Paper Tigers
This story begins in a hospital bed back when I was 13, where I just underwent open heart surgery. Overall, the procedure was a success, leaving me eternally grateful to those that healed me, enabling me to live a life without boundaries and releasing me after only 10 days, which was basically unheard of and testament to their outstanding work. However during these days, and still being 13, there were less cheerful hours. My sisters embarked on a trip with my aunt, giving my parents more time to spend and look after me. Confined to my bed, hooked up to all sorts of machines, this struck me as very unfair and I felt a tinge of envy and isolation as all of my other friends were on spring break. Like always, I found solace in the latest issue of National Geographic, and a story about a remote valley in northern Myanmar, hardly explored and teeming with a variety of endangered species caught my imagination. To cheer me up, my dad promised me one week of vacation wherever I wanted together as soon as I recovered. He did not know about my newfound passion for the Sino-Himalayan ecosystem yet. Eagerly, I chose Burma only for my father to quickly remind me that this was both senseless and out of budget. We ended up road tripping in Italy for a timeless father-son experience but the dream of that valley lingered.
Fast forward a few years and me and a good friend were passing through Canberra on a trip across the Australian southeast and headed for Sydney ready to fly out to Fiji two days later. Accidentally, we stumbled upon the Burmese embassy and I instantly insisted on trying my luck. Traveling to Burma in early 2011 was not impossible but far from easy. Visas were somewhat hard to come by, embargoes prevented any international banks from doing business, and large parts of the country were closed off due to ongoing conflicts. Naively, I entered the embassy to tell my story. Generously, the clerk was willing to grant me a visa, asking for a mere 4 days and a photo to process my request. I explained that I had neither. She rolled her eyes and started thinking. After 15 seconds of silence I dared to stress the importance of such an opportunity for me and maybe even my personal growth and she graciously told me: “Do not tell this to anyone - because I will be flooded with requests - but come back in 3 hours and you will have your visa ready.” Thanking her a million times, I left the embassy for the next internet cafe, not believing my luck and ready to shift some plans around.
Months later, I left behind friends in Bali, got a coffee at the airport and boarded a plane to Kuala Lumpur. I was tense. I would have to withdraw all the cash for a month of traveling during my 6-hour stopover before flying onward to Yangon. Anxiously, I approached the first atm only to find that my only credit card did not work. It turned out that buying a coffee three hours and 2000 km away was too suspicious. I had 13$ in my name, paid a 4$ bus fare to the city, managed to find shelter for 5$, was fed for free at the local Hindu temple and spent the remaining money on an internet cafe, eventually unlocking my card to be on my plane to Yangon the next morning.
Myanmar felt like stepping back in time. I checked into a quaint hotel close to the river and the Sule pagoda. Headed out for my first tea leaf salad before paying a visit to the pagoda for sunset. I got snatched by a monk and invited for dinner at his monastery in exchange for a chat. As news was heavily censored, the few foreign travelers were often sought after for information and global news. This would be a recurring pattern over the coming weeks. Wherever I went, people were quick to gather around me, curious one way or another. Many of them were spying and keeping an eye on their fellow citizens rather than genuinely interested in what I had to say. Yangon those days was devoid of modernity. Old houses with beautiful colonial facades were crumbling on the outside and filled to the brim with stores, apartments and soup kitchens. I spent the next few days wandering the wonderland that was its streets. I climbed the stairs to the Shwedagon Payas more than once to immerse myself in the ritual-performing crowds while overlooking the city. Enjoying the food in one of the many roadside stands while crouched over a small plastic stool. But I also tried my best to secure permits to be able to actually do what I came there to do: See tigers in the Himalaya. I spend hours traveling the city, waiting in different government offices only to be turned down again and again. Finally, I decided to head north, taking my fate into my own hands in search of more luck or lenient government offices.
The bus to Mandalay was the most comfortable journey I can remember. I quickly swapped my seat with a mattress of rice bags stored in the back of the vehicle, equipped with plastic bags filled with dishes I had never tried before. Mandalay was even further removed from the hustle and bustle of Yangon. The roads often were still paved with sand, the dry climate and many tea stalls giving it a very distinct feeling from the lushness that defines SouthEast Asia. I wanted to see the Himalayas and I could feel that I was getting closer. The next few days, I was exploring the city and its vicinity, watching the goldsmiths hammer thin layers of gold to tile the thousands of pagodas with. Craftsmen shaping Jade into figures and ornaments of all sizes. I crossed the Irrawaddy, climbed sacred hills around the city and visited a temple that was home to three holy snakes. Each a Burmese python several meters long, that were bathed in petales, fed fresh eggs and chicken each day. Legend has it that they once came out of the jungle to sleep coiled around the statue of Buddha and after several fruitless attempts of bringing them back into the jungle had failed, people realized that these snakes might be reincarnations of former monks that had to be treated accordingly. For me, it felt like a lost, enchanted world.
