Myitkyina

The Irrawaddy river at Myitkyina, northern Burma.

West of Mandalay the ancient train crawled over the wide Irrawaddy river – slow, brown and dry-season low – and rolled north. As the brick and dirt towns gave way to dry fields the insane jumping and pitching which had been throwing me off my seat for an hour calmed to a more gentle bounce and clatter. I slumped against the window and watched the sun fall through the smoke haze. Occasionally the line crossed a track where a farmer sat shielding his face from the dust in an open-cabined truck, exposed single-cylinder engine popping smoke rings and looking more at home on a generator than a road vehicle.

Soe Soe, the chubby man with whom I had shared a beer earlier, had returned to his bunk and appeared asleep. Across from me was Soe Soe’s mother. Neatly dressed she sat straight-backed, hands braced beside her knees. The narrow floor between the two bottom bunks was packed with cardboard boxes which toppled over every few minutes. When I helped her right them she smiled her thanks and returned to staring out of the window. The last passenger in our four-bunk compartment was also in his sixties and wore a suit. He carried only a slim briefcase and, apart from politely refusing to join us for a beer, had remained silent. The smoke from his expensive imported cigarettes curled through the compartment and I was reminded that I was travelling first class. The floor was torn and my window was jammed half open. Every metal surface was rusty and dented. Everything that could be broken was – the small table under the window canted sharply and the door to the cupboard underneath swung between its warped jamb and the stack of boxes. Tiny paint-flakes from the peeling wall swirled in the breeze and every surface was stained by decades of diesel smoke. It was filthy, but at least you got a bed and some personal space – a level of comfort that most Burmese couldn’t afford, judging from the straight-backed wooden seats I had glimpsed in the crowded lower class cars.

             After an hour Soe Soe roused himself and sat beside his mother spitting red beetel nut juice out of the window. I went to find the bathroom and buy us more beer. I staggered up the corridor pin-balling off the walls and found a group of guys sitting cross-legged outside the toilet surrounded by baskets of snacks, cigarettes and drinks. It was so crowded that two of them had to move so I could open the toilet door. Inside was a hole in the floor where the sit-toilet the British had installed so many decades ago had been ripped out by locals accustomed to squatties. The sink had also been broken off and the walls were so caked in filth that their original colour could only be guessed at. At the end of the carriage a man stood on the steps below the carriage door, gravel and weeds flashing below him. He was braced against the dented handrails pissing – a much more sensible option. As I leant out of the window I could see our train’s silhouette flit through the dry grass. In the shadow a figure walked carefully along the roof of the next carriage. I watched amazed – I could barely keep my footing holding onto the walls – as he handed a basket down to one of the drink-sellers and slithered between the carriages to join his mates next to the toilet. What seemed to me a suicidal piece of derring-do reminiscent of Indiana Jones was just part of their daily routine – the only way of getting to upper class where people could afford to buy their Coca-Cola and beer.

            Back on my bunk I drank beer and watched the sun set. The compartment filled with the smell of food as Soe Soe’s mother busied herself with a stack of interlocking stainless steel pots containing the Burmese standard meal of steamed rice, light curry and green vegetables. The businessman stopped smoking long enough to produce an al-foiled pork cutlet and a Tupperware tub full of soup. It was real bachelor fare and Soe Soe’s mother took one look at it and clicked her tongue before turning her attention to my sorry ration-bag of marshmallow cookies and bananas. She obviously didn’t consider either of these adequate and divided the available food into four portions while the businessman and I looked sheepishly at each other. Soon we had a feast of rice, pork curry and soup followed by marshmallow cookies.

            Late at night the train stopped for a long time and I lay on my bunk in the warm night looking out on a landscape devoid of artificial light and counted stars until I fell asleep. I woke sometime later when an especially rough section of track drove my head into the wall and spent a sleepless night listening to my new friends’ snores. In true Burmese fashion, my compartment mates were awake and bright-eyed soon after dawn while I curled in my sleeping bag against the morning chill. We were further north and the air was cool and damp. Outside the dirt fields had turned into damp, green bush and vines grew so thick on a telephone line that ran beside the train track that the line itself was invisible for miles at a time and the steel poles were hunched under the weight. The train crawled up an incline and over a narrow stream. On each end of the bridge a bored kid in uniform sat behind a heavy machine gun mounted above a sandbagged fox hole. We began passing these gun emplacements regularly – always only one soldier and always too-young looking. Soe Soe told me that we were now in Kachin state and the government was nervous about the rebel army targeting the railway. I left the compartment to pee out the door and brush my teeth with a bottle of water and had to step over a stack of olive green steel chests that looked like WWII military surplus. Sitting on the chests smoking a cigarette was a barefoot teen cradling a battered AK-47. He wore the same uniform as the soldiers beside the tracks and shot me a friendly grin as I edged past the business end of his rifle.

