N 61 Samut Songkhram

We took our leave when it was time for the" hsoon" offering ceremony and hired another taxi to go to Samut Songkhram. As it was new year the driver agreed to go by meter , when at other times he would ask for more.

    

This part of the journey is longer than the first part, but when we reach Samut Songkhram which is also called Ampawa it was still early , about 11.  But there were already many people and cars there, and many shops selling souvenirs and foods. We saw water ahead of us and headed towards there and arrived at a river’s bank. We bought tickets for a boat ride which said they would take us to 5 temples which will last 2 hours.

      

 And so we started our ride and before long reached the first temple on the bank of the river. Before alighting from the boat somebody said we have 15 minutes to visit the temple and have to come back to the boat after that, The first one is a beautiful temple and needless to say built in Thai style. There are some food shops in the ground and I noticed one particular , though not a strange food. It is half fried quail eggs and they are sold in every temple ground.  I have never seen fried quail eggs in our country  but only boiled ones.. What we did at the temple were taking photos, strolling around, put some money in donation boxes and then back onto our boats.

   

  I didn’t see many foreign tourists at these temples. Nearly all are locals enjoying the new year holidays. One Thai woman was friendly and she explained to us what we should know about the trip in English. I asked her what the name of the river is and she told us it is called Mae Klong River and flows towards Malaysia. I asked her if she has been to Myanmar and she replied “ No, I don,t have time to travel “ So she would be always busy ( with business ) I guessed.

   

  When we had finished our temple visits I heaved a sigh of relief as it had been a little difficult to get on and off the boat with my walking stick but I also had enjoyed the trip greatly.

 When we came back onto the bank it was past  time for lunch and we found a place to eat under a bridge. After lunch we enquired about how to get back to Bangkok and we came to know that there is a mini bus service to Bangkok which costs 80 bahts for each person. We bought tickets and fortunately didn’t have to wait  long for take off. The ride took about nearly 3 hours but we reached the bus station at Victory Monument in good time.

N 60      Samut Sakon

    

   

  This time I stayed in Bangkok for one whole week. After visiting the hospital for one and a half day for medical checkups, I didn’t want to go shopping all the time as it was so tiring. I tried to contact Sue Wan, someone I know, who would always send her friends to visit nice places and post nice photos on Facebook but unfortunately, I could not call her. U Sai called a number in Samut Sakon he got before coming to Thailand and had contact with people from  hometown. They said that they were going to offer ‘hsoon’ to ‘Sanghas’ the next day and invited us to visit their house. So I made the decision to accept their invitation and go there and then continue to Samut Songkhram where the guide book said there is  a floating market  and about 70 km away  with  Samut Sakon in between.

     

The next day we hired a taxi to Samut Sakon. I have heard about this name as many Burmese people  come to work as workers in the fishery business (and sometimes get into troubles with immigration or they would be trafficked). It is also called ‘Mahachai’ and it is about one hour drive from Bangkok. To locate the place we have to give our host’s no. to the driver (which was surprisingly a woman as female drivers were unusual in Yangon) who had to communicate with them in Thai and so they guided her to their place.

    

  We reached their place about 9AM. The people from hometown are Sai Tun Hla and his wife Nang Pwe. He had been living in Thailand for a long time but his wife and children had come to join him only a few years ago. He said that he teaches the Shan and Burmese people who come to work in Thailand Thai language. The children including their relatives also have their own jobs. They said that they are staying by permits. .

      

When we went upstairs to their small living room we saw many people sitting on the floor. It is still early for the ‘sanghas’ to come. So we sit in their living room and enjoyed the food they had prepared for us. They treated us prawn tempura, boiled squid, steamed pork wrapped in banana leaves, pet toke kyaw, nam pit and sour soup, (so it was mostly Shan food)

    

  While eating we talked with them  and also the men who had gathered there who are mostly young men. U Sai advised them to work deligently, save money and go back to their own country.I asked Sai Tun Hla if there are problems about working there and he said yes there are and sometimes he has to help them. Surely for people working in an alien land lives will not be a bed of roses.