These explorations were readily interspersed with trips to different government and tourist agencies, the latter always being a subset of the former, in order to secure an official permit to visit the far north and specifically Hukawng Valley, home of the tigers. This was to no avail and whenever there was a silver lining, my budget quickly prevented me from getting things sorted out or flying directly into Putao, the only major settlement and gateway to the Burmese Himalayas. But I was not gonna give up here. I had two options to get where I wanted to be, a multi-day boat ride on the Irrawaddy or a 40-hour train journey to cover the 300 km to Myitkyina, the northernmost town still open to regular traffic and otherwise a sleepy outpost of civilization that mostly lived off the trade with bordering China. Still convinced that I needed as much time as possible in search of tigers, I opted for the train and boarded the next evening.
The ride felt like a movie. The poor condition of both train and track meant that we slowly made our way north, rarely going faster than 20 miles per hour, jumping worryingly in its tracks and stopping at every other on the way, providing the only lifeline to many of them. As the sun was setting and we left Mandalay behind, farmers would wrap up a day working the fields with their buffaloes and the shadows of those that hitchhiked on the trains roof painted the landscape in human shapes. At each stop, women would try to sell snacks, fruit and dishes through the windows or entering the train when time permitted. I went to sleep, mostly gently rocked by the train. The next time I woke up, night had set in and the cabin was dark with the exception of a single old lightbulb. We had stopped and as I sleepily gazed out of the window only to see what seemed like a religious congregation. A sea of candles was illuminating the night. The procession entered the train and only now did I understand what I was seeing: The women from the local villages carefully balanced huge silver trays on their heads with a single candle in the middle showing what they had to offer. Being the middle of the night with many passengers sleeping, there was little commotion. Silently, the procession went from cabin to cabin. I could see trays of turtles, critters and a plethora of things I had never seen on a plate before. It was pure magic, the mundane journey transformed into a new perception of reality. This process repeated several times throughout the night. As the new day dawned, I was ripe with excitement, expecting to wake up in lush rainforests and seeing the snow-capped mountains of the Himalayas. I enjoyed my journey but grew ever more anxious with each minute passing. No rainforest and no mountains were in sight. Finally, the first sign that I was headed the right way: More and more dead rainforest giants, teak and other exquisite woods began popping up on the side of the railway tracks, ready to be transported south to finally end up as a garden table or similar.
After what felt like an eternity of slowly approaching the far north with more and more forested hills coming into sight, we finally pulled into Myitkyina. I got myself a room, eager to explore the city and plan my onward travel into the wild. As in any new city, I first headed to the local market where people from the tribes living in the Kachin hills were offering their goods. Next to the usual vegetables and cheap clothing, I quickly realized the many stalls catering to traditional Chinese medicine. The deeper I ventured into the market the more plastic planes I would find sitting on the floor ready to be pulled together and carried away any moment. From the hoofs of small antelopes, to smoked meat, piles of bones to all kinds of different paws, the variety on offer was frightening. I was fairly certain to identify parts of what I believed to be a tiger and still knew that this was only the tip of the iceberg. Both vendors and other people looked at me with more suspicion than anywhere else in the country. While the political situation was more than difficult at the time, I always felt welcome and was greeted by nothing but smiles and kindness. Here, it was more tense and me being the only foreign tourist in town seemed to raise questions. While my heart sank visiting the market, at least it gave me some hope that wild places with intact animal populations were nearby.
The remainder of the afternoon was spent trying to rent a motorcycle. Nobody was eager to rent one to me and even less so when I explained my plan of traveling north without a permit or a good idea of what I was looking for other than a tiger. Finally, I found somebody that was willing to drive me around the vicinity of the town so that I could explore and see what is possible. This endeavor was quickly ended by the military checking my documents just minutes after we left the city behind. That was it, I had tried all I could at this point. My dream would end here, at least for now, on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. We turned back and after a bowl of soup. A guy my age, roughly 20 at the time, started chatting to me. Away from unwanted eavesdroppers, we instantly connected and the next few hours, he would tell me everything about his past and home country. His father had been killed by the military as he was part of the Kachin independence movement. How he grew up caring for his siblings and the dreams he had for his future. While I was aware of the many ongoing troubles of the country, news from Myanmar rarely made it to mainstream media, so let alone specifics of the different local conflicts. Asking if there is anything I could do, my new friend shook his head and thanked me for the opportunity to speak English and exchange stories. I considered my options. Nothing here felt dangerous but I felt it was not the right place and time for me given the sobering experiences of the past two days. Trains were only running once a week or so and I quickly jumped on the same train that brought me here. As we passed the mountains of logged forests and the many military fortifications along the way, my mind tried making sense of where I was and what I was doing here. When the sun set over the Irrawaddy that night. I smiled. Thinking of that hospital bed, the luck I had in life and the memories I just made. And I was grateful. Grateful for pursuing my dream without fulfilling it. Grateful because maybe someday I would see that Tiger and it would all have been worth it.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.Arriving there is what you’re destined for.But don’t hurry the journey at all.Better if it lasts for years,so you’re old by the time you reach the island,wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
C. P. CAVAFYP.S.: Months later, I plugged in my SD-card. Eager to show my friends and family the wonders I had seen. 254 files, 239 were corrupted. What you see here are the few that survived, a glimpse into a time that would soon be over. If any reader has an idea on how to recover the remaining files, I would be eternally grateful.
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