. Suddenly right by the pumps chairs, water and slices of water melon appeared for us.. great service with a smile. The guys at the back of the group arrived and had witnessed a nasty accident; some workers were cutting branches from a tree over hanging the road. When the front group went through we had to steer round some small branches in the road; just as the back group of riders came through apparently a big branch came crashing down suddenly wiping out 2 scooter riders in front of them, both of which looked seriously hurt. This is a major road, there was no warning of the tree work, not anyone directing traffic..we were lucky!

After another few kms we turned off to take a shortcut..down a dirt road. Thankfully this one was packed red dirt, quite bumpy and very dusty but a piece of cake compared to some of the roads we had ridden. After about 15kms the road turned to tarmac, with a covering of gravel, but further on just clean smooth tarmac and a completely straight empty road ahead for as far as the eye could see..time to wind it up ? I saw 181 kph on the speedo, Duncan got a couple kms more.

Finally we rolled into Kyaiktiyo  to the Golden Bliss hotel; it had been a long day. Due to the UK winter riding layoff I wasn’t bike fit when I arrived here.. I certainly will be by time I leave!!

We ate in the hotel that night, last night in Myanmar, tomorrow we cross back into Thailand and stay at Mae Sot. Paul arrived for dinner with his ribs taped up by gaffa tape… what a guy!