The International Steam Pages


Up Around the Bend, Maw Gyun, Burma 2009

This is part of our second 2009 Burmese Odyssey. To read more about it which includes many non-steam items, please see Rob and Yuehong in the Golden Land 2009, Part 2.


After our return to Bogalay it was time for some serious boating:

According to my map, Maw Gyun (Moulmeingyun/Mawlamyinegyun) is the most remote of the Irrawaddy Delta's major towns, even Labutta further south has some kind of direct road access via Myaungmya. In a few years, there will be two new bridges linking the town with Maubin, but for the time being there was no choice but to charter a boat for the day and this meant a dawn departure for Bogalay from Pyapon. We travelled under a flag of convenience a.k.a. the banner of the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works, guaranteed to ward off evil spirits as well as immigration officers. 

We headed north up-stream past a number of Bogalay's rice mills:

We sheltered from the high sun and watched the world go by...

There was one hitch when half the two man crew vanished overboard to clear some water hyacinth which had fouled the propeller shaft:

Compared to the roads which most countries are obsessed with building, the great thing about having a river as your main transport artery is that not only does it not need resurfacing every few years but it also provides a living for the people along it, apart from keeping ducks, we saw plenty of people fishing with nets and taking large prawns and lobsters with baskets. All life was here and apart from the small ferries many people seemed to have their own boats as those in the west would have a car for their daily business. The journey took about an hour an a half and we took what I would call a 'wibble-wobble' route through various wide channels.

I had the feeling that maybe I should have been a boat gricer as Maw Gyun boasted some splendid specimens, these are respectively a passenger ferry and a rice carrier - I suspect it is a cascaded ferry:

The rice mills were, I confess, a disappointment. While there were probably some twenty steam mills here, most were waiting for new season's paddy and just half a dozen were at work. Further most owners were obsessed with getting themselves a Marshall 12" which they then had to cram into an engine room built for a machine half its size. Consequently, it is not high on our list for a revisit although it would get us most of the rest of the way to chalking up 300 working steam engines here - the tally at the end of the trip being 272!

I have included some of the pictures taken today elsewhere with those from Pyapon, Daydaye and Kyaiklat but the most interesting discovery was this engine by E.T. Bellhouse of Manchester, England. No longer wanted here, it may yet find a use elsewhere, it was a new name to us and will need checking on our return home.

We were back in Bogalay just before 17.00 with more boat gricing:

We got back to Pyapon just after dark, our driver had had a much easier day than we had... It was a 'job done' day, Mr. Rob at his worst whipping along the rest of the party to get everything done in the time available - at USD 100 a day this part of the trip needed to be kept as brief as possible.


Rob and Yuehong Dickinson

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