N 59   The abused Salween  (part 2 )

Now I didn’t see any more of these boats when a year ago there were hundreds of them. People said they came from the upper part of the Salween and stayed around Takaw for some years. During this time I often heard people talked about them with much discontentment.

  

  I heard that each boat was worth about 1000 lakhs. Until the silt from the river bed became gold everything was done on the boat. They used amphetamine tablets and also fed them to the Shan labourers whom they hired although the number may be small. They could not speak our languages and they were rude. When they came to buy things in Kali they pointed to things with their feet which is an action our people cannot accept. Once a Chinese hit and killed a child in Kali. (while he was high on drugs, I think ) One of them even tried to marry a Shan girl by giving her parents 50 lakhs as dowry. But it was prevented in time by officials and the girl escaped marrying a Chinese and an unknown fate.

During last year I heard there were some commotions about the boats. There had been shootings and arrestings and some Chinese brought to justice.But I think this was only for show while the Chinese and some of our people got away with the gold riches.

    

  Salween which is one of our big rivers to be  manipulated illegally by foreigners is a very shameful event , not for the people but for the government. Is there a government who will allow foreigners to come and extract the country’s resources illegally ? Where were all the immigration people to let Chinese penetrate deep into the country ? Can Burmese people go into China and do what they like ? These were the questions we are asking ourselves and the answer we give ourselves is the very common   "corruption” . If they can pocket the bribe money they will not care for anything whether it be the face of the country or it’s people.

    

 During this time I didn’t hear people from outside talking about this.. Protesting noises about building dam on the Irrawaddy was loud and big but no noise could be heard concerning this illegal gold extracting on our Salween. I admit that our Shan people are timid and don’t want to cause trouble but it is the government’s duty to protect the country and it’s resources, not to sell them to foreign people illegally and pocket the benefits which is only a fraction of the profits they earned.

May 25^th 2014

N 58            The abused Salween (Part 1  )

The  Salween is the biggest river in the Shan State. It enters the Shan State near Kunlong at the far north of the  State , flows along the whole length of it, passes the Kayah State and enters the Gulf of Martaban in the Mon State.

Along its way there are many waterfalls and sometimes passes along narrow gorges and rough waterways that it cannot  be used widely for navigation. But anyway having a river is better than having none and there are many ways to use it beneficially for the livelihood of the people.

One thing for sure is that it contains the precious metal ‘’gold ‘’in its water. I have heard people speaking about Salween gold which  they  called  Kham Kone when I was  young. I have seen gold dust in a stream which flows into the Salween at Hsen Mong. But our people who are not so industrious and lacking knowledge does not know how to extract gold from the river except the panning system which yields only a small amount .

So the Salween with its gold riches became a feast for the Chinese to dine on. With the lack of the rule of law and widely spread of corruption Chinese boats started  to appear on the waters of Salween some years ago but at what part I don’t know exactly.I heard that they came down from the upper part of the river. When they started to appear  around Takaw people said there were hundreds of them. Each was as big as a house and fitted with all kinds of machinery and gears to dig the river bed and bring up the silt and extract gold from them. Surely mercury and and cyanide had to be used in this process and so it is needless to say that the water was polluted to  harm the environment and aquatic creatures in them.

 

Now the river is no longer like it used to be. They manipulated the river as they like and piles of stones and silt deposits can be seen on the surface where there were none before they came. The colour of the water that used to be a little yellowish but clear in summer is not like that now. When I saw it a few days ago, the colour was like thick coffee and the whole river has lost its attractiveness.

to part 2…..

No 57      Mekong @Golden Triangle   (  Part 2 )

But throughout the boat trip which lasted only about 20 minutes as they say ,I was also saying my prayers silently as I was afraid. But there are also people who are afraid to take small Burmese boats like me. After we came back I talked to Ma Oo who said she didn’t ride the Burmese boats as she was afraid when she was there. I didn’t know at that time that we can go to the Thai side and take the more bigger Thai boats to cross to the Laos border.

