Day 1: Yangon-Myit Kyi Nar

Day 1: Yangon-Myit Kyi Nar

Although there were flight delays due to heavy fogs on 14, 15 and 17 Feb, I am fortunate to start the trip on 16 Feb as the Yangon-Mandalay-Myit Kyi Nar-Putato flight left Yangon Domestic airport at 7am. It stopped at Mandalay for a short while and reached Myit Kyi Nar around 10am. Once I went out of the airport, I was on the Ledo Road which was built to connect Ledo, India to Kumming, China during the World War II. Parts of Ledo Road are re-constructed and under use until now.





I left for Myit Son in the same morning. The road was in good condition up to 10 miles from the city. The remaining parts were still under re-construction thus it was quite dusty. On the way, we can see the residential area (still under construction) for the families from the villages which have to be relocated for the gigantic hydro-project comprised of seven dams including Myitson Dam.

At around 11:30am, I am at Myit-son. This is the entrance to the scenic confluence of Maykha and Malikha (N’maikha in local Kachin language). The rocky and wild Malikha and the gentle and wide Maykha both find their sources at the Himalaya glaciers and form Ayeyarwaddy at this confluence. Ayeyarwaddy bisects the country's northern mountains and the central heartland and then empties through the Ayeyarwaddy Delter into the Andaman Sea.







The water at confluence was muddy especially along Malikha due to heavy gold mining. Myitson was completely different from what I have seen before. It was the clear water flowing over the smooth stones; I mean in the video clips taken years ago. But now, it doesn't appear as one of the most beautiful part of the country.



I took a boat ride along Maykha to see the small traditional gold collection set ups. The first thing you are going to see from the front of a gold collection set up is the mixture of water and sand flowing on to the plastic sheet which is placed on the surface of the gutter. This sand carries fine black particles and the pieces of gold. To get this mixture flowing down, people are working from the pit behind the gutter. Water from the river was pumped onto the ground. A head, a hose and a powerful pump is used to pump up the slurry onto the top of the gutter. A strainer is placed at the top of the gutter to filter the stones and pebbles. The sand trapped on the green plastic sheet is collected and the pieces of gold are extracted by using Mercury. The sand and stones flown down through the gutter will be left at the place.









I met some girls panning the tiny pieces of gold from the abandoned piles of stones and sand. They use small wooden tray to collect the gold particles. The black particles inside the pan are usually seen together with gold. For the gold miners, it is an indication of the presence of gold. The yellow particles are the pieces of gold.





Another way to collect gold is by pumping up from the river bed. People work in groups on the rafts. Divers worked for hours in the water pumping up the mixture of water and sand while others are performing other tasks on the raft. I saw some bamboo rafts in the middle of the river down stream of the confluence.



However, these traditional ways of gold panning and collections may not make a big difference to the clarity of the water. I saw two or three buses over-filled with people traveling north of Myit Son. There are many gold mines in which the ground could be scooped with the bulldozers. I didn’t have a chance to visit such sites due to my short stay. It was an interesting day trip to the place where you can collect gold from the ground.