The flight was pretty uneventful as I slept for most of the hour and a half journey. Once I landed in Yangon I quickly went through immigration and customs, and was soon in the lobby looking for my free ride to the hotel I was staying at called the Motherland Inn 2. The hotel offered free pickups from the airport, a taxi ride to the main part of Yangon costs 8 dollars, the hotel room cost 16 dollars, and since I was splitting the cost of the room with a friend it made sense to book our room there since the free ride saved us as much as it cost to book the room. Once I got to the lobby I saw a man in a traditional Myanmar garment called a longyi with a sign that had my name on it from the Motherland Inn 2 hotel. I went over to meet him and he was a very friendly man and asked for me to wait while he looked for some other guests who were supposed to have arrived. After a while no other guests showed up so we headed out of the airport. The first few steps I took outside of the airport in Burma were a little intimidating, first because you hear from everyone how Burma isn't a safe country to visit, and second because there are soldiers standing outside of the airport with large rifles. Despite this feeling of trepidation we headed to the bus and left to the hotel. They picked me up in a proper 1960's bus and we had a good laugh because I was the only guest on the bus. Before heading to the hotel the bus driver and his helper showed me around Yangon, and showed me the Shwedagon Pagoda, which is an ancient Pagoda made out of solid gold, and it is absolutely amazing. After showing me a few other places they took me to the hotel and I found Cassian checking his email in the computer. Cassian had arrived a day earlier and since we were sharing a room he had to switch out of his single. After this we went to have our complimentary breakfast and after we went to the front desk to try and find out where we could switch our currency to the local currency called Kyiat. Regrettably I found out it would be quite difficult to trade my Thai Baht that I had brought into the country into Kyiat. In Burma you can only legally trade currency at the government bank, and the government bank only changes pristine large denomination US Dollar, Euro, and Singaporean Dollar. I had brought in 316 dollars worth of Thai Baht to last me the 11 days in the country, and I found out I couldn't change it at the government bank at all, and the guest house told me they would convert it for me, but would only give me 115 dollars worth of Kyiat, meaning I would lose half of my money in exchange alone. On top of that because of US sanctions on the Myanmar government there are no ATM machines and American credit and debit cards don't work, meaning no Visa, Mastercard, American Express, or even Discover card. This did throw me into a bit of a worry for a bit, but fortunately I was with Cassian who planned ahead and brought extra US Dollars, and was kind enough to share his money with me. What we decided to do was to share Cassian's money, and then I would keep a running total of his currency I spent. Once we returned to Thailand I would convert the amount I spent in Kyiat into Thai Baht, and after we returned to Thailand I would repay him the money.
After this we decided to find the government currency exchange place and change Cassian's money into local currency. We departed the hotel at around 11:00 o'clock as the currency exchange closes for an hour and a half from 12:00 to 1:30 PM. This was a pretty interesting walk as a lot of Yangon is impoverished and most of the cars that you see driving around are 1980's Toyota Corollas, besides the occasional nice Mercedes or Land Rover being driven by a government officer. There are also huge deep holes in the sidewalks that lead directly into storm drains and sewage, which range anywhere from a 2 to 10 foot drop. Another interesting thing that I realized while on this walk, and in Burma in general, is that the people in Myanmar are not quite as Southeast Asian in appearance as their neighbor nations to the East. Instead since Burma borders India to the West you see a mix in the population between Southeast Asian and Indian. While we were walking around discovering all of this we noticed that the time had passed quite quickly and it was now passed 12:30. We walked around a little bit longer to locate the exchange shop so we could come back when it opened and decided to go have a smoothly. We went to a place called the 50th street bar which once you got inside was completely at odds with the outside world. It was a bar that catered to the few Western expat embassy and other workers who lived in Yangon. There were darts inside, a pool table, satellite TV with sports on 24/7, and a rich wooden decor. We decided to have our smoothies while playing a game of pool and then darts. After staying their for a couple of hours we decided to depart and head to the currency exchange.
