The Boat to Mandalay
I woke up at 3:45 to Cindy Lauper’s Girls Just Wanna Have Fun on my iPod alarm. That song has, since 2004 been an alarm clock song for me. Gets me up every time. I threw my pack over my shoulders and got my shoes on. I went out in the darkness of the early morning, and started walking. It was reasonably temperate out, but the sweat, nonetheless, started covering my body as usual. I walked and walked and walked. I wonder how much time has passed. Is there any way I’m going to miss is? I looked at my iPod. 4:45. Shit. I pulled out my map. I was only 2/3 of the way there, and I needed to catch the 5 am boat. Desperate times call for desparate measures. I saw a man just ahead with a bicycle and one of those little seats attached on the side. There was no one else on the road. No taxis, no horse drawn carriges, no motorcycles. This was it.
Bagan
I got up early, packed and ready to go. After witnessing a fight in my dorm, changing beds to separate the men, and seeing a rooster die in a cock fight, I was ready for a change of scene.
The Train. The Zoo.
It’s hard to come up with words to describe such a day, so I am relying on the video clips I have. Please excuse Pavlo’s language in a couple…
The train was packed. There were people shouting, dancing, singing, sleeping, selling, and moving their household furniture.
It was nothing I could have imagined it would be. We were on the train for five hours. I felt like passing out from the heat. I should have brought more water. I looked at the water from the vendors on the trains longingly, wishing I could drink just a couple of sips. It wasn’t bottled. I might get sick. I ate watermelon, sucking the rind for all the water I could get. We got off between two stops, two hours from central Yangon. We walked down the tracks and saw a family. The kids were flying kites. A man beckoned us over.
Sweltering in Yangon.
I am safe and sound in Myanmar. I don’t have much time to write, as I am heading to the zoo with two new friends I met at my hostel, from Australia and Greece, but I wanted to check in for my mom’s sake.
A Letter to my Gut.
A letter to my gastrointestinal tract:
The havoc that is about to befall you, is one that I would not wish upon my greatest enemy…
Beijing, for 13 hours.
After arriving in Beijing, I quickly began to feel like I had lost my marbles. What the hell were you thinking, Anoush, everything was going to be in English? Everything was definitely not in English. I was the only non-Asian on my flight, and anywhere I looked for that matter. What were you THINKING it would be like? I began feeling a little overwhelmed. I was exhausted from an 18-hour flight and two failed attempts at knocking myself out with ambien, and I wasn’t imagining it would be like this upon arrival.