 

Anyway the boat ride had been safe for us. We visited the Laos side which has nothing much but a few shops selling fake brand bags. So after spending some time there we got onto our boats and cross the Mekong to go to the Thai side. We climbed the concrete stairs to the customs office. and while someone get our clearance papers we look around.

 

Oh!  I was fascinated…the signboard on the other side said Chiangsaen Customs Thailand –Laos crossing Point.. I am very happy to see Chiangsaen. At present I am translating a book called Amongst the Shans, a very old book published in 1885. As it’s title it was written about the Shan people of long ago, starting from their origin which was China. From there the Shans spread westward to Yunnan, Merng Mao, Indo China until Manipur India. As the Shans spread west they built towns which were named with the word Chiang as it means town. And so Chiang Hung (Sipsaungpanna )Chiang Mai, Chiang Hai, Chiang Saen, Chiang Lao , Chiang Learn , Chiang Tung etc. were born. As the book is about the Shan people surely these places which were their old places have to be mentioned in this book.So This is why I am happy to see Chiangsaen with my own eyes as the 1^st in the series of Chiang towns. Later I will visit Chiang Hai Chiang Mai and maybe Chiang Lao (star ) Chiang Learn (moon )

There is a sitting Buddha statue about 1 block away from the customs office. As it is hot to walk we each took a motor cycle  to  take us there. We paid our homage at the Buddha statue, took some photos at the Golden Triangle rememberance monument and resume our journey to Myanmar Land.

P S….On our return journey the boats are as swift as when we came. But I think our company members had become less afraid , that nobody cared to fasten the life jacket straps…..

N 56   Mekong @Golden Triangle
         (part  1 )

When I heard that our young friends  (Ko Aung and Aye Aye Thi- couple ) were going to visit the eastern border we (who had been wanting to visit Sipsaungpanna or Luang Prabang and cannot go as it is illegal to enter from Myanmar border )  asked to join them .So we a group of 6 started a trip of 1 week by boarding a plane from Heho to Tachileik  on 31/ 3/14.

 

The next day Sai Lao Khay drove us through Merng Pone to the bank of the Mekong. This journey is about 30 miles and it took us about an hour. On the way at a village we visited a relative (U Tak Nu  ) and family who had come here from Kunhing to live with his son Ai Mu .

Though Tachileik is not a new place for me as I had visited it once a long time ago the Mekong River is new  to me and on seeing it I was very excited. But this is only partly true because I had crossed it by ferry when on my way from Siem Riep to Phnom Penh.

 

 To go to the Golden Trangle  we had to go along the river for some time and on the Myanmar bank there are only small boats that can carry only 4 people. So our company of 8 people had to hire 2 boats. The river is so big and our boats so small that we became alarmed and asked for life jackets which were provided for us.

And then we set out towards our destination , the Golden Triangle. As much as we were afraid of the mighty river, with it’s vast expanse of water we were also excited and happy to get such experience.The speed boat sped on the water so fast that sometimes it was like a fish flying out of the water.

There were also big ships anchored near the bank. It was lucky for us that we didn’t encounter big ships coming from China because at those times they would make our small boats rolling on waves and endanger them.

 

While speeding towards the Laos territory I thought about Naw Kham who was executed by the Chinese government some months ago as he was thought to have killed over 10 Chinese people on ships operating on this Mekong River.Anyway they all may be connected to drug rings of this notorious Golden Triangle. But when he was going to be executed his photo was posted on FB so that many people came to know about him. This is not an act that should be done . But I think  the  Chinese government  did this deliberately to show that they did not care about the  Myanmar  govt of whom NK is it’s citizen.We wondered why the govt didn’t do anything about this execution. Shouldn’t he be tried in his own country and get it’s own punishment whether it be death penalty or whatsoever. . And someone talked to us about Naw Kham that he was a kind of Robin Hood  around that area.

to be continued…..