The International Steam Pages


Irrawaddy Steamers 2010, Part 14
Pyapon to Yangon

This is part of our 2010 Burma Crusade.


It was a pisser of a day, for some strange reason it was raining off and on in the middle of what is meant to be the dry season. And although I didn't know it at the time, there was a very serious water problem too in our UK house where my winter precautions had proved expensively inadequate. It could have been worse, there were several opportunities during the day for me to immerse myself as well, but as I was at least partly in control of that situation, I kept myself, at least, dry.

We had a gentle start with a visit to Daydaye, which is the easternmost rice area in the Irrawaddy Delta. There are a series of mills on the river bank, some now 'modernised' and there were two steam mills we had yet to record on video. Anyway, it's bad luck to pass a working rice mill that doesn't contain a Marshall so we had to pop in to see this engine from T. Shore. The lady owner immediately remembered us, she speaks very good English and we made ourselves at home. Actually, while the video here tends to come out fine, the light levels are so low that conventional photography is a lottery with very few winners, reducing the image size for the web hides the worst imperfections. Only when I started to film did I become aware that the long horizontal rod is actually connected to the regulator so the engine can be controlled remotely.

Next door, the Marshall was in pieces in 2005, was obviously ready to run in 2009 and this time we caught it in action, like its neighbour it has a remote control. It's a much smaller Marshall than most, I guess maybe 10". It has a nice plate "Marshall Sons & Co Ltd, Engineers, Gainsboro, England, Bombay, Marshalls’ Buildings, Calcutta, 99 Clive Street", which I made no attempt to photograph properly this time as it was filthy and the engine was running at a very good speed. As #53233 it's just over 100 years old, but in Burma the only thing special is that we know that for certain.

At the end of the row, there was another T.Shore in a mill which was not there in 2005. It was resting in 2009, but was going well this year. Like all the Daydaye engines, it could do with being kept a bit cleaner.

I had known there was a direct route to Yangon from Daydaye over the new bridge, but my request to use it in 2009 was turned down on the grounds of road conditions. This year, I said nothing but Han suggested we go that way and I was happy to agree. The road wasn't wonderful, but on the other hand we had been on far worse in the last 10 days or so. The main benefit of going this way, apart from saving petrol, the bill for which had reached astronomical proportions, was that we could visit some more 'unknown' mills. As it happened, local intelligence in Daydaye told us we were wasting our time, so our only chance of more action lay in the mills at Twante which I had been to in May 2006. One of my colonial predecessors had built a waterway known as the Twante Canal which unfortunately lies between the town and our destination, Thawundaw. Actually, this is much better than last time when there were no sand bags, just good old fashioned mud. It was a bit easier disembarking, if you think this water is dirty, compared to that in our Pyapon hotel it was like a clear mountain stream.

Han was starving again, he would have eaten the lot if we hadn't been polite and taken a couple each. The mills were three miles away, that meant a motorbike and normally it's easier to get an elephant to fly than get Yuehong on one. But as there was no sun and we would be gone over an hour, she swallowed her pride and clambered on. She was glad she did in the end.

My driver - I never learned to ride one of these creatures - had no idea what we were going to see and Han had forgotten where they were, not surprising when you think of how many we have visited together. So we stopped to ask and got the usual Burmese answer, only this time it was the same person pointing in both directions. To be fair he was saying that there was one there and another one there. So over the bridge we went, bamboo's fine when it's dry but a pig when it's wet, at least this was in the daylight unlike the one at Dakhondaing, just as well as even I wasn't going to take the watery alternative.

In 2006, a small Marshall was running here, it was totally filthy. This time, there was a newly arrived Robey, which won't look as good as this by the time the season ends.

Also here was an engine which I had seen at Dalar in 2006, it is a girder engine marked "George Garrett, Glasgow" with definite Tangye leanings. It even has a number in the right place but 2352 is completely wrong, an extra "1" at the front would have made sense, it's possible it got left off as I have seen an engine numbered "2000" in Java which definitely needs the extra "1". That ruled out going back there and the owner said the other mills in that direction had finished with steam too. So it was back on the bikes and off to the other mill in the village, where the engine had been in pieces in 2006 with most of them away in Yangon being fettled. Although anonymous, it was clearly another T. Shore product and when Yuehong told me there was a plate on it, I said "it'll be Cowie Brothers, Glasgow" without hesitation as we have seen other engines like this with their plates and so it proved, it was their #1416, although I couldn't photograph it after destroying the flash unit on my toy camera a couple of days earlier. You can barely see it on the valve chest cover. This was another owner who likes to collect spare engines 'just in case', he had a standard Marshall and another T. Shore ready if needed. It was the last mill of the trip and the family must have sensed it as they laid on refreshments. It was time to go back, the fact that Han had no shoes absolutely delighted everyone at the mills, actually he was worried about spoiling them with the river mud, they being more difficult to clean than his feet.

One of the other bikes that raced past us must have told the ferry people we were on our way as it loaded up as soon as we arrived. There was just one problem, there were so many of us on board that it stuck fast in the mud, Han as ever was the first to volunteer to help. That was soon sorted and we headed for the car. Mahtgyi was happy as he had had the benefit of a proper lunch, he must have less happy when he saw our state as he had spent hours in the last day or so cleaning up the car to return it to its owner... But he never complained. 

We had spent far too much on the Irrawaddy expedition, we had to go to the money changers again to pay all the outstanding bills, and there was more money to pay as a deposit for arranging our 'Red Tangye Baby' to be packed up ready for shipping. All of which was likely to be small beer compared to the repairs needed in deepest Gloucestershire. Next day in Yangon was the seventh anniversary of when I took Yuehong out for dinner in Beijing, an event which changed both our lives completely. On that occasion, I had to fly out the next day to the UK alone. On this one, we were flying to Bangkok together.

Apart from the expense, it had been a great trip in my book. We had got the coverage we wanted in Dakhondaing for our DVD and I had satisfied my 'lust for steam' in Irrawaddy Division (final total for the crusades was 315 working engines) while at the same time visiting many places which were way off the beaten tourist track and getting further insights into that constant struggle which is life in the Delta area. The above was a great way to end not just this crusade, but each of the other five that had gone before.


Rob and Yuehong Dickinson

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