“Hsi-Hsinwan. They’re bombing it again,” Kyaw Nyunt grunted, moving restlessly back and forth over the lawn and casting occasional glances toswards the sky. He followed us down the path which led east from Mong Ko. I shook his hand and said goodbye.
“Don’t worry about the journey. You’ll be quite safe. The land east of the Salween is our territory.” And, as always, he laughed awkwardly.
That day we advanced only a few hours’ walk above Mong Ko, to a village called Hpaunghsaing. The higher we climbed, the clearer became the sound of the fighting. And it sounded heavy; constant artillery and bomb explosions reverberated across the hills. The Burmese Army’s counter-offensive was massive and I wondered if the CPB would be able to withstand it.
Crossing the Salween River on 22nd Novermber 1986.
Hpaunghsaing was a large but run-down village of some 160 houses with mud-brick primary school and a large market of thatch-roofed bamboo stalls. Sam Mai led us into a solid but dilapidated two-storey building which had once served as the residence of the local Kachin duwa, or local ruler. He had fled in 1968 when the CPB “liberated” his tiny principality, and—with presumably unintended irony—the new communist rulers converted the “palace” into a taxation office.
Two Wa officers in their early twenties, dressed in smart blue jeans and army shirts met us and served the inevitable canned soft drinks. I played my tape-recording from the attack on Hsi-Hsinwan eliciting boisterous cheers at the sound of hits by recoilless rifles and mortars, as from schoolboys at a soccer match.
Whatever the party had done with revenue from its taxation, it had not had much impact on the state of sanitation in Hpaunghsaing. The village was unbelievably squalid. There were no latrines and waste disposal was undertaken by a herd of black pigs which, with deep grunts, made to accompany anyone heading for the bush. Popular health campaigns were evidently low on the party’s social agenda.
Our onward line of march now paralleled the Chinese border. The actual frontier was not marked by fencing, markers, or guard posts but was nonetheless easily distinguishable in terms of the cultivation: poppy fields as far as one could see on the Burmese side; and across the border, a vista of hill paddies.
The Salween ferry was held in place by a strong iron wire.
The commander of our section, I had discovered, was a Shan, a young man of 25 called Sam Law. With the facility of one living in a multi-lingual area, he spoke Chinese, Kachin, Palaung and Burmese in addition to his native Shan. Soft-spoken and taller and fairer than many of his race, he maintained his command over his unruly boy-soldiers with an even-handed sense of responsibility I could not but admire. I liked him immediately and on addressing him in Shan and telling him that my wife was from his own people, he called me brother-in-law.
The hills across which we now walked had been totally stripped of tree cover and only tall cogon grass grew between the ubiquitous poppy fields. The local population was the usual mix of Chinese, Kachin and Palaung and the villages were sunk in poverty. We halted for lunch in a Kachin village and Xiao Yang cooked more khao sol and Ma Ling luncheon meat. Suddenly, we heard bombs again.
“It sounds close,” I said to Sam Mai who also had come out from one of the huts in the village to listen.
“Could it be Mong Ko?”
“Mong Ko is about 25 kilometres away. It could be there. But sometimes the mountains actually amplify the sound: it could still be at Hsi-Hsinwan.”
Not being able to pinpoint exactly where the fighting was taking place I found unnerving. I could see Sam Mai too was worried even though he did not say as much. The Wa soldiers, on the other hand, evinced no interest in the rumble of bombs, continuing to laugh and joke among themselves as they wolfed down their meal hungrily. They were a likeable enough bunch of lads but their attitude to things military reminded me strongly of the Nagas eleven months before. And that scarcely inspired confidence.
Nor, for that matter, did their turn-out. Few of them wore proper uniforms. Baggy, Chinese army trousers were held up by leather belts, their caps had red stars in them: but their shirts were a motley collection of odd military and civilian garments. One lad sported a red T-shirt with “Liverpool 33” emblazoned across it. Several of them had shining gold teeth—not because they had lost their original ones, but as a sort of fashionable status symbol. I had seen dentists in both Panghsai and Mong Ko who made gold covers which customers could have placed over their real teeth. Some of these were even inlaid with red and green hearts and stars.