The currency exchange building was an interesting place as inside was jammed packed with people and their were six different banks, which is odd because you can only legally change currency at a government bank. This means that all six of these different stands were all owned by the government I'd assume, but were all named differently and had employees in different uniforms. We decided on one of the banks to exchange his currency at and were told only crisp 100 US dollar bills were accepted for the current exchange rate and if he wanted to exchange 50's it would be at a lower rate. Cassian and I decided it would be best to only exchange the hundreds at that point and we would decide what to do with the rest of the currency once we had an idea of what our travel plans were in the country. The highest note in Burma is a 5000 Kyiat, with 1000 and 500 Kyiat notes being common as well. Because of rapid inflation in the country the 1000 Kyiat note is more or less equal to a US dollar and since we traded around 400 US dollars worth of currency we ended up with a lot of Kyiat notes. We ended up trading in 4 US 100 dollar bills and received around 380 1000 Kyiat notes in return. We had a good laugh at this and were a little perplexed for a moment about how we would get this money back to the hotel when we didn't bring a backpack. In the end we said our goodbyes and decided to stuff our pockets with the currency and take it back to the hotel. That was an interesting walk back to the hotel I must say.
After dropping off the money we decided to walk to the Shwedagon Pagoda, which was a good 45 minute or hour walk from our hotel. We had to walk down a lot of the main roads to get to the pagoda and I was quite pleasantly surprised by how many book vendors I saw on the roads, which was surprising with how closed off the government is. I assume the lack of household TV's in the country probably raises the amount of reading that occurs in the country, but nevertheless it was an encouraging site to see. A common Western novel at these stalls is Burmese Days which is a fictional account by George Orwell of the time he spent in Burma. It is the only book that isn't banned in Burma that is written by Mr. Orwell. There is a common saying in Burma that George Orwell didn't only write one book about Burma, but instead wrote three: Burmese Days, 1984, and Animal Farm. On the way to the Pagoda we also passed the Traders Hotel, which is very close to where the protests occurred in 2007 and also close to where Mr. Kenji Nagai was shot by a military soldier.
We soon arrived at the Shwedagon Pagoda and it was amazing. So many times in this blog I have referred to myself as feeling I was in Indian Jones or at Disneyland and once again I had this feeling. We entered at the base of the pagoda, where giants tiger like creatures looked at you with an evil smirk on their face. I can only imagine what it must have been like to be a foreigner hundreds of years ago, and the first thing you see while coming out of the jungle are these giant tiger like creatures guarding a giant golden monument, probably the largest you had ever seen. While we were walking up the stairs to the pagoda we had to take off our shoes, which would become a very frequent occurrence in Burma, more so then any other country I had visited. Once we got up to the pagoda, it was beautiful and it is difficult to even fathom how to put into words how massive the pagoda was. To be honest it is hard to fathom how to even put the country of Burma into prospective with all of its attributes. At the top of the Pagoda we saw lots of foreigners, a couple of which were Western foreigners, but from what I gathered many of the foreigners here were on more of a pilgrimage instead of as tourist simply viewing the building as an architecturally significant structure. I would later learn that Shwedagon Pagoda houses 6 of Siddhartha Gautama's hairs, who is also known as Gautama Buddha or the Supreme Buddha. It also houses relics from the Buddhas Kakusandha(staff), Konagamana(water filter), and Kassapa( a piece of robe). {To be honest I'm not that clear on this aspect of Buddhism and all I know about these three are they were the 24-26th Buddhas, and were the last ones before Gautama Buddha who is the famous Buddha everyone knows about today. If anyone has and info on this put it in the comment box and I'll update this section.} So although I cannot claim to understand the full significance of the Shwedagon Pagoda, what I can say is that it seemed to be a very spiritual place to a lot of individuals. Everywhere you looked their was a group of monks meditating or a group of individuals washing the head of the statues of Buddha, it was quite an interesting experience. As it got dark it became even more beautiful as the lights came on and reflected off of the gold and the surrounding buildings, which housed other statues of Buddha, and other seemingly important figures. Since it was beginning to get dark people were beginning to clean up the grounds and as Cassian and I were walking around the Pagoda, an army of men with brooms were following us cleaning up every nook and cranny of the giant pagoda.
