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Outside Magazine October 2003

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The Ghost Road
Winding a thousand miles from India to China, the Burma Road was built to defend China in World War II, but the atomic bomb made it irrelevant and the jungle reclaimed it. Mark Jenkins vowed to do what no one had done for nearly 60 years—travel the entire Burma Road—and discovered the madness of present-day Myanmar.

By Mark Jenkins


	(Illustration by the Clayton Brothers)

DUCK OFF THE ROAD, RUN.

Down dark passageways, right at one corner, left at the next, no idea where I'm going. On a main street in the town of Namsai, I spot three armed Arunachal Pradesh border policemen up ahead. It is the spring of 1996, and I'm traveling in this northeastern Indian state illegally. I slide into the flow of tasseled trishaws, pedestrians, clicking bicycles.

A vintage white Ambassador—that lumpish fifties-era sedan still found throughout India's hinterland—creeps along within the bright human throng. Behind it a young tribal girl carries

Bhurma's Road to Hell

To view a map of the Bhurma Road, CLICK HERE.

two buckets of water on a bamboo pole. I step up alongside her. She smiles, then covers her face. I snap off my baseball cap and place it on her head. She laughs and unwinds an orange cotton wrap from around her shoulders and hands it to me. I knew she would do this; it's not possible to give a gift in this part of the world without receiving one in return. I dive both hands into one of her buckets, slick back my shaggy hair, and whip the fabric into a turban around my head. Then I step to the rear passenger door of the Ambassador and jump in the backseat. I find myself sitting beside a large Buddhist lama in maroon robes. I adjust my disguise and scan the crowd outside.

"You are being chased," says the lama.

"I am."

The lama speaks to the chauffeur. The chauffeur taps his horn, maneuvers around a brahma bull seated in the road, speeds up. In the outskirts of Ledo, we roll onto a long grassy driveway, pass a freshly gilded stupa, and stop in front of a group of wooden buildings. The lama lifts his frock above polished black shoes and steps out.

"My name is Aggadhamma," he says, in British-accented English. "This is the Namsai Buddhist Vihara, a monastery for boys. You are safe here."

That evening I have dinner with the lama and a dozen shaved-headed acolytes. We are seated on the floor around circular tables. The walls are Easter-egg blue. A tin plate heaped with rice, dal, vegetables, and burning-hot, fuscous curry is set before me. I eat with my right hand.

After the meal, the boys slug back a last tin of water and scatter into the warm, lampless dark.

"Now," says Aggadhamma, "please tell me, what brought you to this distant corner of our earth?"

I don't have any reason not to be truthful. "I want to travel the old Stilwell Road and cross into Burma."

I outline my obsession. Six decades ago, during World War II, American soldiers under the command of General Joseph "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell carved a 1,100-mile road, starting in Ledo, in the Indian state of Assam, through a wilderness of dripping mountains and leech-infested jungles in northern Burma, and across the border into southwestern China.

No one even knows if this old military road still exists. Perhaps it has vanished entirely, consumed by the jungle like a snake eaten by a tiger. It's a mystery I've been hoping to solve.

"This is your plan, despite the fact that Arunachal Pradesh is in the midst of civil unrest—car bombings, assassinations, and the like—and therefore closed to foreigners," responds Aggadhamma. "I take it you are here without government permission."

I admit that I do not have a Restricted Area Permit.

"It's not as serious as it sounds," I add. "Mostly just a game of cat and mouse with the border police."

Aggadhamma eyes me. "You can get away with this in India," he says. "India is the greatest democracy in the world. The government here is like an old elephant: vast, but slow and avoidable. Clever people can keep from being stepped on."

I don't tell him that I have already been arrested, and escaped, a half-dozen times, but he already seems to know.

"You are clever, then," he continues, "and yet you wish to sneak into Burma and play this same game?"

I just nod.

For the next three days I hide out in the Namsai Vihara. I help spade black soil in the vegetable garden and teach the eager pupils American slang in their English classes.

My last night in the monastery, Aggadhamma tells me he has someone for me to meet. After supper, he introduces me to a nine-year-old boy named Myin. The boy is as beautiful as a girl, with brilliant eyes and a perpetual grin. He is also an amputee, his left leg vanished at the hip.

"Myin is from Burma," says Aggadhamma, and tells the boy's story as Myin stares at me with a guileless smile.

Myin is a Jinghpaw, or Kachin. The Kachins are an ethnic group whose homeland includes most of northern Burma; they are one of seven major ethnic minorities—along with the Karen, Karenni, Mon, Chin, Shan, and Arakanese—that make up about 30 percent of the country's population (68 percent of the 50 million citizens are Burmese), each with its own state. All told, there are some 140 ethnic groups and 100 dialects in Burma.

Two years earlier, soldiers under the military regime burned Myin's village to the ground and took all the boys. They were tracking pro-democracy Kachin guerrillas through the jungle. The soldiers knew the trails were booby-trapped, and they used Myin as a human minesweeper, forcing him to walk alone in front of the soldiers. He was seven years old and couldn't have weighed 40 pounds when his leg was blown off.

"We have several boys from Burma here," says Aggadhamma. "Each has been maimed in one way or other. This is what Burma does to humans."

After dark I leave Namsai Buddhist Vihara. Aggadhamma shakes my hand with both of his hands, holding on tightly even after I release my grip.

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Outside columnist MARK JENKINS's latest book is The Hard Way.

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