A long afternoon march brought us that day to the Salween River and the border of Kokang. From the lip of a gorge a steep descent led down to the river itself. The deep trench of the Salween cuts south across the entire length of Shan State. Its many torrents and underwater cliffs make it one of the most dangerous major rivers in Asia and impossible to navigate. Indeed, there are only a few places where it can even be crossed. The path zig-zagged sharply down the cliff towards the river, the roar of the torrent growing ever louder. We reached the bottom of the gorge and the ferry point in the late afternoon.
The current was so powerful that no conventional means of crossing the river was feasible. However, a steel cable as thick as a man’s wrist had been stretched taut between two huge trees on either side of the river some 25 metres above the water. Another cable ran from the prow of the bamboo raft—a vessel some two metres wide and perhaps four in length—to a running pulley attached to the main cable. The raft was hauled across the river, prow against the current, by means of a heavy rope hung in a slack loop from each end of the main cable and passing through a solid eye-hook at the raft’s prow. The pulley at the upper end of the second cable slid across the first preventing the raft from being swept away.
This ingenious piece of engineering worked relatively well when the Wa soldiers and our packs were ferried across. But things became a trifle more complicated with the three mules. Sam Mai looked on apprehensively as the unloaded mules were being pulled towards the river.
“They’ll buck and kick all they can. Stay well back while the ferrymen deal with it.”
A soldier slung a halter round the mule’s neck while a second boy tied a loop of thin rope around the animal’s upper lip. As the soldier yanked it tight, the mule began to protest by lashing out with its hooves. After a few minutes fight, the mule appeared to realise that the more it heaved and strained the worse the pain became. As it began to kick out less, the mule was hauled onto the bamboo raft by the two soldiers. Once there, it was so frightened by the swaying of the raft and the swirl of the waters that it stood petrified, trembling and sweating as its eyes rolled in terror.
The same procedure was repeated with the other two mules that shared the raft with Sam Mai, the remaining soldiers and me. We squatted as far away from the mules’ hooves as we could; then the ferrymen began pulling on the rope. As the raft slid away from the bank, the power of the current increased water swirling menacingly around the prow. The ferrymen strained to keep the craft moving against the full force of the current, their arm muscles bulging and the tendons on their necks standing out sharply as they heaved and strained. Above the roar of the river came the creak of the cables stretched taught.
As we touched the other bank, the mule broke loose and leapt for solid ground. It landed awkwardly, slipped and fell back into the river. Everybody shouted at once. But the ferrymen knew their trade and adroitly used the raft to wedge the mule against the bank before it could be snatched away by the current. The soldiers jumped ashore and hauled the dripping, snorting beast out of the water.
It had taken us more than an hour to make the crossing. But once over the Salween we could afford to relax. Even if the Burmese Army decided on a major push towards Mong Paw and Mong Ko, they would not dare to cross the Salween and risk being trapped on the eastern bank should their retreat to the ferry be blocked—or its wires simply cut.
Twilight was already upon us as we began the steep climb up on the other side of the gorge. The blazing heat of afternoon gave place
to a cool evening breeze and sun slipped lower in the sky transforming the Salween into a glittering band of molten silver. The soldiers groaned loudly as they toiled slowly uphill, resting their forearms on their rifles which they carried across their shoulders.
“Liverpool 33” attempted to improvise a rousing marching song, but his lungs failed him resulting in a panting drone that died out finally in a rasping creak. The river receded into the depths below us and I could measure our progress by comparing our position vis-à-vis the opposite wall of the canyon.
As I climbed up through the gathering dusk, I was reminded of a conversation I had had some years before during an interview with a US narcotics official in Bangkok. He had suggested, apparently in all seriousness, that drugs leaving Burma via the southern Tenasserim coast en route for Malaysia and Singapore, were transported on bamboo rafts down the Salween River.
