Life Quest: The Burma Road (#1 in series on Myanmar/Burma)

To begin this travelogue properly, I have to go back a ways...quite a ways, to the year 1960 along a rural road in Northeastern Penna.

Many psychologists or life coaches will tell you, influences often are sown into a person's life early on.  The person him/herself may not even realize it for decades.  Such was the case with me when, at about ten years old, I was riding with my father from Lawton, Penna., to Wyalusing along Route 706 and we happened upon a series of signs for something called Burma Shave.

It was a famous advertising campaign of the day:  Five or six signs were spaced about a hundred yards apart and formed a jingle or rhyme.  Books and countless articles have been written about the Burma Shave ads, they've become such a part of Americana.  A few examples:

Thousands of such jingles lined the roadways of America 1925-1963.  To the best of my memory, the one along 706 went like this:

                                                  School Zone?

                                                  Take It Slow

                                                   Let The Little Shavers
                                                   Grow
                                                   BURMA SHAVE


Like I say, to the best of my memory.  What I do remember was the advertiser's punch line -- BURMA SHAVE.  Back then I didn't care much about shaving cream, but Burma, what was this Burma thing?  It set me off on a quest, of sorts; reading Burmese Days, the book by George Orwell, practically memorizing Mandalay, the famous poem by Rudyard Kipling, and so on.

The Burma Road especially used to catch my fancy.  It was built by the British through the northern highlands to connect with the Chinese and came to fame in World War II as a supply route into China, an engineering marvel of its time.

Part of the road circa 1945.

Now fast forward, ohhh, about fifty-five years, and put me at the Tachileik border crossing between northern Thailand and Myanmar/Burma (the name of the country was changed to Myanmar in 1989).

Long closed to through travel, Tachileik lies in the "Golden Triangle" region, notorious in years past for opium production, gem smuggling, roving guerrilla bands, etc.  But now more welcoming because the country is in the process of opening up after decades of isolation.

This past October then, with the proper visa and paperwork in hand, I stood poised to enter this mysterious and seldom visited area...

At the Tachileik border crossing

I'll be doing a series of posts on this through the next few weeks.  Come along with me as I lift the veil on the Shan Highlands of northeastern Myanmar and imprint my size elevens onto the famous Burma Road.

[PART TWO TO FOLLOW NEXT WEEK]