Towards the end of our trip to the pagoda a young monk, in his mid-thirties, came up and spoke to us. He was very fond of Americans and English people and very quickly made it aware that he wasn't fond of his government. He asked us if we would be willing to come to his school the following day and meet his teacher who taught him how to speak English. Cassian and I agreed to meet him there the next day. After this Cassian and I decided to head back as it had gotten dark and we were worried about our safety. In safety I mean in regards to falling down 5 foot holes into sewage on the sidewalk and not safety in concerns to people. A lot of the streets in Yangon are dark and as mentioned in this post before there are holes in their sidewalks, so we decided to walk back very carefully. On our way back we had a very affordable dinner at this cafe along the street, it reminded us of a cafe you would see in Cuba, as it was full of only men and most of them were smoking and reading the paper. I don't know why specifically Cuba, but that was the vibe I got from the cafe. After that we headed back to the hotel and booked our bus tickets to Mandalay for the following evening.
The next day we went to the government bank to exchange the rest of Cassian's money and then headed over to the school. It was a very large room that had one teacher in the very front and hundreds of students all siting on wooden benches. How the class worked was the teacher read a book and the students would all follow along. Whenever a more complex word was used the teacher would explain its meaning in Myanmar and then continue on. We sat in the back with the monk and met a few of his friends who ended up putting traditional Myanmar makeup on us. We were told after that only women and children wear this, but I don't know how true that is because throughout our trip through Burma I would see a lot of grown men wearing it. After this we went with the Monk to the monastery where he lives and he showed us the small school they had there. It was a school for children who didn't want to attend the government school, and were allowed to attend their school free of charge. After this Cassian, the monk, and myself all sat down with the leader of the monastery and had a conversation with him for a while. We talked about politics some more and the leaders viewpoint on the current government and if it would get better anytime soon. I guess I was asking a lot of questions as the monk who we had met earlier jokingly told me I must be a reporter. After a while of talking the monk we had met earlier told us we could stay at his friends monastery in Mandalay if we would like, and Cassian gave me a looking for confirmation so I said yes without a hesitation. After a bit we finished the tea and Burmese cookies the monks gave us, informed them we had to go, and said our goodbyes. The monk we had met first told us he would meet us at the bus station, and we thought it was to say goodbye.
We went back to the hotel and packed our stuff and hurried down to the lobby to wait for another guy who was going to the bus station. We had met him earlier and we all decided to travel to the bus station together. Once we arrived at the bus station we saw the monk there and there had been a misunderstanding. We thought the monk was coming to say goodbye, but instead he was coming to show us the way to his friends monastery in Mandalay. We found this out when he asked us to buy his bus ticket. Cassian was not very happy about this and asked to talk to me in private for a second. He told me that we didn't even know this monk and for all we knew he could be trying to rob us. I told Cassian that I wasn't fully comfortable with the situation either, but that we had come to Burma to go on an adventure and take a few chances. I also told him that if the monk was going to try and do us harm he would have when he was leading us to the little monastery, or even at the little monastery. I got Cassian to begrudgingly agree to let the monk come along, but I have to admit that I myself was quite nervous about the whole situation, and was worried that our things might be stolen or that something else might happen. I also reminded the monk how we were both living off of Cassian's money which meant we had very little and wouldn't be able to pay for three people to travel through the whole of Burma with it, and that we would have to separate in Mandalay. He said to not worry and that we would stay with his monk friends in Mandalay so we would be saving money in the long run, which I tended to agree with. After this you could tell there would be a little tension between Cassian and the monk as neither of them really talked to each other. Since this was the situation and we still had quite a while until the bus left I decided to ask the monk to teach me the Myanmar alphabet as he had already taught me some key phrases throughout the day. He happily agreed, so we sat down on the street and he wrote down the letters after which he taught me the pronunciation. After a while I noticed that we had a small gathering of people standing around us watching him teach me Myanmar, and they listened closely and smiled while we went over the alphabet. After this we were hurried onto the bus and took our seats. It was by far the best bus we rode while in Burma and would also turn out to be the best roads. It was quite uneventful and we only stopped one time and that was in order to eat.
