Loose Ends, Mon State, Burma 2009

We have visited roughly 50 rice mills in Mon State during our various visits since 2005, just over half could be considered 'workable', by and large the chances of finding a mill and in turn finding it working are greatly increased south of Moulmein. By the beginning of the late 2009 trip, we had successfully videoed some 25 mills (and 27 engines as two mills had changed their power) and the outstanding number of potential 'workers' was now very few. While Han went off to try to make life a little more straightforward filming in Dakhondaing, Yuehong and I went a little further south in search of two candidates, one each in Taungpa and Kamawet where we had sensed a possibility during our visit to Kipling country earlier in the year.

We needed a trishaw to get us right to the end of the village at Taungpa where dark smoke from the mill chimney showed we were 'in luck':

We still haven't found out what a Tangye 'S Size' is, the Paris medal of course dates it to the 1880s:

There is nothing sophisticated at all about this design, but it is just perfect for the mill's needs.

I suspect that the loco type boiler is far larger than is strictly needed for this engine even if a lot of the steam it produces leaks away.

The boiler and engine are worked by a young couple working as a team:

This is another mill where the owner has decided that female workers represent better value for money:

Happiness is a working Tangye:

This was a cracking start, we ambled back through the village, the only obvious transport was heading in the opposite direction:

We paused only in the middle of the village to admire the working Foster we had recorded before:

Kamamwet was only a short distance back and it being barely noon, we couldn't resist the attraction of cold beer on offer at the junction. The next task was to find our chosen mill, not easy as we had only been there once, it was down a maze of tracks and Han was busy elsewhere. We jumped in a horse cart, I waved my arms and we ended up at the wrong mill, the Tangye 12" was as leaky as ever:

This was not a real disaster as I knew the other mill was nearby. More arm waving and just one wrong turn and we were there although we had to walk. I thought Yuehong should have been impressed but she said she now expected nothing less of me and would have been disgusted if we had failed to find it and it hadn't been working.

This is the tiny engine, even without the 'saddle' it looks like an ex-portable to me, in fact it it shares some features with the working over-boiler engine we saw earlier in 2009 in the Shwebo area.

These small engines tend to have to run very fast and constant attention is required, the regulator and governor are not original:

Fortunately there was a conveniently positioned ladder:

Yuehong patiently waited for me to finish the video and then set about enjoying herself:

If you haven't worked it out yet, it's a Marshall. Alas there number is no number on the plate. My guess is that it is nothing like as old as it looks.

After which it was time to ride back to the turn off:

At the last minute, Han appeared on the back of a motorbike having followed our tracks around the village and we retired for another beer to exchange notes. We had been lucky, not so much with the mills but with the weather as next day we were 'confined to barracks' by heavy rain.

Some days later, relaxing after the Full Moon celebrations, we repeated the boat journey described in Island Steam to visit the mill on Bilu Island. We had some pictures for the family and a DVD of their Tangye D size at work. When we arrived it was the lunch break, but afterwards we saw their American engine from the Chicago Pneumatic Tool Company at work. It's bigger than the Tangye and is used when they want to run both their mini-mills simultaneously:

By my judgement the most likely contender for another working engine is this wonderful Cowie badged tandem compound engine in Moulmein. This shows it under wraps in 2009. The mill has no paddy in store when we dropped by - economic circumstances had inflated the price beyond what the owner was prepared to pay. No doubt it will work during the main season to come. 

The full list of 2009 trip pages is on:

• Green to Gold, Rob and Yuehong in the Golden Land 2009, Part 2 - This includes more general reports of the trip (OK, a blog) as well as much stationary steam

• Rob and Yuehong in the Golden Land 2009, Part 1 - This includes more general reports of the trip (OK, a blog) as well as much stationary steam

Our earlier explorations are described in pages linked from:

• Temples of Steam 2007 - An update to our 2005 and 2006 reports

• Temples of Steam 2006 - An update to our 2005 report

• Temples of Steam 2005 - Introduction