I remarked that this was surprising given that the river was far too hazardous to risk transporting ordinary goods, let alone a commodity as valuable as opium. The key to success for any opium trader, I added, was to hold the few points at which it is possible to cross the Salween. As far as commerce went, the river was navigable for only 150 kms upstream from its estuary at Moulmein on the Andaman Sea—or exactly as far as the government controls its banks.
Evidently taken aback, the official then began interviewing me: “But what about the dry season? Wouldn’t it be easier then?”
“It’s even more dangerous then,” I replied. “You’d risk smashing a raft on rocks just beneath the surface.”
“But what about the riverbanks? Surely, the traffickers can use the course of the river and send drugs along its banks.”
In deference to the niceties of diplomacy, I refrained from couching my answer in the terms I would have liked:
“Not unless you have especially trained mountain goats as pack animals and can direct them by remote control. No sane person would attempt to walk along the banks of the Salween unless he were trying to set a long-distance rock climbing record.”
The encounter went to reflect much of the ignorance surrounding narcotics suppression activities in the area. Foreign officials sat in air-conditioned offices in Bangkok and Rangoon with little experience of, or feel for, local conditions. Their information depended largely on official contacts with their host countries—who had their own axes to grind—and reports from local informers less interested in the War on Drugs than in making a quick dollar supplying dubious intelligence that foreigners had no means of cross-checking. And on these uncertain foundations conclusions were reached and grand strategies drawn up. Little wonder that the volume of heroin flooding Southeast Asia, Australasia and the United States continued to grow.
As my energy flagged, I found my mood becoming increasingly intolerant. But I was shaken out of my reverie by the rumble distant artillery at Hsi-Hsinwan or Mong Paw.
“It’s still going on,” I remarked to Sam Mai.
“Yes, but we’re safe here. They wouldn’t cross the Salween even if they manage to reach Mong Ko or Hpaunghsaing. But I don’t think they can even get as far as Mong Paw. We’ve got a lot of artillery, too.”
We continued for another hour and, at last, the path which had been twisting interminably upwards began to even out. We had reached the eastern lip of the gorge. The surrounding mountains had now become looming shadows silhouetted against the night sky by the light of the moon rising behind them. Fires twinkled on distant slopes seeming to mirror the first stars. Somewhere a dog was barking.
We did not rest until we reached the day’s final destination, Pangkhushan, the first settlement on the Kokang side of the Salween ferry. As we entered the cobbled alleyways in the dark, a pack of dogs came racing frantically towards us and had to be kept at bay with a shower of pebbles and rocks. Then angry baying, turning to agonised howls, indicated that a rock had found its target. And outside every house we passed, there seemed to be at least half a dozen vicious mongrels.
As in other Chinese villages I had seen in northern Burma, Pangkhushan’s houses were wedged closely together. But an air of poverty and decay seemed to hang over the village. Even the black pigs which turned away grunting when we came close were thin and sickly, rib bones protruding sharply above flaccid bellies which sagged almost to the muddy ground.
Sam Mai led the way to what I first took to be a stable, its doorway obstructed with horses and water buffaloes. To my surprise, it turned out to be a human dwelling. Four men of indeterminate age in tattered blue Chinese farmers’ clothes were seated on small wooden stools around a fire where a blackened kettle rested on an iron tripod. They sat in silence with china bowls of tea in their hands and, as we entered, scarcely bothered to glance up.
Noting my apprehension, Sam Mai grinned cheerily and rattled off something in Burmese. To judge by his tone, he appeared to be saying something like: “Hello old fellows! Thought we’d cheer you up with a visit!” The oldest man in the circle looked up, bewildered. None apparently understood a word of Burmese. Sam Law, the only Chinese speaker in our party, had to rush to our rescue. He addressed the men with his habitual soft-spoken courtesy, and was rewarded with a few mumbled phrases in response. Communication had been established.
