Bonding with the Locals
It’s raining and cool here in Kalaw but I am warm and dry inside the Everest Restaurant and am enjoying a hot Nepalese coffee. I arrived yesterday in the afternoon after a somewhat adventureous journey. I was supposed to take a bus here, but first I had to get a pickup to the junction where the bus comes through. No problem. Well, sort of. After about 45 minutes of being told different things – you take that pickup, 500 kyat, ok 200 kyat, no pickup- must take taxi, I finally got someone to show me the right pickup and give me the 100 kyat normal price. The pickup ride wasn’t bad even though there were over 25 people stuffed inside and on top. t took about 30 minutes to go 7 miles. Whew.
At the junction I asked where to wait for the bus and found a nice cafe run by 2 women where no one bothered me. (I was the only foreigner both on the pickup and at the junction). I waited, and waited, and waited. I had a soda, ate some cookies, wrote in my journal, read up on the guidebook, and still waited some more. After almost 1.5 hours, I asked the woman where was the bus and she said, oh it’s coming, be patient.
See, there are no times for the local buses here, they just leave when they’re full, so you never know what time it’s coming. Well, I told her that I was a little nervous about getting stuck there for the night and I guess they figured they better help me get on SOMETHING, so they flagged down the next pickup and motioned for me to get on. When I saw the pickup, my first thought was surely they can’t be putting me on THAT. It was CHOCK full of people with about 10 men on the roof too. I didn’t have any time to rationalize the situation with a full pickup of Burmese people staring at me though so before I knew it I was jumping on and the pickup was off. Hang on!
My God, what chaos. I could only fit 1/4 of one butt cheek on the end of the bench and the rest of me was dangling off the back of the truck, my arms gripped to the steel bars of the frame for dear life. I really wasn’t sure how long I was going to be able to hang on like that and I knew it was a long ride, over 2 hours, and I just kept thinking screw this pickup, why didn’t I just pay $15 for a private taxi??
The pickup was PACKED, mostly with women in the bottom, one woman breast feeding her baby, other women eating corn, all looking at me sypathetically because they all must have been in my seat before and knew how badly it sucked.
Well, I got lucky. About 40 minutes into the ride some people got off and I managed to move in and comfortably sit both butt cheeks down. Ahhh! I was so happy with my perserverence and accomplishment! I’m actually going to enjoy the rest of this ride, I thought, smiling to the other women. Then, about 5 minutes later, it started to rain. HARD. It was spraying through both sides of the pickup and everyone was getting soaked. Plus my one bag was on the roof and I though well there go all my dry clothes.
As a team we worked to pull plastic down around us and managed to keep some of the water out, better than nothing anyway. I suppose this could be labelled as My Bonding Experience with the Locals.
2.5 hours later we finally got here so I immediately took shelter in a store and got out my rainjacket while trying to get my bearings. Just then a funeral procession went by – first about 20 monks in a row with a big brass gong – going slowly GONG (pause) GONG (pause) GONG (pause), then the casket carried by about 10 or 15 men, then a whole mob of people all holding umbrellas in the rain. They slowly turned the corner and followed the main street out of town. It was beautiful.
Anyway I found a place to stay and mainly spent the afternoon relaxing and recovering from my morning adventures. I wanted to go to the cave with 8,000 Buddhas today but I couldn’t find any travellers to share a taxi and after yesterday I wasn’t ready for another pickup excursion. (That 2.5-hour ride, by the way, cost me roughly 20 cents).
Instead I went to the big market at the next town over, Ang Ban. Yes I had to take a pickup, but it was only a 20-minute drive, and luckily it was not overpacked nor did it rain. The market was nice, people selling fresh fruit, veggies, flowers, slabs of meat, etc, etc, but I think I’m a bit marketed-out because I was bored after half an hour. Actually I think I’m a bit Asia-ed out at the moment. Everything is starting to look the same to me – the guesthouses, restaurants, bus rides, other travellers, only the scenery and languages change slightly. I’m tired of being ripped off all the time, having to bargain everything from hotels to taxis, always looking for places to eat where I won’t get sick, using dirty toilets, worrying about malaria, and being hassled in general just because I am white and everyone knows I’m a foreigner. I’m looking forward to a one-month break in Australia.
Will probably head north to Mandalay tomorrow.
The Pickup, national form of transportation in Myanmar
The main bustling street of Kalaw
At the market
Add comment July 14th, 2002