            Mid-morning we pulled into a smoke-stained little station shadowed by gnarled, broad-leafed trees and surrounded by stacks of enormous logs, four feet across, cut to length and dressed ready for transportation. We hadn’t passed any trees even approaching that size and I wondered where they had come from. The businessman got off the train, stepping lightly off the last piss-slicked step and two feet down into the trash, incongruous with his suit and slim case as he walked down the tracks.

            We arrived at Myitkyina station in the afternoon. Soe Soe wanted to meet up later and take me on a guided tour so we arranged a time and I shouldered my bags through the bustling regional capital and found a grimy hotel crawling with backpackers in a backstreet next to a motorbike repair shop.

            I had a cold water shower under a fizzing light bulb and met Soe Soe near the station. After a sweet milky tea he ushered me proudly into his jeep. It was covered in stickers reading ‘number one race’ and ‘mud sport’. The bonnet had a Toyota badge and the dashboard said Mitsubishi but it was really a Burmese-made copy of a Jeep soft top, rear wheel drive only and powered by a smoky old diesel. After a quick tour of town – dirty streets, shops selling Chinese crap and a vegetable market so crowded we couldn’t drive past it – he said he wanted to show me something.

            “Do you know Aung San Suu Kyi ?” He asked as we drove south alongside the river. I had seen her photo next to that of her assassinated father on the wall of every house and shop I had been into and I knew that they were regarded as national heroes. I also knew that Aung San Suu Kyi had been kept under house arrest off and on for most of my life by what was always described in the Australian media as the ‘ruling junta’. A few months earlier she had been released again and Soe Soe told me that the Nobel peace prize laureate was due to speak in Myitkyina in two days time.

            “My family is helping her. I will show you.”

            At an overgrown sports field by the river a group of men decorated a raised platform and speaking dias with posters of the National League for Democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi’s political party. We pulled up and Soe Soe introduced me to his father. He told me in halting English with a hint of a posh accent that they were expecting up to 40,000 people to hear her speak.

            “Some people will travel very far,” he stumbled with a laugh, “I am sorry, my English was very good when I was young but I have forgotten so much.” I guessed he was in his 70s – old enough to remember British rule. As we were leaving a half dozen distinguished older gentlemen in red NLD t-shirts shook my hand solemnly. Soe Soe’s father held my hand in both of his and told me I was welcome to come to the demonstration.

            The light faded and Soe Soe suggested some food and a beer – a man after my own heart. We swung by his house where his mother greeted me like an old friend and produced a jar of palm sugar candy and iced tea. By now I knew the futility of refusing food from this woman and sat snacking as Soe Soe showed me off to his sister, brother-in-law and niece. The extended family shared one of the nicer houses in town and we sat in the courtyard as his six year old niece practiced her English on me.

            At a restaurant in town we ate freshly grilled kebabs. Soe Soe recommended the pig. The skin and offal were ok but when I reached an ear I told him that I was not keen on sensory organs. He scooped it off my plate and ate it with much exaggerated lip smacking. I made a mental note to bring Vegemite next time – two can play at the gross-out-the-foreigner-with-acquired-tastes game. I struggled to keep up with Soe Soe’s cracking drinking pace and after four long-necks of Mandalay he became morose.

            “Do you want to see my family?” He showed me a photo of a pretty woman and a small boy. “He is six now, this is old. They live in Mawlamyine where my wife works. There are no jobs here. I see them twice a year, at Burmese new year and my son’s birthday. It is two days on the train but it’s too expensive to fly.”

            I had no idea what to say.

            “Life is a struggle.” Soe Soe said and drained his beer.

            I went to the bathroom and by the time I got back he had paid the bill and seemed happy again. He wouldn’t take my money.

            “It’s ok. Come.” He pointed to a handful of pretty girls lingering outside a beauty salon. “We will have a…” He searched for the word and massaged my head. “A wash, yes! A head wash.”

            We lay side by side on vinyl massage tables and had the most thorough hairwash I’ve ever had follow by a soapy shoulder massage. It was so relaxing I dozed off and only just woke in time to dash downstairs and stop Soe Soe paying. He dropped me at my hotel and we agreed to meet for breakfast at 7.30. I waited in front of my hotel until 9.00 but he never came and I never saw him again. I’ve since learned that the government likes to knock on the doors of NLD supporters late at night and take them into custody to disrupt demonstrations like the one planned by his father. I really hope that Soe Soe just had a hangover that morning. I decided to hang around until the rally but I didn’t see him or his family.

Soe Soe.