“He says this is the headman’s house. We’ll stay here tonight. They’ll provide a guide for tomorrow’s journey to Chauluchai. From there, it’s another three days’ walk to Kokang headquarters.”
We unpacked our belongings while Xiao Yang prepared a bed for me on a wooden bench tucked away in a corner. An overpowering stench of pigs, cattle and mules pervaded the whole house and I was certain the quilts provided for me were crawling with fleas and lice. The only sensible way of ensuring a good night’s sleep seemed to be liberal internal application of a bottle of the Chinese brandy we had brought from Mong Ko. I produced a bottle and one of our hosts picked up a small, filthy glass, rubbed around the rim with a black thumb, and handed it over to me. I thanked him, doing my best to keep a straight face and hoping the brandy would be strong enough to disinfect the glass.
I passed the bottle around. The men around the fire emptied their tea bowls on the earthen floor and filled them up with brandy. They looked at the brown liquid, sniffed dubiously and then began gingerly to sip it. Sam Mai smiled at me.
“They’ve probably only had clear rice or corn liquor before. This is something new to them.”
One of the men pinched his nose, another grimaced. Only one nodded in approval.
As the novelty of the brandy wore off, one of them asked us what the shooting they had heard across the mountains was all about. With Sam Law interpreting, Sam Mai attempted to explain the significance of the people’s battle against the reactionary government’s army. Brows furrowed in unabashed mystification. Taking a less political tack, I produced my tape recorder. The room was filled with a muffled cacophony of automatic weapons’ fire and exploding mortar bombs. A faint reaction as eyebrows twitched, a finger was raised and murmured comments exchanged.
Before going to sleep, I wrote up my diary by the dim light of a kerosene lamp:
“Sunday, November, 22, 1986. Reached Kokang today. It seems terribly poor although the people here are ethnic Chinese. Cows, pigs, chickens, mules, water buffaloes, flea-ridden dogs and people live and sleep together. The people eat corn instead of rice. Pumpkins, mustard leaves and chillies seem to be the only vegetables they grow. I must be the first Westerner in Kokang for decades. Maybe not so strange—who wants to sleep in a stable?”
From Pangkhushan we walked through a dramatic landscape of barren mountains and plunging river gorges. Tiny villages, consisting of less than a dozen houses each, were scattered across the hillsides in the midst of sweeping poppy fields. The plants were already beginning to sprout and in another month or so, the poppies would be in flower. I regretted I was not passing through at that time; however murderous the crop, the carpet of white, red and purple poppies would be breathtakingly beautiful.
The day’s destinati
on, the village of Chauluchai, was only a few hours’ walk away and we were able to reach it at noon. We stayed in a large mud-brick Chinese-style house built on the ground rather than stilts like Shan, Kachin or tribal dwellings. Strips of red paper with large Chinese characters in black calligraphy were pasted on either side of the doorway. The owner, it transpired, was a relatively well-to-do local merchant.
To my great surprise, there was clear spring water in a small pool just outside the village and I took the opportunity to bathe properly. The Chinese way of conducting one’s ablutions is by wiping the face and armpits with a small face-towel soaked in hot water. I had already accumulated a small collection of these towels, all of them white and bearing the words “Good Morning” in English printed next to what I assumed was the same message in Chinese characters.
This method of washing was undeniably refreshing, particularly if the night has been cold or the day’s walk long and dusty. But even though the spring was freezing cold, I preferred to squat beside it wearing only a longyi, and to scoop the icy water over my body. This greatly amused the village children who gathered excitedly to watch the tall, white stranger torturing himself.
Not surprisingly, Chauluchai offered little in the way of entertainment. The village’s main—indeed only—attraction was a stud donkey which was kept in a shed in the compound of our house. With so many horses and mules around in the northern mountains, I had often wondered where the donkeys where. Sam Mai and I went down to the shed to have a look. The beast was tethered to a pole and brayed and stamped his hooves restlessly when he saw us. It appeared there was no call for his services that day and our visit was evidently poor compensation.
Land of Jade Page 35