After spending a pleasant evening with our Swiss friends, who live just down the hill, we went back up to Taunggyi on a motorbike. It was a little before 8 p.m.
Halfway up, the rear tire on our motorcycle went flat. No luck! We stopped at the side of the road. It was already dark, and I saw my dream of getting home go up in smoke!
We don’t have photos during the night, but some photos of the road “pass”:
Calling a friend is always a good option in this case. I put into practice right away and 20 minutes later, our Swiss friend came to the rescue with an air pump. Unfortunately, the pump rebelled and refused to work. “Yet it was working perfectly this afternoon!” my friend told me.
With no more options, after a last phone call to a mechanic friend, we hit the road again. Since the tire was flat, Aline followed me on the back of our friend’s motorbike, who was following at a snails’pace right behind me. We arrived in Taunggyi hoping to find an open store. However, everything was already closed, no one was working, just like our friend’s air pump!
On the other side, food stalls were lined up along the sidewalk with low tables and plastic chairs to welcome customers. We stopped and asked someone at a stand, who seemed to sell Indian food, if they knew of a place where someone could help us. After a brief discussion with them, a family who was leaving invited us to follow them. So we hit the road in a procession with a motocross at the front, possibly a 5-seater, with the husband driving, the two children and the mother in the back.
Even though they seemed okay, I wondered if it was really a good idea to follow them. We started to thread our way through little unknown streets, which only increased my desire to turn around. Suddenly, our guide stopped and walked into the yard of a motorcycle repairman and returned a few minutes later. Well, maybe that was not a trap! He spoke at a good pace in Burmese and I nodded, as if nothing was escaping me! To sum up: the store was closed, and I didn’t have to be an expert in Burmese to understand that. Everything was dark, and the people were sleeping!
We continued to sneak through small steep alleys, like difficult slopes for ski enthusiasts, to finally arrive at their house. My mind was on alert again, and I had a little hesitation when they invited us to come in! Okay, I had the key to the bike with me – I told myself. I obeyed with a smile.
We (Aline, our Swiss friend and I) went upstairs. Our host handed us cans of Coke from the fridge and invited us to wait while he repaired the inner tube himself.
His wife arrived with the children and we started talking. Now that we were in good hands, our friend headed back home.
I relaxed and felt a little embarrassed by their warm welcome at a time when the children should have surely been sleeping! In fact, the living room also served as a bedroom for the whole family. That is quite normal here as the living space often includes 1 to 2 rooms with, generally, the whole family sleeping in the same room. The toilets are outside, separate from the house and the wood-fired kitchen is often an annex to the house.
The mother spoke to us in Burmese as if we were from the country, not at all intimidated by the fact that we were foreigners. She brought out all her framed photos to show us her family, her wedding day. We felt like we were staying with friends.
Not the same family, but another we met, with typically everyone riding the motorbike together.
Finally, the husband told us that he had repaired the wheel of the motorcycle. I asked how much I owed him but he refused any money. We could only say thank you.
We set off again, and as we drove, I was grateful for this impromptu meeting and the shared discussions. Suddenly, I was brought back to earth and found that the tire was flat again! With a smile, I couldn’t help but think of the phrase “you get what you pay for”. Little anecdote: we were only 10 minutes away from home, and the streets were deserted except for a few packs of dogs. Despite everything, Aline volunteered to walk the motorbike with the flat tire while I went home to look for another motorbike.
10:30 pm, we crossed the threshold of our home. The usual 30-minute trip turned into an evening adventure. No, I’m not a huge fan of the unexpected and even less of flat tires, yet it is often in these unplanned circumstances that we experience perfect adventures and encounters! Ah, the paradoxes of life!
Arriving home by night, what a beautiful view of the moon rise!
