Myanmar has a plethora of teashops. They sell black tea sweetened with condensed milk (tastes better than it sounds), have thermoses of free green tea freely available like water and serve up tasty fried snacks like samosas and other yummy fried doughy treats. We’ve been to a few as they’re ‘safe’, they are frequented by locals, dirt cheap and hence do not use the dreaded peanut oil. So we decided to ease into our day and stop at the teashop before getting our bikes and heading to the winery. This particular teashop is on a ‘main corner’ in Nyuang Shwe. So main, this intersection is that it got a brand new set of lights on the second day of our visit. Bright and shiny. One problem though, the lights on the north – south street of the intersection are on the wrong side. Meaning, if you are heading north the lights that you would normally across the road and above and instead directly above. They were as you would normally see in the east – west street with lights across the intersection for that lane of traffic.
We’re not sure if this oversight had anything to do with the police that were manning this intersection. The first day they were out there directing traffic. On day 2 they had retreated to the roadside. Lucky for them, this intersection happened to have a teashop on the south east corner with tables outside on the street. This teashop had a boy who looked no older than 12 years waiting on tables ( we later confirmed 14, meaning he finished his elementary education but looks like did not have the opportunity for secondary ) and distributing fried snacks with tea. It must be noted that we had no say in the matter as to what snacks we would be eating, he just brought us whatever he thought we should be having!
Dave points out at the table on the corner just to the left of us are three men. One of them is a policeman. He’s sitting there having his tea, hanging out with these other guys and when he sees something amiss, he blows his whistle and is all up in the intersection doing his police business. This is brilliant – he’s taken the North American stereotype of the cop in the doughnut shop to a whole new level. He’s actually policing from the teashop, tea and Asia fried dough treat in hand! Chief Wiggum would indeed be proud.
We are watching with great interest how the offenders of the new street light protocol were handled. A middle aged guy go through a red light. Whistle blows. He’s pulled aside, is suitably apologetic and is let off, with what we presume is a warning. A few other offenders are dealt with in similar fashion. Some bikes just keep going and ignore the whistle. The police guy looks annoyed, but doesn’t go after them, too far from his tea I suppose.
Then out of nowhere, 3 black and white cows come up the street from the south. No person appears to be leading or even accompanying these cows. What makes this even more surreal is these particular cows are the standard western looking jersey ones rather than the light coloured ones with the hump that we’d seen everywhere in our Myanmar travels. They are just walking along in a queue right into the intersection with red light. Will chaos ensue? Dave and I speculate about these, where did they come from? Where is their person? Did we just teleport to India? We’re on the edge of our little wooden stools tea in hand. The police man, sensing the imminent danger, blows his whistle, leaps up from his seat and goes to the street uttering commands. Much to our amazement, these cows, as if on queue turn left in the middle of the intersection all in perfect row and head west side by side now with the traffic. Still no human with these cows. Have they gone AWOL? These are seriously badass, yet oddly compliant cows. We’re in hysterics by this point (ok, maybe you HAD to be there)
Then it gets serious, three young guys on two motorbikes, all trendy with their knock off Converse All Stars go through a red light. They are pulled aside made to get off their bikes. There are now two cops and one goes to single guy and tries to take his keys. He is defiant and refuses. This is all happening in front of us, Dave and avert our eyes so as to not appear like we’re doing what we’re doing and watching the whole thing. The bike has two guys and a small baby. All are made to get off our bikes. The cop is giving them a serious dressing down, looking like he’s making a point of it. The locals are starting to gather around. We can only speculate, is this cop just a wanker or are these known hoodlums (or Buddlums, as Dave likes to call young Buddhist hoodlums). The one on the bike with the baby becomes apologetic and eventually they are let go and the crowd which has gathered disperses & everyone goes back to their days.
At this point, Dave points out that the two locals on the table to the right of us had been entertained by watching us watching all of the action – particularly during the cow episode. I turn to them and say ‘Like TV’. They nod their heads enthusiastically and burst out laughing. We give a mutual salute on our tea cups. The main police guy is now heading off and the show is over, so we pay our bill and move on.
That night when out foraging for food we noticed the street lights were out. Would it not be more important to have them controlling traffic after dark? Was the traffic light experiment deemed a failure or did the Buddlums have the last laugh? The next day we had back to the teashop to investigate. The lights were operating again, there was no Chief Wiggum, just his younger protege and from the lack of drama today, it seems that the town has gotten the hang of how traffic lights work.
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