According to the latest numbers, Myanmar owns 15 times fewer cars per 1,000 people than Thailand does. But most of this country’s cars must live in this city. Every day the bottlenecks here come closer to matching Bangkok’s.
I’m inclined to get around on two wheels no matter what in 2015. A bicycle nearly always beats a taxi. Another plus for us pedal pushers: Yangon law forbids motorcycles.
In this climate, cycling means carrying an extra shirt to change into at the destination. Sometimes it also means traveling further than a car would, to avoid risky major arteries. For me those drawbacks are worth it.
The other day I gave myself plenty of extra time. I was headed to an office in a part of town I hadn’t visited before, planning to ask a favor from some people I’d only met by phone. They had sent me a map, but somehow its streets didn’t match the real signs on the ground.
To not be late, I stopped at a garage for directions. The mechanics pointed me back the way I’d come. In turning around, somehow my tires passed through a puddle of oil and grease. I tried to rinse it off with a water bottle I carry.
Soon I was back on my way. I smiled, now that I was on the right road, still with plenty of time to spare… until I saw that my off-white trousers were becoming hardly white. Damn! To show up looking like a leopard wasn’t going to work for this appointment.
I rescheduled. Do I now need to start carrying a spare pair of pants? Either that or…
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