From a cyclone that allowed nothing more to happen, that cost lives and submerged Myanmar's north.

Zyklon Myanmar Landstraße

We set off early, the beginning of the stretch from Mandalay to Monywa was beautifully green, but quickly the sky turned dark. It started with a normal rain, but visibly turned into lots and lots of water from above. The wind picked up and fierce gusts tugged at the trees along the road.

We were on our way to one of our favourite places, Monywa, and were confident that we would still reach our destination in time. The place was only a few hours away, but then we got caught in a tropical cyclone that was moving across northern Myanmar and Bangladesh. It stormed and rained for 2 days without a break.

The main roads turned into rivers, some passages could only be crossed carefully, water entered through the doors of our vehicle.

Several cars got stranded in the water and villagers were then on hand to help the stranded people.

The driver with his little bus was pretty sure where and that he could go that way.

Brave moped rider races into the floods, at least in this rather flat passage.

For many villagers, this was a welcome opportunity to have a change in their hard daily routine and watch the choas in floods.

The ox cart at the side of the road defied the floods.

And here our journey to Monywa ended. The Mu River was so raging, wild and rising and threatened to take the bridge with it. It was not possible to cross, at least that's what the local police told us. Two days later we learned that the bridge had indeed been swept away by the rising waters.

The river was huge, loud and fast, looking from the beginning of the vibrating bridge we quickly realised that we didn't want to cross it one metre.

Fifty metres from the river bank, the water sought its way. What we could not see here was that numerous villages on the river bank had been washed away in the meantime. Unfortunately, many lives had to be mourned.

We had to cancel our plan for the destination Monywa and so we could only turn back again. So we drove back and tried to make our way to Bagan, hoping that we wouldn't have to cross another river on the way.

After a stopover during the night, we finally reached Bagan in the evening, where it had finally stopped raining.

Myanmar from above, the country still has an infinite number of natural water arms. The increasing settlement of the riparian areas and the unpredictability of nature are unfortunately still a danger for these people.

The trip was still at the time of the last military dictatorship in 2011. During our trip, Myanmar was still off. The country was under the rule of a military dictatorship for more than fifty years. During this period, the country was isolated from the rest of the world. Let's hope that this will not happen again.

The NightWalkers The big rubbish chute

3 Comments

  1. danke fürs Teilen der Erinnerungen
    Anregung, sich mit diesem Land und seiner Geschichte / Gegenwart zu beschäftigen

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