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This is part of our 2010 Burma Crusade.
We visited Wakema during the 2005 bash. By then a less well 'conditioned'
Yuehong was so uncomfortable on the corrugated roads that we had bought an
extra pillow for her back which we carried round Burma off and on for the
next couple of years. We were told that the road was 'not as bad' as before
and that, like many others, the ferry had been supplanted by a bridge. As
such we hoped for a significantly shorter journey time so that a really
early 06.00 start might get us back to Myaunngmya before the rather tasty
Tangye we had found the day before had finished its day's work. This is view
we got of the river banks from the town's bridge as we left, there are more than a
dozen rice mills in all in the two pictures.
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Like many
towns, Wakema has a fine new bridge, but the roads approaching it are a
disaster. This is what we had to contend with on the final approach,
basically we had to get out and walk to avoid ripping the bottom out of the
engine. The locals rely almost entirely on the river for transportation, but
in our case especially with a pre-paid taxi it would have been impractical.
Still, that means that the mills in Wakema are again stretched out on the river bank and
so we had a pleasant three or four hours in a boat. It's a bustling town with
tree lined streets and scarcely a car to be
seen and much more attractive than Labutta.
In almost no time, Han had us into our charter boat and we whizzed up a
side channel with three mills, two of them working. First up was a Tangye,
#8481, as a rule of thumb, any Tangye with a 4 digit number will be pre-1900
and very tasty and this was no exception.
A hard act to follow, but how about this antique Stewart Raeburn? They
were agents of course so the actual maker is a mystery.
The third mill produced a Hosain Hamadanee Tangye, #12148, it would work
shortly but we pressed on as we had seen it in action in 2005. On the main
river bank we found properly badged Tangye #12272 at work, but it was not in
a condition to make anyone salivate.
The Tangye owner had a pet snake, a constrictor which he had rescued from
the river some 14 years earlier, since when it had grown somewhat. Being a
kindly man, he kept it with its next meal...
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Our next
mill was once again Chinese owned and it turned out that their Marshall
12" engine had been delivered new to here when it was established
in 1938 (the engine had been sent out to Calcutta the year before according
to the Marshall records at MERL in Reading, UK) and the same
family had run the mill ever since. The original owner had emigrated from
Fujian (a Hokkien) and had married a Burmese girl, but Chinese traditions had been
maintained and his grandson aged 82 was at the mill to relate some of its
history. Unlike most engines which have had a succession of spare parts
applied, this one is still essentially complete and for that reasons I have
shown a number of detail pictures. Note the water pump and the chain drive
for the governor, the latter normally only found on larger engines, when
they need an engine for the national rice museum this will be the one.
Unfortunately, the boiler was being worked on and so we were unable to see
it working and it was idle during our 2005 visit too:
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No doubt the thought of the chickens at the last mill made Han feel a little peckish, but we
had to press on.
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