Mountain Biking North of Yangon

I've been working almost non-stop since I arrived in Myanmar, so I was really excited to have a free day. Some of the law teachers are available only on weekends, so every weekend we've been holding teacher workshops.

I had heard about a weekly Sunday bike ride 30 miles North of Yangon run by BikeWorld, so I decided it would be the perfect way to spend my day off. I didn't know it was going to be eleven guys, half of whom showed up in bike jerseys, on their regular Sunday ride.

Somehow I always think that in foreign countries when they say mountain biking, they don't really mean technical mountain biking, they mean just not on a road. Nope they mean real mountain biking.

And I keep forgetting that I'm a terrible mountain biker. Any time the path turns into a single track all of a sudden I can't bike in a straight line. And the sand and loose dirt? And what do you do so your butt doesn't get bumped around so much? I keep doing this and thinking how am I not better at this yet?!

I didn't take in as much scenery as I would have liked because my eyes were glued on the path and I was pretty focused on not falling into a ditch, skidding out, or flying over the handle bars. Well, sometimes I did just get off and walk my bike when it got too hard.

Someone drying fish and shrimp in the sun

We biked through countryside past little bamboo huts and farm land. Motor scooters, monks, and villagers passed us. Children ran out shouting "Mingalaba!" (hello).

It was nice to be out of Yangon. This is why the whole crew was made up of a bunch of expats living in Yangon-- every Sunday they do this to escape the busyness and noise of city for the day.

Tapping a rubber tree

One of our more interesting rest stops was at a rubber farm. This wasn't a big farm, more like a family farm. Farmers lease land from the government and then must farm it. It cannot lay fallow.

Being the city girl I am, I love seeing where things come from. At the rubber farm, the rubber trees were being tapped for rubber. I remember descriptions about this labor intensive process in colonial Congo in King Leopold's Ghost, so it was really cool to see in real life.

I was surprised to find out that rubber is white. It was kind of soft and springy to the touch. The rubber wasn't exactly pouring out. Actually nothing was coming out because someone wakes up in the middle of the night when it's less warm, to cut the tree bark and release the rubber. I think the amount in that cup, which was about half a cup, was from one day. Tapping rubber looks like a very slooooow process.

Hanging the rubber to dry

After they get the rubber from the tree, they put it in trays and combine it with some kind of chemical that makes it solidify and separate. After straining out the by products, the usable rubber is then pressed through rollers to make sheets. The sheets are hung up to dry. Each sheet, a bit smaller than a bath towel, is bought for around 1 USD. The dollar earned is divided in half between the worker and the farmer leasing the land.

So much work to create so little rubber and for so little profit.

It makes me look at my flip flops with a whole new respect!