Friday, February 17, 2012

Myanmar Hospitality

A Day to remember in life for me was happening during my last holiday trip to Myanmar last month. As usual, we got couple week granted for leave only. We make travel plan before we go for holiday as we wanted to go several places during the short time. This time schedule included to give a paying homage visit to my wife's village. We never get back that village since our welding celebration on January,2009. Thus, my wife was obviously wanting to visit home this time. More importantly, we wanted to show our child to her 87 years old great-mother and grand parent. They also eager to witness their great grand child rather than us this time. Since the village is located amid mountains, the transportation is severely bad especially for a fifteen months old baby girl. The chilly winter make our trip more risky.

Given condition, we have no choice to hire a car for our visiting trip to my wife village. Our car leave my hometown on about 6:30am for whole day long journey. The first two hours was fine as it's still in the territory of good roads. Soon after we cross Irrawaddy river by bridge, we started to notice the rough country road. We passed by several villages along the journey. About half an hour later, we heard a loud sound and the car is suddenly stopped. My sister, wife, daughter and I are riding behind and look out what had happened to us. It was a dry small creek flowing through a road. There is a small pond on the road and our car is trapped in the pond. The driver tried to overcome but no escape. The more he try to drive, the deeper the problem is. After driver understand he can't, he step out and looking around for help.

There are some villagers who are going through the roads. Some are traveling by their motorcycle while others are on their way to agriculture jobs. Some are looking at us with their curious eyes. Altogether on board, there are 6 persons, 3 men, 3 women including our baby girl. Surely we needs external help to solve the problem. Thus, we raise our hand and shout nearby people for help. They without hesitating, come to us and help to move our car. We all push our car while driver again try to drive in front. It seem nothing affected. The section of creek on road has full of stones and our car is lifted by those big stone. After several pushing attempt by some villagers, we realize that it's not a solution. As the time running out, our worry started. One villager suggests us to go village and seek for mechanical help. He told us a name of car owner who live in nearby village.

As there is no choice in the vicinity, I follow on one villager's motorcycle and go village for help. The man was a traveler and can't wait for us. So he dropped me at the said house and continue his journey. I approach the house by the name the villager gave me. When I see him, explain our crisis and ask for his help. He, without delaying, asked his sons and pupil to take all ropes within compound and follow me. He has a jeep car and he drives us all to the creek. I am able to sight after seeing helping family. When we reach the area, he command his people how to do and started to pull by his jeep while the rest all pushing our car. The rode was broken and stop. The villagers try to tie broken ropes. In second time, he asked our driver to drive and try to escape by two engines and existing man power. The result remain unchanged. Again, we're hapless and some villagers who are helping us leave us after giving negative comment. What should we do next? We didn't expect this kind of incident and distraught now.

(To be continued)

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