Things started strongly as the train headed off in the counter-clockwise direction, opposite to the schedules I found both at my hostel and on the interwebs. This immediately scuppered my plan to get off at the penultimate (now second) station and walk to my hostel in plenty of time to catch a taxi to the airport, but even so I figured I should have enough time to make it back to the start of the line and still make my flight - although at this point I realised I could have saved 10000 Kyats by bringing my backpack with me and getting off at one of the several stops near the airport, but I guess I would have missed out on the excitement of sitting in traffic to the airport an hour before take-off…
The journey itself was a treat in terms of urban scenery and people watching, with the locals trying their best to interact with me despite us having exactly one word in common (“mingalabar”, burmese for “hello”), with cute babies being once again the most fascinated by my presence. Since communication happened mostly through smiles and silly faces, which alternately amused or scared the poor children and probably just had the latter effect on their parents, it was actually more enriching to try and interact with them than with grown-ups, who mostly stuck to words I did not even remotely understand.
With the train getting quite full towards the end and the clock ticking I had to power-walk out of the station and find a taxi driver willing to take me to the hostel to pick up my bag and then to the airport, with my unwarranted stress leading me to give up on my bargaining a tad early. In the end, Yangon International Airport was basically empty and within ten minutes of setting foot in the building I had checked in, gone through immigration and had a plate of tasty coconut noodles and a reasonably cold Myanmar beer in front of me. Simply by allowing me to take my backpack in hand luggage and giving me an emergency exit window seat, Myanmar National Airlines quickly won my heart.
After a slow start in Mandalay, the country itself also eventually made me very glad I made a point of coming here as part of this trip. In many aspects, Myanmar is like the last raw gem in Southeast Asia, amidst a few others that have been so heavily polished they just look like a cheap fake at this point. While Yangon looks like a bustling city that you would expect a former capital to be, Bagan and Inle are two of the most special places I have visited on this trip and I sincerely hope they stay exactly as they are for a long time - mostly so I can afford to come back and do a balloon trip in Bagan, but also so you guys can see them before these places get covered in gift shops!
You may have noticed I have avoided mentioning the humanitarian crisis that is going on at the border with Bangladesh, mostly because I did not want the military to show up at my door while I was in Burmese territory but also because it feels like the version of events people believe over here seems to be dramatically different from what the rest of the World talks about. Perhaps that is because the weird quasi-democratic arrangement the country has settled on after 2007 is not as open as the quasi-democratic arrangements I am used to, or maybe the situation really is more complicated than it seems. Either way, the treatment Aung San Suu Kyi is getting in the West is, in my opinion, a bit unfair. It is pretty obvious that either way her hands are tied, and taking the “stand” that sounds so simple to some could potentially endanger the limited freedom her people have fought so hard for, and putting that ahead of her Nobel Prize and Oxford degree is, to me, commendable. That said, whatever is going on has had a horrible impact on innocent civilians and I sincerely hope it ends as quickly as possible, much like I hope the Burmese people get the democracy they deserve sooner rather than later.
Now that the serious stuff is out of the way, being back in Singapore for a few hours brought back nothing but good memories from a month ago. Sally (who I first met a long time ago when she became part of a very improbable group of friends on an awesome trip around Portugal) and her boyfriend Darren very kindly offered me their spare room so I could catch some sleep before my 6am flight to Tokyo. Better still, they even more kindly offered me a couple of beers when I arrived, which we enjoyed in their balcony, together with a pretty impressive light show and conversation about their exciting travelling plans. I must admit these made me a little jealous because let’s face it - I have 25 days to go and they have… well, as long as they want. As much as I would like to sit here and feel sorry for myself, my alarm is set for two hours from now so I should really get some sleep. And accept that 25 days is still quite a bit, I guess.
Cheers,
J-Wowww
Atão???!!!!
ReplyDeleteEstás a ficar muito preguiçoso ��������