The next day we arrived before the sun came up and Cassian was worried still about the monk. When the monk went to the bathroom he told me that we could escape now if we wanted. I once again reminded him that the reason we were in Burma was to take a few chances, and also told him that I was also slightly worried but that I was positive everything would be fine. At that point the monk got back and we all hopped together into a truck and headed off into the rising sun. It was quite an interesting ride because we did go through some jungly areas and this made me worried about where we were headed. After a bit we arrived at the monastery in one piece. At this point we were both pretty tired, but the sun was coming up so we decided we would stay awake. We sat in one of the common rooms for a few hours while we waited to see the head of the monastery. It turned out after a while that he wasn't there so instead we met his assistant who fed us a lot of food. Monks in Burma cannot eat after the hour of 12:00 PM so they eat a lot, and I mean a lot of food before that. They fed us each about 3 dumplings the size of hamburgers, lots of green tea, fruits, and noodles. By the end Cassian and I were slightly cracking up about how full we were, but how we didn't want to be rude and not eat the food they were giving us.
After this our monk friend decided to take us to the government monastery where his teacher was in charge. This is the same teacher who was in charge of the private monastery we were staying at who wasn't there at the current hour. While we were walking there the monk took us through the backstreets of Mandalay and we were able to see quite a bit of the local culture. After a while we arrived at his teachers monastery and his teacher invited us in. I was talking to him about Buddhism and he answered some questions I had about it. After a while they once again brought us out more food, about the same amount as at the previous monastery, and we again were invited to eat. At this point I was totally cracking up inside as I was sleep deprived, but definantley not nutrient deprived. We ate as much as we could and humbly told them we could not eat anymore, which they were perfectly fine with. After this we went to take showers, which was a large room with standing water that you grabbed with large buckets and poured over yourself. At first it seemed a little daunting, but to be honest worked out perfectly fine. After I was done Cassian went in to take his shower, and while I was waiting outside a monk who honestly looked a lot like Buddha in his statues was sitting across the way. He smiled at me took off the top part of his robe and shook his belly while laughing. A moment later a car pulled up and he hurriedly redressed, and acted completely normal. It has to be one of the funniest things I have seen, and shows even monks can have a sense of humor. So after we had our showers we said goodbye to the monks, and Cassian, our monk friend, and I headed to Mandalay Hill, which has an amazing view of the city.
The hike up the hill was a little journey in its own right, and we had to take our shoes off at the bottom because of its sacred position in Burmese culture. I find that completely respectable, but I will admit everytime I had to take off my shoes at an outdoor sacred area in Burma it always made me cringe thinking I was going to get hookworm again. The hike up the hill was pretty, and the whole way up was paved with marble, at least most of the way. About halfway up we stopped as Cassian had gotten a little sick, I'm guessing from the full stomach plus the hiking right afterword. While we were sitting there the monk was showing me the skyline and telling me about each of the different natural and man made significant sites in the horizon. At one point he pointed out to me the Mandalay prison, and told me that was one place I definantley didn't want to be. He told me about how a lot of the political prisoners still being held in Burma are serving their terms there and how it is mosquito infested, meaning a breeding ground for malaria. After that realization a group of young Burmese girls approached us and were all giggly, and asked if we would take our photos with them. We happily agreed and they honestly giggled throughout the entirety of it. After a while they told the monk to tell me, as they spoke no English, that I had beautiful hair and a beautiful face, which I kindly thanked them for. Then they asked the monk to ask me what I thought of them, and I said that they were absolutely gorgeous, which I don't think they needed the monk to translate as they all got read in the face and giggled. After that they departed and we continued up to the top of the hill. Once we arrived it was pretty breathtaking
because it is a very interesting valley. It is surrounded by hills on what I perceived to be the West, East, and South, but to the North the valley just seemed to go on forever. After Mandalay it was also just plains, you could see a view villages in the distance but that is about it. After that we decided to head back down the hill. All over the hill kids play with laser guns, and the monk would grab them and play with them. I actually got a picture of the monk holding one of the laser guns at one of the kids, which is a pretty powerful picture and backward in nature that I will share below.
Once we got to the bottom we headed back to the monastery really quickly to get some more money. After that we took the bus to a jade market. The bus only took us so far and we once again had to walk through the back roads of Burma where we saw a lot of kids playing football on a backstreet. Football(Soccer) really in the universal sport. Anywhere you go in the world, from the most extravagant countries and neighborhoods to the poorest, everyone is playing football. After walking by them we arrived at the Jade Market, where there was jade in all shapes and sizes. Since the prices were so good I decided to barter for two pieces of jade and later found out I had gotten a pretty good deal on it. While walking through the market it was an interesting experience because there were young kids working in their family owned shops making jewelry. I am not condoning or critiscizing kids working at their families jewelry stores, but after years of learning children working equates to child labor I have come to the conclusion that I don't know if it is that clear cut. Instead it seems to be like most other things in the world, a topic that is colored in a whole host of shades of gray.
