Pology Magazine  -  Adventures in Travel and World Culture.
Travel and World Culture   
Myanmar
 Photo: Pavel Pospisil
Myanmar
  Photo: Pavel Pospisil

Myanmar: Flowing Down The Irrawaddy (cont.)

It is impossible to approach the blazing fire without squashing them underfoot. Queasily I decide that I can do without food for one night. My skin is crawling, as if the cockroaches are covering me; and in my haste to get away, I trip over a woman feeding her baby.

I return to the cabin and I curl up awkwardly beneath a grubby sheet.  It is close to impossible to sleep in a cabin with twenty other people in it. I lay awake in my bunk listening to the gentle chugging of the boat punctuated by occasional snoring. After a few hours I begin drifting in and out of sleep.

I am awoken at the crack of dawn by the sound of the others getting up. In this part of the world, getting up is generally a noisy affair that often includes hawking and spitting, raised voices, and little regard for those still asleep. Two women have already been to fill their thermoses and are now shouting to their husbands. The smell from the neighbouring toilet, its handle long since useless, wafts into the cabin each time the door is opened. A young woman taps me on the arm.

“We will soon be at Pagan,” she says. I sit up and rub my eyes. Gratefully, I accept a mug of hot tea sweetened with condensed milk. I wearily repack my bundle and go out on deck.

On the deck, almost everyone is awake, laughing, arguing, drinking tea and waiting for breakfast. Only the soldiers are still sleeping, slumped uneasily over their rifles.  We change course and are now approaching the shore. A group of food vendors are waiting eagerly to sell their wares, rice cakes and mohinga, the fishy noodle soup, which they’d probably been cooking since 3 am. 

With much clanking we dock. Two men leap ashore to secure the boat and position the gangplank. Before the vendors are able to board, I make my exit; the only other person disembarking is a woman with a cage of hens. There are friendly shouts from the crowded deck; and I turned to see some of the passengers waving goodbye. I wave back; then, lifting my reed bundle, I head for a waiting bullock cart.  After the usual exchange I climb up beside the driver; and as we jerk and sway along the dirt track into the ruined city, I look back. The vendors are walking away from the river bank, and the boat is back at midstream. No one is waving anymore. The foreign passenger is forgotten as the business of breakfast takes over.









Page 2 of 2   Previous Page

 

All contents copyright ©2006 Pology Magazine. Unauthorized use of any content is strictly prohibited.