25. The Expedition

January 5^th 2013, London. After weeks of intensive preparations, eleven members of our expedition – David Cundall, myself, the archaeologists, and our film crew – boarded a Qatar Airlines flight early this morning at Heathrow Airport, flew to Doha, and then on to Yangon. I brought with me a copy of author and explorer Wade Davis’s Into the Silence, a magisterial account of the 1921, 1922, and 1924 expeditions to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Whatever challenges lie ahead for our team, they will, blessedly, not be nearly so arduous as those faced by Howard-Bury, Mallory, Finch, and their companions. Still, we brought with us over 1,300 pounds of gear, including machetes, an expedition compass, NATO trenching tools, a comprehensive first aid kit, assorted archaeology tools, drawing kits, surveying equipment, a metal detector loaned to us by MineLab, and a dozen large cases of film equipment for the film crew. The geophysicists departed the following morning, along with cases packed with the Magnetic Gradiometer, the ERT, a Differential GPS (DGPS) system, and the Geonics EM34-3. Our expedition photographer, excavation safety expert, and witness Stanley Coombe arrived in Yangon over the weekend. Two more team members will join us next weekend, bringing our number to twenty persons. The Associate Press reported our arrival in Yangon. 

^{The team arrives in Myanmar}

We will be digging within the security perimeter of the country’s major international airport, a location which poses unique challenges. Our first order of business was thus to meet with our Burmese business partner Shwe Taung Por to coordinate site access, review safety procedures, and organize the surveys and excavation work. We rented a bus to take us back and forth to the site each day, ordered tents to provide shade for the crews, and arranged for delivery of construction supplies and heavy equipment. 

^{Organizing meeting for the excavation team. Photo Gavin Longhurst}

After the meeting all of us drove to the airport to get our first look at the site. There we were met by our government liaison officer who checked us through security and accompanied us to the dig location. After so many months of hard work, it is immensely gratifying to be standing on the site at last. 

^{The team on site at Mingaladon. Photo Gavin Longhurst}

On Wednesday, we concluded an agreement with JCB, who graciously agreed to loan us a JS220 and a JS200 tracked excavator, as well as a backhoe. We signed the contract on Wednesday morning, prepared a joint press release, and took delivery of the heavy equipment on Friday. Meanwhile, our geophysics team began mapping the site and our historical / archaeology team studied the landscape to try to reconstruct the 1945 layout.