Two wheels good

Cycling in Mandalay

Hazards
- Hiring a bike with no brakes.
- There are more pot-holes than roads.
- Forgetting that the traffic moves on the right hand side of the road.
- Cows.
- Exhaust pipes from trucks and pick-up trucks which exude foul black smoke at about head height. No regulation of exhaust fumes, it would seem. Hey, I’ve stopped smoking. There’s plenty of room in my lungs for exhaust fumes.
- People carrying building and plumbing supplies on bicycles – ie long planks and pipes. Nearly lost my head a couple of times.
- Lurching buses whose movements follow a logic set down in an alternate universe.

Perks
- Time to say hello to everyone.
- Most of the cars and motorbikes are pretty antiquated and don’t go very fast.
- No hills.
- Being offered rubies and jade for sale when you hire the bike.
- Lots of old ladies to tailgate and hence stay alive. Same principle as crossing the road behind a nun in Rome.
- Opportunity to mentally note the bars which sell that little-known Mandalay speciality, Spirulina Beer. It’s dark green.
- The approach of the buses and indeed all motorised vehicles is heralded by lots of beeping.

After sitting down for eleven days and meditating, some strenuous activity was in order. I hired a bike from my friend Mr Htoo and rode to Amarapura, the nineteenth century capital of Burma, about an hour’s ride away from Mandalay. Many pagodas around a lake and an incredibly beautiful old bridge, U Bein’s Bridge, about 1km long and leading to small fishing villages.

Ridiculous sunset scenes of water, fisherfolk, stupas and pagodas, mountain range backdrop, small boats. Riding to one of the pagodas, a woman approached me and started to chat. She lead me around the pagoda and before I knew it, she had invited me to her house down the road, grabbed her husband and got him to give her a lift on his bike to show me more palaces and pagodas and then ride back to Mandalay with me. Ko Kyu and Jujeh took me out to dinner, bought me traditional Burmese sweets, introduced me to their friends and escorted me back to my guesthouse. I don’t think there are too many lessons in Burmese schools about stranger danger. I think being a woman travelling alone attracts particularly sympathetic attention (‘ah, so you’re a spinster…’) but I’m nonetheless still a bit startled by all of this friendliness.