Of Race Horses and Body Snatching

I’d walked and been driven along Horse Race Course Road a handful of times before I consulted a map to see if there actually was a race track somewhere to go along with the street name.  Sure enough, on the map you can still see the grounds of a former horse track in the midst of what is now a densely populated urban neighborhood. 

 

Add some snooping via Google Earth and it seems that the outline of the original track still exists, along with some outbuildings, a running track, and curiously, what looked to be a baseball field. 

A really large greenspace, it’s not labeled as a park on the map, rather the "Kyaikkasan Grounds", whatever that means (the Kyaikkasan part is named after a nearby pagoda which is claimed to contain 16 hairs of the Buddha, it's the "grounds" bit I'm not sure about).  Add the fact that it’s surrounded by a high wall with only a single entrance, and I figured this is probably not somewhere open to the public.  Still, the allure of a nearby place devoid of cars that might have a decent running surface, coupled with a little digging on the internet revealing that this was originally the Rangoon Turf Club, along with the site of a notorious body snatching - well, it was too much to resist…

A bit of history – The Rangoon Turf Club was established (elsewhere in town) originally in 1887, and moved to this location in 1926.  Unlike most colonial clubs in town, the Turf Club was not whites only.  Lim Chin Tsong, whom I wrote about back in November was a onetime chairman.  I can’t find much else about the colonial history of the club, other than it was still in operation as late as 1953 but seemingly abandoned sometime thereafter, and following the 1962 military coup, it was used as an assembly site for government-engineered rallies.

The grounds reemerged from obscurity in late 1974 following the death of former UN General Secretary U Thant.  An internationally respected diplomat, U Thant was unanimously elected as the first UN General Secretary from Asia.  While highly regarded abroad, Thant was distrusted by Burmese dictator General Ne Win, leading to his being labeled an “enemy of the state” even though he was still representing Burma in the UN at the time.  Upon his death in New York from lung cancer, U Thant was the first person ever to lay in state in the United Nations headquarters; however, upon the return of his body to Rangoon, General Ne Win refused to permit a state funeral or any other honors. 

Instead, the body was placed in the Kyaikkasan Grounds as they were now known, for public viewing.  Students from the not-so-nearby Rangoon University attempted to organize busses to travel to the viewing but were advised by the bus companies that the government was forbidding them to rent any busses in connection with the funeral.

The students reacted by organizing a march from the University to the Kyaikkasan Grounds, where following funeral rites, speeches, and prayers by attending monks, the students overpowered guards, seized the body and returned with it to the University where they announced that they were going to erect a mausoleum.  The rest of the story takes place away from the Kyaikkasan Grounds so I’ll save it for another day, but let’s just say that like most protests in this country it did not end well for the students with Martial Law imposed and several hundred dead at the hands of the military.

Back to present day - although there were a couple of guard posts that I had to pass by, nobody challenged me as I approached, so they were either just being nice to the stupid westerner, or maybe the place really is open to the general public.  I rather suspect the former. 

Upon entering, the first thing I saw was the outline of the racecourse.  Now much narrower, and paved over, it’s still an uninterrupted 1 mile oval suitable for running or cycling.  A pair of decaying grandstands grace one side of the track. 

Looking down on the remains of the track from the grandstands.





View of the grandstands.

1920s version of luxury boxes.

Original "clubhouse" of the Rangoon Turf Club, now home to some sort of government sports ministry (that is apparently ripping off the Olympic logo).

Off to one side are several outbuildings with signs indicating that they are for Judo, Weightlifting, Sepak Takraw (a game similar to volleyball but you play it with your feet), gymnastics, other sports, and a swimming pool.  There’s also a synthetic running track that’s in remarkably good shape.  All in all a pretty nice facility.  But not a single athlete, jogger, or even school kid kicking a ball around the vast infield.  In fact, the only signs of “life” were the guards that I passed, and some people I presume were groundskeepers who were sleeping in the shade.  And some goats.

Chess, really?



Genuinely nice track.

Lawnmower at work.

And then there’s the baseball “stadium”.  I don’t get it.  The British certainly didn’t introduce baseball.  The closest country that probably has a proper league is Korea.  But here, on the racecourse infield is a baseball diamond, complete with fences, dugouts and a two level grandstand.  The field is in pretty poor shape with sand dunes down both the right and left field lines, but it appears that somebody (I’ve no idea who) is still using it.  There is evidence of fairly recent chalk denoting the foul lines.  Maybe I should have packed my glove.



Baseball diamond viewed from the upper deck.

Sand dunes down the right field line.

Parting shot:

 

While we're on a sports theme - football players take over a busy downtown street late in the day.  These games go on every evening until well into the night.