The 8 Hour Traffic Jam

February 2016

Our last days in Burma have been rich and intense.  We left Hsipaw on March 2^nd, headed for Pyin Oo Lwin, just over half-way to Mandalay.  We opted to take a mini-bus for greater comfort on the exceedingly narrow and winding road between Hsipaw and POL.  The big buses rock and roll around the countless number of hair-pin turns, making for a queasy, and at times hair-raising, ride.  Unfortunately we were relegated to the back seats of the 10-seater mini-bus.  

But hey, the trip is meant to be just three to maybe three and a half hours, so no sweat.  Or so we thought… . 

Amazingly, we left pretty much on time at 10 am.  Within half an hour of leaving Hsipaw we were stopped dead by a massive traffic jam.  Trucks and cars as far as the eye could see.  We sat there for at least an hour.  Our driver turned off the engine and we all got out to seek toilets and shade.  Apart from bags of chips and other unidentifiable Burmese snacks, there was no food to be had.  

 

Both Doug and our driver tried asking around to find out what the problem was.  We heard a variety of stories.  One person said the jam was a result of a Burmese military-political big-wig who was visiting at a small town up the road, so all traffic had been stopped.  A traffic cop said it was just a case of two big trucks head-to-head at one of the hair-pin turns, with neither being able to move.  

 

We’ll never know the real cause – it could have been just ‘volume delays’.  As the main route from Myanmar to China, this narrow, winding road, completely unsuitable for big trucks and buses, is now plied by literally thousands of trucks, buses and cars a day.  
The trucks, mostly massive, and exceedingly long, are loaded with food (watermelons, oranges and rice) for China.  By the looks of it, China is exceedingly hungry. 

 

Around noon our driver decided to turn around and head back towards Hsipaw.  As no one in the bus spoke any English, we had no idea what he was up to.  Until he turned onto a rough dirt track that went through a couple of small villages and brought us out to a point several miles further up the traffic jam.  We were still well shy of the deep gorge with the hair-pin turns, and traffic on the main road was hardly moving at all.  

 

We spent the next six hours or more sitting in the back of a hot mini-bus with no food.  To add insult to injury, we were also subjected to dreadful Burmese and Western pop music.  We heard ‘Because You Loved Me’, apparently the driver’s favourite, at least three times.  It will now always remind me of our hell on wheels trip.

 

When we finally reached Pwin Oo Lwin, our first stop was a half-hour meal break.  Unfortunately the joint the driver stopped at, a place we’d been to before, was not only incredibly busy and crowded, but served meals that looked decidedly unappetizing.  Despite my hunger, there was no way I could eat.  It was frustrating knowing that our hotel was just 15 minutes away, but we were stuck here waiting for our bus-mates to eat: they were all carrying on to Mandalay.  

 

We finally arrived at our hotel at 8:30 pm: our three hour trip had turned into a ten and a half hour nightmare.  On the other hand, we can now boast of having been in an 8 plus hour, 50 plus mile traffic jam – surely a record in anyone’s books.  

 

No wonder China wants to build a new super-highway through Myanmar: China needs the food, not just from Myanmar, but from many countries, and the new road would go right down to the west coast of Myanmar, where China is already building a deep-sea port.  These infrastructure items are in addition, of course, to the oil and gas pipelines China has already built along pretty much the same route.  

Like so many other Asian and African countries, Myanmar is providing both the resources, and the transportation corridors to serve China’s ever increasing population’s demands for more – of everything.  China is importing vast quantities of water from Myanmar, and has stripped its teak forests bare.  The new highways it builds will only accelerate the pillage, with very unclear benefits to the people of Myanmar.

For more information about the Chinese in Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar go to:

https://factsanddetails.com/asian/cat66/sub418/entry-4309.html