After the market we headed over to the Mahagandayon Monastery, which is the largest in all of Burma, as it houses over 1,200 monks! We went inside and were talking to one of the teachers about the school, and then toured the grounds a bit. They have an exact replica of Big Ben on the property, which is a pillar left from the British control of Burma. After that we went and saw a really cool monastery that was made completely out of wood, not even any iron fixtures for doors or anything. Unfortunately I cannot remember the name of it, but it was a cool monastery none the less. Before heading back to the monastery we all decided to grab a cup of tea. While having tea we once again talked about politics and we also talked about favorite movies. One of the monks favorite movies what Rambo, and he seemed to favor 80's movies such as Back to the Future. Since it was getting late we decided we would head back to the monastery as we had to wake up early to pick up our train tickets to Bagan.
Once arriving back at the monastery we were invited into the quarters of the head monk, our friends teacher. This is the same monk who also runs the government monastery in Mandalay. It was to be honest quite an honor as this was one of the most powerful monks in all of the Mandalay division, and also one of the most powerful in the country of Burma. It was an experiencing sitting and talking to him, we honestly talked about everything. He wasn't the largest fan of the government, so I asked him how he felt about leading a government monastery in Burma. We also asked him about the British colonial era, as he was a young man during that time period. He told us that at the time they didn't like the British in Burma and are still happy they are not there, but that times were better under the British than they are under the current government. After that we talked about Aung San Suu Kyi, who is the political activist in Burma who was held under house arrest for around 25 years I believe(that number could be way off) until she was released from house arrest last year. After this the topic lightened as we began talking about football, and how the monk supported Manchester United, and this made Cassian laugh as he is a supporter of Chelsea. After that we talked about the royal wedding between William and Kate, and how they had all watched. The monastery had satellite TV and I swear every time I walked in someone was either watching a Burmese soap opera or a football match. After that we talked a while about the US, Barack Obama, and US policy in regards to Southeast Asia. He was also quite surprised to learn that their were homeless people in the United States and Engliand, where he believed everybody had an endless supply of money. Lastly, I had one final question for the monk, and I asked him who his favorite music artist was. He told me that not counting local classical Myanmar music, his favorite artists were Celine Dion and Justin Bieber. Yes that is right you heard me correctly, I am conversating with one of the most powerful monks in Burma about politics, culture, and sports, and it turns out he loves the Beebs. I swear Burma threw me a lot of curveballs over my two week stay. After that we dismissed ourselves and went and cleaned up in the bathroom. Once done I went to our sleeping quarters and the old monk was there again telling us how much he enjoyed our conversation and hoping we would be able to have one again, and I smiled and said yes. After that we laid down in our beds which were proper Buddhist Monastery beds, as they were wood mats on the floor, with a mosquito net as protection.
