Bhamo is located apart from the world.
You have to imagine a place accessible by land and sea and air, but its peculiar location creates a trapped little island in the middle of jungle and no man's land. The insurgents' trouble spots are close by, but you don't notice much of them.
But already the landing at the pier indicates that you have arrived at a very special place. There is a different atmosphere, strangely enough much more relaxed and serene than for example in Mandalay. Maybe it has to do with its special character as a remote island. Everything outside is locked out, all the craziness of modern life seems not to have arrived here yet.
It's a good start.
A strange Hotel
The hotel is in the city center (if that's what you can call it), it's ok, although I don't want to spend my entire vacation here.
The room is a bit smelly, and there is something strange about the shower. Some TV channels are even recognizable as such (though it bothers me that the power fails in the middle of Alien 3 and the corresponding TV channel disappears afterwards; but since I know the outcome of the story, it's not really a problem).
The Recipes of Doctor Tayzar Soe Myint
The damn cold that has been haunting me since the Ghostrider trip has struck again (the icy night on the train did its part). No Problemo Arnold Schwarzenegger might say, but the increasingly severe cough worries me a bit, so I decide to check out the blessings of the Burmese health system. There is a private health center a few steps from the hotel.
Private Health Center? Sounds quite acceptable.
In view of the many waiting people I prepare myself for a longer story, but no, foreigners once again receive special treatment. After the initial identification I am led into a room, where I am expected by a young doctor and an entourage of 10 persons.
I feel like a rare, long extinct species that is now to be scientifically studied. Then I have to lie down, blood pressure is taken - initially over the sleeve of my jacket - by a young, pretty and a little shy lady.
The nod of the doctor might mean anything, but we proceed to another room, lie down again, a new lady appears, she measures a possible fever, which is not there. The doctor's English is quite decent, he asks about my medical history, about possible allergies, other diseases or necessary medications.
And so he writes a recipe, of course in Burmese, it's long and supplemented with drawings, apparently my lungs. My lungs? That worries me a bit and I ask him about that.
But drawings are obviously mandatory, even if nothing serious is to be feared. Rest and drink a lot he says with a serious face. I promise and get several medications (which look very colorful and very effective) and an orange cough syrup from the pharmacy department. Well, at home, I don't think I'll bill the health insurance company for the bill. Treatment = 4000 Kyats (4 Fr.), medication = 5000 Kyats.
I do not know what I have actually been prescribed. Jonathan, the UNHCR Swiss guy, thinks that at least one of the drugs might be an antibiotic. In these countries, antibiotics are prescribed first and always. Well, as long as it is effective.
The venerable Mr. Sein Win
Again and again - especially on these trips - you get to know people who turn upside down what you think you have known so far. They belong to a very special type of person. The ones with dreams.
One of them is the venerable Mr. Sein Win. We found him in a white painted house that seems to be more a workshop than a home.
We actually planned to do a half-day bike ride, however, we already get caught up in Mr Sein Win's house, because what he proudly presents really deserves special attention.
An airworthy Helicopter
It is not standing in the workshop, oh no, it is in the very center of the living room (if that's what it is), a metal thing not immediately recognizable as a helicopter at first glance.
We learn from his explanations that he has welded it from old water pipes (that's how it looks like), it has a propeller, a worn seat (apparently hundreds of his customers have sat on it), control components, in fact everything that belongs to a proper helicopter. For the controls, due to lack of alternatives, he came up with something special, which in our humble opinion might actually work.
There is only one thing missing - the engine! Unfortunately, Mr. Win does not have the necessary 2500 $ to buy the 45 PS engine. The story of its construction is long and full of technical details that make perfect sense. However, the idea that he might one day really want to take to the skies with this thing does make me a little anxious. For the sake of his soul and everything else, I hope for him that his dream will always remain a dream.
Temples and craftsmen
After saying goodbye to Mr. Sein Win (there's melancholy and a little sadness about the success / failure of the venerable old engineer), we take our somewhat run-down looking bikes and visit the surroundings of Bhamo.
Sooner or later you come across the inevitable temples and stupas, but more interesting are - as always - the people.
In spite of the visible poverty, people show a calm and optimistic energy (there is nothing else left for them). They work with the means available (comparable to the 50 years in Europe), i.e. with old-fashioned machines for sawing, with pickaxes and shovels for road construction.
It's weird, but in some incomprehensible way we envy them.
Three steps forward, two and a half back
In the evening, Jonathan, working for the UNHCR, invites us to his house. We enter through a kind of gate straight into the living room, turning out to be a large spacious room, with a beautiful wooden floor and walls.
But that's more or less all there is to it. Two armchairs are arranged in front of a large TV set, illuminated by a horrible bright bulb giving everything a sickly impression.
There is a kind of a kitchen, a bathroom and shower, a neat bedroom. That's it. Imagine a farmhouse beginning 20th Century, dark, smoke-blackened walls and ceilings, somewhere a stove or a hearth, all very simple and poor.
I am sure that I might have the first depressive mood after thirty minutes living in this house.
But he likes it, and that's the most important thing. One obviously has to belong to a species that perceives everything a little less serious. His work confirms this assumption. He is the coordinator for the refugee camps on behalf of the UNHCR, i.e. for the thousands of Kachin refugees driven from their villages and now waiting in camps hoping to be able to return to their devastated villages.
Three steps forward, two and a half big steps back, that is daily business for him. Tedious, endless negotiations with the government, with the rebels, with the many Christian churches, the only ones doing something for the refugees, but which have long since reached their limits.
This is definitely a different world, which is mostly withheld from us due to the rose-colored tourist glasses ...
P.S. Matching Song: Pink Floyd - High Hopes
And here the journey continues ...
