Irrawaddy Steamers 2010, Part 9
Einme

This is part of our 2010 Burma Crusade.

• Click here for the rice mill index.
• Click here for the general trip index.

As it was 06.00 and Sunday, our regular breakfast establishment was unavailable, so it had to be a bottom end 'bread and beans', the former cooked on the oven wall, absolutely delicious!

We were back on that dirt road north out of Myaungmya again, here are a couple of 'idyllic' scenes as we bumped past. At the same time the harvesters were marching down the road, a lucky few were piled on to Chinese trucks, by the time we got to our destination some time after eight they would have been well into their day's work.

Einme is smaller by far than Myaungmya or Wakema and far less attractive, the mills are strung out on either side of a side channel of the Irrawaddy. The first mill was locked as in 2005, but this time the key was available. Inside was this old engine badged for Jessops of Calcutta whose Yangon branch plate appears on quite a few later Tangyes. This engine appears to be similar to the one we saw in Wakema a couple of days before although that one was largely under wraps.

I have to say that the public ferry ride (Kyat 50, USD 0.04) to the Marshall mill was more interesting than the engine itself even if it was working and previously unrecorded. The rather more photogenic Tangye below finished its shift within a minute of my setting up the video camera, it was just that sort of day.

Along the way, I spotted a chimney which apparently belonged to a peanut oil mill. Despite the yawns from the other two, I insisted on stopping and was suitably rewarded. It's the engine half of a Foster portable, we've seen similar at work in rice mills in Sagaing Dvision and in Mon State. We're unlikely to see this example working here as the season is around May when the weather is not very visitor friendly. We've seen other such oil mills with steam engines in Pathein and near Bago and an old diesel powered one near Shwebo.

It was midday, we had been to eleven mills of which four were working, but these were Marshalls (three) and Tangye (one) of no great note, our visits here were complete and it was time for lunch at the Chinese place on the river bank I had spotted earlier courtesy of their large draught beer sign. It was maybe not the best decision of the trip as although a very pleasant half hour followed, as we got up to go the wheels fell off the day, big time. Five years ago we had been ambushed here by the immigration department on arrival and as we were packing up to go they turned up again with a couple of policemen in tow. Never mind that our grand toilet paper permit specifically mentioned Myaungmya and Pathein and we were ostensibly just breaking our journey between them, they really did not want us here at all and wanted to tell us it at length. It would have been counterproductive in the extreme for me to get involved as they are first class brainless shits (and that's putting it kindly), but these people theoretically at least could cause problems for Han. In the old days, he would listen patiently while they had a go at him and then we would quietly move on, now he gives as good as he gets and that included the fat, ugly local mayor whom I suspect had turned up just to help save a bit of face. All of which meant we wasted half an hour and Han was fuming for the rest of the day, contemplating what kind of country he had been born into, much as Yuehong often does.

It didn't really matter as we had just 15 miles to go to Daka (Daga) where the road would be sealed again. I enjoyed observing the slow progress on what I am sure will be the new railway line between Yangon and Pathein, no-one is in much of a hurry to lay the track as there are several substantial bridges which are well short of completion. At the road junction, of the potential five working mills, two had got shot of their engines and just one was working, a T Shore type of utterly disgusting proportions, the picture greatly flatters conditions inside the mill. A nearby old H type Tangye seemed to see little use and this old MacDonald engine which we had seen working from a distance a week earlier was taking at least one day off. Quite when either of these engines had last been cleaned and serviced I could not begin to guess.

It was again time to pack up the cameras, it had not been the greatest of days but as far as the western side of the Irrawaddy Delta it was 'mission accomplished'. Next morning we had to move on to Pyapon on the east side of the Delta.