Bhamo to Mandalay II – By Any Means

Somewhere on the Irrawaddy.

The captain was a fat man – smooth-skinned and brown with a habit of pulling his singlet up to rest in the crevice between belly and man-boobs in the heat of the day. No one could question his skill as a navigator, it was just that he seemed to have been trained on a hovercraft, not the 80 year old river boat we were on now. This was obvious by the way his eyebrows knitted together in confused frustration as the twin diesels moaned and shuddered, first forwards and then backwards. The boat pivoted on the sandbank as he spun the wheel, but never moved. After an hour, the engines began to smell hot and angry. He shut them off and lit a cigarette.

            The trip down the Irrawaddy river from Bhamo to Mandalay looked to be around 300km. The great repository of misinformation and eco-nonsense-this, holier-than-thou-that drivel that is the Myanmar Lonely Planet guidebook claimed the journey took three days. After two and a half, I guessed we’d done about 50km. The captain was dozing in a deck chair and it was hot on the gangway behind the bridge so I went downstairs for some steamed rice, fried egg and 3-in-1 instant coffee. There was none, the dirty-handed old cook mimed and shrugged. It was all getting a bit Scott of the Antarctic.

            “I may be gone for some time,” I mumbled to her and leant over the rail. But I didn’t think it would come to that, our group of five had already decided that we would eat Misaki first. She was the youngest and tastiest looking. And I love Japanese food.

Max and Masaki on the roof.

            Actually, I had loved every minute of the trip. The five us made fast friends as we chatted, dozed and laughed with the Burmese passengers. Every now and then the captain, more by fluke than skill I suspect, would get us moving again and we would sit next to the big old smokestack and gaze at the fishing boats, villages and lush green banks as we were carried south. Then we’d feel the hull scudding through mud and hear the engines rev and we’d be stuck again until the crew shifted some cargo or another boat shunted us free. During the day Chris would show me how to use my fancy new camera and Max would educate me about European history. Misaki would impress us all with tales of her recent solo trip to Central Asia and Pakistan. Susanna and I would chat about girlfriends and boyfriends and snowboarding. In the evening, Chris would pull out a bottle of rum and muddle us some drinks and we’d sit on the roof under blankets and smoke dirty Burmese cigarettes as we watched fires burn in the jungle.

The ship's cook and her son.

            But on the third day (or was it the fourth) when we pulled into Katha we realized that our visas were expiring and our rum was running low. Like rats we abandoned ship. We had a warm meal in town and tuk-tuked through the night to the nearest train station.

            The station was muddy and damp after a tropical downpour. On the platform, hundreds of people sat on stacks of bags and waited patiently for a train that, as far as we could tell, had no schedule. I pushed, scrambled and smiled my way to the front of the ticket line and was waved towards the station-master’s office. As the prettiest and most persuasive of the group, Masaki and Susanna offered to go and soon enough they pushed back through the crowd holding tickets. Tickets, but not seats, they explained. And it was about a 20 hour trip. We just shrugged and smiled, feeling like proper hardcore travelers.

Passengers of another ferry watch as their boat attempts to free ours from yet another sandbar.

            We bought water and chocolate from children with ice chests and waited. Before the train stopped, people were swinging through open doors hoping for a seat. We were pushed through the correct door by our friendly ticket seller and squeezed further into the carriage by those behind us. The seats were straight-backed and hard and the floor was cracked and slick with mud. We found places to stash our packs when passengers kindly moved their legs. The train was packed. I sat on my bag wedged under a table and between two pairs of strangers’ knees. Max and Misaki were both across from me, similarly wedged. Max and I grinned like idiots, Misaki smiled serenely, as always. Why did this seem like such fun? Chris and Susanna laid out a sleeping mat on the wet floor near the toilet and buried themselves under blankets. At the next station, when the slamming and rattling of carriage couplings and loose windows had stopped, I could hear Suz snoring peacefully. By that time my knees had seized and two of the vertebrae in my neck had changed places so I decided to join them. Reminding myself how comfortable I was with my sexuality, I assumed the ‘big spoon’ position behind Chris and whispered sweet nothings into his ear until the demonic swaying of the train and the toilet stench lulled me into a dreamless sleep.

I couldn't hold the camera any steadier on the bucking train. Susanna to left and Masaki somewhere under the blankets.

            The train lurched into Mandalay station at lunchtime the next day and after farewells heavy with emotion and – if I’m honest – body odour, Max and Misaki earned my everlasting respect, but not my envy, by racing to catch a 12 hour night bus to Bagan. Suz, Chris and I found some Chinese food and a cheap hotel before crashing out.

            In the morning the three of us rented a couple of scooters and escaped the dirty concrete grid of Mandalay for Pyin Oo Lwin. Suz rode with me as we aimed for the hills near the Chinese border. It felt great to be back on a bike as we raced trucks up a steep, switchbacked road into the hazy mist and cool air. We found a dirty hotel and spent the afternoon enjoying the fresh air, quiet streets and old buildings of what had been an escape for the British during the murderous Mandalay summers. It felt, strangely enough, like an Australian country town. Maybe I was just homesick.

            In the morning the rain started and got heavier during the day. By lunchtime we had no choice and rode in t-shirts and shorts through cold, driving rain for 4 hours. On the way, I got a flat tyre. By the time we got back to Mandalay we were soaked and shivering but smiling. It was a fitting end to out time in Burma. We said our goodbyes and shared a last meal. I had a flight to China.

Home sweet home.

Deep thanks to Misaki, Susanna, Maxxie and the Rum Muddler. It was a blast.