George Orwell and I have a lot in common. We both worked in dull, badly paid jobs in hotels; him as a plongeur in Paris and me in a similar role in, among others, The Dolphin Hotel in Herne Bay. There it was just called dishwasher and lacked even the vaguest air of romanticism. Orwell also spent long periods wandering the grimy streets of London, as described in his books Keep The Aspidistra Flying and Down and Out in Paris and London. I too had my share of peripatetic wanderings in the UK capital during the times I lived and worked there.
Sadly one experience Orwell and I do not share is much experience of travel in Myanmar. Almost 100 years ago Orwell spent five years living, working and exploring, what was then still part of the Great British Empire. The country has changed dramatically since Orwell’s time. Freed from the yoke of the Empire by independence in 1948 it went through a period of political turmoil and various, mainly communist-inspired, regimes. In 1962 a military coup took place and the Generals stayed in power for many years. Their tight grip on the country and its people began to loosen as early as 1990 but real democratic reform did not start until late 2011.
For some years now, crossing from Thailand to Myanmar and back again has become easier due to the increasing number of land border openings.
So it would have been timely indeed if I had been able to accompany my wife, and a small group of friends, on a cycling tour of the less travelled roads of Southen Myanmar in early 2020. Sadly this was not to be. I injured my back a few weeks before departure and was forced to stay home while she flew off to experience the exoticism of South-East Asia firsthand.
She rode the often rough and always dusty roads between Hpa An and Dawei while I reclined on the sofa between bouts of physio and stretching, watching Netflix. We both recorded our experiences; hers sometimes physically demanding but always enthralling, mine often mundane but reflecting real life.
You can read our different takes on our trials and tribulations during two weeks in February, just as COVID-19 was starting to change everyone’s life, in our recently published collaborative book The Soft Nut Bike Tour of Burma.
Two diaries. One trip. A thousand memories.
Available from Amazon.