The next day the monk woke us up pretty early, and we embarked on our journey for the day. The first thing we did was have some really good local noodles. After that we headed to the train station to book our tickets for that evening. While we thought this was going to be the end of our adventure with the monk, it turns out he had other ideas as when we were writing down our names the monk also wrote down his name. While this didn't cost us very much, since he was a monk the train only cost him 1000 Kyiat, which is about a dollar and fifteen cents, it did irk Cassian quite a bit as he didn't want the monk to come in the first place. I told Cassian I understood his point of view, which is completely fair. Traveling with the monk was my kind of travel, but Cassian wanted to stay in guesthouses and hotels, which no one could blame him for because the monastery really wasn't that comfortable. Since this was Cassian's vacation just as much as it was mine I told him I would talk to the monk about our travelling arrangements. When the monk returned from the bathroom I explained to the monk that we couldn't afford to do this, as we were paying for his food, transportation around the city, and transportation between places, as monks don't carry any money with them. I still don't think he fully understood my reasoning as he kept responding to not worry we would stay at his friends monastery this time in Bagan. So at that moment I decided to let it rest for a while. After that the monk led us around town trying to look for a internet cafe for Cassian, which are quite difficult to find in Burma. After a while we decided it was a pretty fruitless idea looking for one, so we decided to hop on a buscar to the city of Pyin Oo Lwin or in English The Flower City. At this point in time Cassian was pretty peeved with not being able to find an internet cafe and learning the monk would be travelling with us to Bagan. We didn't really talk to much on the way up, but the monk did show me a women's prison on the way up that was full of women doing hard time, mining away at the rock. It looked like something I would have seen in the deep south in the 1950's. The ride was an arduous four hour trek up into the foothills of Burma. We passed by waterfalls and forests full of teak wood. We stopped at a lot of random places on the way up as the truck we were riding on was also delivering supplies to families. Once we arrived their the monk tried to negotiate with a tuk tuk to show us around The Flower City for the day. At that point I will admit that even I was beginning to become on a last nerve at times with the monk. The whole trip I reminded Cassian that culture is different here and monks are regarded in a different light, and live a life of poverty which is why they have no money to pay for things. This isn't what began to bother me, but instead was the repeating that things in Burma weren't expensive in Western terms. For example earlier in the day before we departed we went to a jewelry shop where they make gold leaf, which is hammered onto the statues in Burma. We saw a small block of gold and asked the monk to ask the lady out of curiousity how much it was worth, and she told us it cost her around 2500 US dollars. The monk went on to say that that is very expensive for someone in Burma, but is very cheap for a Westerner, and he also made like comments at the Jade Market about thousand dollar jade rocks. While yes it probably is cheaper than what it would cost in the US, 2500 dollars is still a lot of money even for someone from the states. This was something that I really don't think he fully grasped as the previous night he had been talking about how there were no poor people in the US and no one living on the streets. I brushed most of these comments off realizing they had been lost in translation, but it became difficult when it was about items and how cheap they would be for us to buy. While we were in The Flower City the monk came back to us and told us we could take the tuk tuk for 18 Kyiat which is about 21 or so dollars for the day, which is an extremely high price in Burma, and high for us when we are on a tight budget since only Cassian had usable money. I told the monk that was far too high and we wouldn't be able to pay it, and he looked at us kind of surprised. We decided we would walk around the city for the day instead of renting a tuk tuk. This was a difficult part in the trip for me as I was trying to keep Cassian from getting too upset about the monk and I myself was getting a little angry about the monks idea that we had copious amounts of money to throw around even when we had clearly stated we didn't. After that we found Cassian an internet cafe that had internet fast enough to allow him to send out an email. Once he finished we walked around the city for a few hours and while it was pretty, very relaxed, and also still had a lot of obvious influence from the British colonial period, it lacked any qualities that distinctly stand out in my mind--besides one really cool mosque. Our monk friend was also not the largest fan of Muslims as he believed they were crazy and wanted to blow things up. It is crazy the stereotypes that get spread throughout the world.
Our journey back from The Flower City to Mandalay had to be one of my most memorable experiences in Burma. We sat on the top of the buscar with all of the luggage and it began to rain, everyone else on the roof decided to get in but Cassian and I decided to remain on the roof. While we were riding back through the jungle we were getting soaked, but at the same time were having a great laugh, and saw some absolutely gorgeous revines. I was wearing traditional Myanmar makeup and it began running on my face, which caused Cassian to tell me it looked as though I had something yellow growing on my face. It was a great bus ride back and by the time we arrived in Mandalay we were completely dry as the rain stopped a good half an hour before we reached Mandalay giving us plenty of time to be wind dried.
Once we got back we were walking down the street to the monastery and Cassian kept cracking up about all the people who while riding by on their motobikes and bicycles would stare at me and even continue to look after they had already ridden by. Cassian joked that it was crazy and that he felt like a local with no one staring are him-I gave him a good hah and we continued walking. Once we returned to the monastery we still had a few hours until our train left so we went and began talking to the head monk again. This time we talked about linguistics and we showed him differences between American English and English spoken in the UK. They found it quite funny that although we spoke the same language we still said and pronounced things differently. After this we talked about Bali for the remainder of the night. Not Bali as in the island, but Bali as in the ancient language. From what I gather from the conversation Bali to Southeast Asia, is much like Latin to the West. All societies from India to Indonesia can trace their languages to some common ground with the dead language of Bali. That was actually quite educational for me as I never knew this before. After this we said are goodbyes and thanked the leader of the monastery for his hospitality and headed to the train station.
