Kwewan 2010

This is part of our 2010 Burma Crusade.

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

The last time (OK, it was the 1995 edition) I picked up 'a famous guide book' and looked at the attractions south of Moulmein apart from the tranquility of the Second World War Cemetery at Theinbuzyat and the odd beach, I found precious little else except the giant, kitsch sleeping Buddha on the road to Mudon. Since it's readily accessible, the tourists visit it and then wish they hadn't for the most part, it's hideous. We tell the odd travellers that we meet that there's a far more interesting place nearby but as far as I know our suggestions are a waste of time.

Kwewan's rice mill is set just a few metres back from the main road just after the diminutive and modest church:

As often as not, as you go past in the bus you'll see the black smoke from the mill chimney if it's working. We've been there a couple of times, the lady owner's very friendly and it was an ideal way to pass most of the first of two blank days before filming at Dakhondaing. These two pictures appear in our 2009 report:

Last time I confessed to ignorance on our first ever visit, but here are the clear signs of a former portable, the regulator and the chimney crutch, together with engine supports on the boiler:

With the name 'Hornsby' included, it's no more than 90 years old, a 'spring chicken' by Burmese standards. I know that Ruston, Proctor were up to the 30,000s before the First World War, but I don't know their numbering system after formation of Ruston and Hornsby, 113827 is altogether a much higher number, I suspect it may well date from the 1930s.

One of the beauties of digital photography is that it costs nothing to repeat shots of such equipment until you get what you want, like the oil wick feeding the crank:

The engine operatives were of the constantly fiddling variety, like Zebedee in the Magic Roundabout, they never seemed to stop, but apart from the fire raking, their actual movements were hard to predict.

This was not a 'critical visit' as we had coverage from before and we brought only one video camera, Yuehong embarrassed me by shooting me 'at work' once she had had her play:

It's not the easiest of mills to record, it's a little crowded and dark and the kit is covered to reduce dust:

The mill's end products were leaving in a wonderful variety of transport. The excess husks went in a blue Chinese truck cum tractor and some production rice in a horse cart.

No prizes for guessing our favourite video subject, the ashes with the bullock cart. It's a tightly run ship and as everyone came and went, Mama calmly read the football paper (no, it wasn't First Eleven) and collected payment for anything that left the mill.

This has to be the number one shot of the visit:

The fun wasn't over yet, as I wandered down the road, I noticed another (closed) mill next door. I was interrupted by DD 931 going past on a local train, it would have been a nice shot with the pagoda covered outcrop behind except for the 'security wagon'.

I have a feeling it was locked on our first visit and I had forgotten about it. This time it was open and I found the engine still present, carrying both 'George Garrett of Glasgow' and 'MacDonald Engine', agents and not makers. I believe it is the third of these we have seen, but as I don't think any have yet featured on this website, here it is. I later realised that it's similar to the Hosain Hamadanee Tangyes and I bet it carries a Tangye number!

When we had had enough, we wandered back to the main road and got the bus back to Moulmein. More than half the passengers were 'professional monks' who had been to an 'away fixture for the full moon' at some nearby monastery, they were in jovial mood as they were loaded up with presents. This more serious monk was watching a video on his mobile phone, when he realised our interest, he snapped me back on it. He spoke excellent English and Thai, his father apparently had one wife in Burma and one in Thailand, he expected to go to see his mother (the Thai one) shortly. He explained he would walk across the mountains, but I doubt he meant the whole way from Moulmein to Bangkok!

It was a lovely day out, Yuehong was very pleased in the end that I had dragged her out, as she had dragged me out to Dakhondaing the previous day when I wasn't really feeling up to it.