The past few days, I’ve been using a credit card to scrape frost from the car windscreen, crunching my way across the silver-tipped garden, slip-sliding on glittering pavements, even waking up to find ice on the inside of our single-glazed sash windows. Yep, it’s cold. And it got me thinking about ice – something I had planned to include in a series of essays called Around Burma in Eight Objects. Of course, nothing ever came of the sentences I scribbled down during visits in February 2015 and May 2019. My pile of dog-eared notebooks? Ambition’s mausoleum. Anyway, having revisited what I wrote, here are some impressions of ice – from early-morning making to evening enjoyment.
Balancing on our bags, we feel every bump in the road as we bounce around in the back of Soe Lin’s pick-up. The journey from Indawgyi Lake to Hopin takes just over an hour, and we’ve set off before sunrise so there’s plenty of time to grab breakfast before our train departs. But when we arrive at the station, it’s eerily empty.
Undeterred, Soe Lin strides across the tracks and directs us to a noodle stall hidden among the trees – steam rising from saucepans and mingling with the morning mist. Pinned to the wall above our table is a calendar from two years ago, corners curled and pages crinkled, but the image is unmistakably Hkakabo Razi – the highest mountain in Burma. Soe Lin takes out his phone and scrolls through photos from a recent visit, pointing out jungle-covered foothills, towering waterfalls and snow-capped peaks. He offers to drive us to his hometown of Putao, about 50 miles from the mountain, but we have to decline – this northern part of Kachin state is only accessible to foreigners by plane.
Undeterred, Soe Lin decides to add another stop to our pre-departure tour, so we leave our bags in the station master’s office and wander into town. With no introduction or explanation, we suddenly find ourselves in the middle of an ice lolly production line. Sitting on low stalls, several generations are busy scooping and pouring vivid liquids into plastic tubes – passing a battered metal funnel between them. At their feet, buckets and bowls are filled with rice flour jellies, palm sugar syrup and coconut milk for extra-special creations.
Once filled, each lolly is carefully placed upright in an old can, ready for the open end to be twisted and tied with a rubber band. Beneath the sound of constant chatter, a hosepipe hisses, chiller cabinets hum, water drips from the pipes that snake around the covered courtyard.
Hitching up his longyi, a man squats next to a metal bowl filled with frozen lollies. I’m not sure about his criteria, but each one undergoes careful examination before being placed in a cool box. Later, while we stare out the window from our wooden train seats, we’ll see him walking up and down the carriages, selling these colourful ices to hot passengers for about 40p each.
The art of making and distributing ice in a country where white goods are a luxury, the temperature regularly exceeds 40ºC and daily power cuts are to be expected intrigues me. ‘Hand-churned’ sounds like something you see on an artisan ice cream, but then we watched a group of men plunging metal containers into ice-filled barrels, and the phrase gains a new meaning. Calloused hands grasping the wooden handles, forearms tightening with the effort of every turn.
Elsewhere, frozen shards spray flip-flopped feet as a block of ice is sawed into more manageable chunks before being carefully wrapped in sacks and carried away on the back of a scooter, to be delivered to sugar cane juice vendors around town.
At a waterpark, children eat ice pops under the shade of umbrellas, all sticky smiles as they race towards the tall metal slides. Adults kick off their shoes underneath a 400-metre reclining Buddha, who casts a benevolent gaze at the mayhem below, foot-long eyelashes fluttering heavenwards. Opposite, scaffolding is in place to support an even longer counterpart, although construction appears to have stalled at the knees amid the folds of concrete robes.
Finally, late at night in downtown Yangon, ordering an ice lolly has been turned into a game at some of the stalls lining 19th Street. Contestants spin a brightly painted wheel and the pointer comes to rest on a number between one and six. I don’t know what this denotes (the flavour, the quantity, a fortune-telling, something else?), but kids clutching ragged notes can’t wait for their turn.
All images © Nic Crilly-Hargrave Photography – thanks ;-)