When we first arrived at the train station it was jam packed with people. We found it difficult to navigate around them and stick with the monk, and for a while we actually couldn't find the monk. This led us to find our train by ourselves, and for the longest time thought that do to unforeseen occurrences we might have been separated from the monk permanently. To be honest at this time I somewhat felt relief along with Cassian that maybe through no fault of our own we lost the monk. About 5 minutes before the train left the monk showed up at our carriage and was relieved to find us, and Cassian actually looked surprisingly relieved as well, due to the fact the monk had been carrying our cookies. This led Cassian to state to me a bit later that at least we now had our cookies, which I responded with a laugh.
The train ride was one of the more eventful parts of the journey. Before we bordered the night train we were told that trains in Burma have not been updated since the early 20th century when the British still ruled here. It was true. Once we got on the train it was jammed packed, with people even sitting on the floor. Once we started our journey the train began to sway back and forth and would also bump up and down, enough to actually throw you off of your seat. I jokingly told Cassian that it was just like a mother rocking you to sleep, he gave me a half laugh thinking I wasn't too funny at that moment in time. After that we both decided to get some sleep, but I will admit that was pretty short lived. Once we were on the train for about 30 minutes something slapped me in the face and I had no idea what it was so I fell back asleep. About five minutes later something slapped me in the face again, and this time I was like what the hell is that. At this time I decided to stay awake, and for a while nothing happened, but then as I was laying my head on the side of the train it slapped me again! And I realized it was branches from outside of the train that as we passed slapped inside of the carriage and hit me in the face. I found this pretty funny and woke Cassian up to tell him about it. I don't know if woke Cassian up is the right word since he wasn't really sleeping in the first place, but he did have a good laugh about it. After that we both tried to go to sleep again, but shortly after this the rain began to come down pretty hard, and since the windows weren't closing I was getting pretty wet. Looking out of that window though made me forget about getting drenched. Outside as the train was ricketing back and forth you saw nature at her finest. It was completely dark out except for the lightning that struck every few minutes, but when the lighting struck a new world opened up. We were riding through the jungle while going over old decrepid bridges that rested upon rivers that were raging below and almost looked like they would overtake the bridge and the train at times. It honestly was nature at its finest, I don't know if I have ever seen a storm quite like it.
While I was being all poetic about being drenched and the beauty of the outside world, Cassian was dealing with his own problems. When I looked away from the outside world I noticed that he had moved to the floor hoping to get more comfortable. The only problem with this was there was one light in the carriage, we were going through the jungle, and he was laying under the only light. More than a few burnt bugs were falling on him. While I looked at him it literally looked like Mount St. Helen had exploded again and the was falling all around him. When I looked up, I kid you not, I saw a massive swarm of bugs flying around the light, and when I say massive I don't mean a hundred or a couple of hundred, but there were literally thousands of bugs swarming around the light. One of the monks who was on our carriage attempted to wrap them all in a blanket and throw them out of the window. This while a seemingly good idea had no affect on the bugs ability to swarm around the light. After a while Cassian gave up in his attempt to sleep on the ground and sat back down on his chair. For what seemed to be a good chuck of time I fell asleep, but once again I was awaken by a stealthy bush or tree branch. This time when I looked over at Cassian I saw that he had concocted a plan to keep the bugs off of himself. He had fully enveloped himself in his scarf he had bought in Cambodia. The most amazing part about it though, and I wish to this day I wasn't so tired and would have taken out my camera was what was on him. He was covered from head to toe with bugs and all types of bugs. He had grasshoppers, moths, a saw a centipede and countless little bugs literally all over his scarf and the parts of his body that were not covered by the scarf. I at this point began to wonder who had the more interesting voyage. Cassian who was completely covered in bugs, or I who was drenched and was whipped by tree branches from time to time. Beyond stopping at a few train stations here and there where people came up to the windows attempting to sell us things, that is the last part of the night I remember.
Part 2 soon
More Shwedagon Pagoda
Bartering for Jade.
On my way back from the Flower City.
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