Breakfast was served on a deck facing the river in front of reception. I was alone except for two men in one corner and a collection of sparrows and other small birds that saw my entry as a prelude to food. After many attempts, I realised that the waitress was asking if I wanted ‘Rice or European’. The ‘European’ was way beyond her. So she brought a helper who said, ‘Eggspotatotoast’. I agreed. I got eggs, a banana (does sound a bit like potato) and virgin toast (toast that has never seen a toaster—white bread naked as the day it was baked). The sparrows were happy to have it. And the coffee was good.
There were a couple of torrential downpours of rain before and after breakfast but the weather fined up for my exploratory walk.
I saw mosques, temples and pagodas and found a riverboat landing, but the boats were only for local use and did not take foreigners as passengers. It was not possible to get a permit to travel anywhere further south from here because of the danger from rebel activity. From the train, now and then I had seen elevated bamboo watchtowers containing a guard surrounded by sandbags, so I presumed there was activity even in this area. The Mon people want independence. Who can blame them?
I thought Moulmein was a much nicer place than Rangoon. I could see why the British had made it their first headquarters in 1827 before making Rangoon their capital in 1885. It was then a major port. Now it has been superseded by Pathein and Yangon, although it still handles a lot of coastal shipping.
For me Moulmein had romantic history. Kipling wrote the Road to Mandalay here in the few days that he spent in Burma. (And the road to Mandalay he wrote about was the River Irrawaddy. Hence where the flying fishes play.) This was also where George Orwell lived; it was his family’s home for decades.
Dogs were everywhere in the streets. Most did not look in bad nick and some seemed to have owners, although they roamed free. With all the rubbish piled around, they did okay at scavenging.
I was about to hire a trishaw until I saw what the rider was doing. Carefully, daintily, he was extracting lice from his hair and dispatching them between his fingernails. I walked on! I know I couldn’t catch lice by sitting behind him in his vehicle, but it put me off. I wandered a long way, passing the extensive frontage of the town markets until I discovered that the next road over ran along the edge of the river. High above the water, shaded by trees, it was a much cooler proposition for strolling.
Most buildings I saw were scruffy and three-storeys high, their narrow walls stained by mould like sooty teardrops running down them. All except the banks, which were fat and glossy palaces. The most substantial and the best maintained looking building I saw was a very large orphanage and school.
Vehicular traffic was mostly motorbike or trishaw. Not all, but some riders wore dark shiny metal helmets shaped like the German army ones of WWII.
Eventually the riverfront road took me back to the Attran after I had passed its next door neighbour, an enormous grand government hotel. I admired its grounds, closely observed by the security guards, but, being a conscientious objector to the government, I could not patronise it.
That day I felt like many people had told me they felt in Laos after long bus rides—that they needed a day to recover. I could not seem to get going. So, this day being Sunday, I declared it a day of rest. Anyway the market was shut on Sunday and there wasn’t much more to explore in the town.
I just made it back to my room after lunch before a tremendous downpour swept in. Caught in that, I would have been soaked in seconds. From my windows I could see nothing and even the sound of the TV couldn’t be heard above the din on the roof.
The next day I took a non lice-catching driver’s trishaw to the Breeze Guest House where I had read bus tickets could be arranged. There I bought a ticket to Bago for four days hence. The bus left at nine am. The train left at an ungodly early hour and anyway I did not think I was up to another train ride just yet. The chirpy old fellow selling me the ticket laughed about the train. ‘Like riding a horse,’ he said. ‘No, an elephant. At a gallop,’ I replied.
The trishaw rider then took me on to an eating place—at no stretch of the imagination could it be called a restaurant—situated on the riverbank. I was given such a massive pile of food I could not eat it all so I had it boxed up as takeaway.
Trishaws here were motorbikes with a small—very small—seat attached alongside. They were always an extremely tight fit even for my hips which are generally considered slim. Once a rider had to seize me by both upper arms and haul me out bodily, like extracting a cork from a bottle.
The market was close to the Attran, just a short walk along the street one back from the riverfront which appeared to be the main business area. Where were the shops though? Apart from a couple of tiny places that looked like delis, I saw none and the street was quiet and devoid of pedestrians. The market was a different proposition altogether. It was monstrous and frantically busy and noisy with countless trucks, tuk tuks and bemos picking up and delivering. It backed onto the riverfront and that side of it was also a frenzy of loading and to-ing and fro-ing.
In the evening I tried to get into a bemo taxi—a three-wheeled motorbike with an attached cabin behind it for goods or passengers. You were meant to clamber into the cabin over a back tailgate, but I was wearing my longii and, short of hitching it up over my thighs, I couldn’t get my leg high enough to get in. I gave up and took a trishaw.
At the Breeze Rest my bus ticket had materialised. I stayed for a while talking to the manager, a kind gentleman who, when I said I wanted some yoghurt, walked me to a shop that sold it. Unfortunately it was sitting in the open in a huge metal vat and looked putrid. We went elsewhere but with no luck. But he did direct me to a place to eat. Called the Help Grandfather and Grandmother Café, it is a charity that supports old people. It was basic but the food I ate there was about the same as anywhere else.
As I left it began to pour and there were no trishaws in sight. I walked, getting wetter and wetter, hobbled by my longii, all the way back to the Attran, arriving absolutely soaked. It was dangerous underfoot too. I was likely to slip over on the uneven ground. During the night the rain came down with such noisy ferocity that at times it sounded as though my room would be washed away. The TV had been running constant news of the floods still occurring in Japan and China.
It was still raining in the morning but not as heavily. My breakfast toast had finally been introduced to a toaster, but so far it was only a platonic relationship—no real consummation of the affair had occurred. I was still rattling around in the huge dining room almost alone. There seemed to be few guests beside me.
The tuk tuk I had arranged to take me up to visit the mountain-top temples arrived at ten complete with an Indian driver. There are Karan and Indian people here, hence the mosques. And it was now Ramadan.
We chugged and bounced up high into the hills around the town, and, stopping at the gates of the first temple complex, Mahamuni Paya, I was put off to walk—minus my shoes—along the slippery tiles, albeit undercover walkways. I was alone apart from a temple guardian or two and a couple of well-cared-for ginger cats.
I came to the shrine of the inner chamber. I had expected this to be small but it was huge with its walls completely covered with little mirrors, while the sides were held up by large mirrored columns. The wall behind the Buddha statue was not only mirrored but set with what were said to be rubies and diamonds. The Buddha was enormous and gilded, partly with real gold. The effect was utterly dazzling.
I walked, careful of the slidy tiles, around the building outside, umbrella aloft. Then we drove further along the ridge to the next temple, Kyaikthanian Paya. It has the area’s tallest stupa and a lift that took me to the top, but its electrics failed and I had to inch my way back down, still barefoot, skidding on the damp tiled steps. The view from the parapet had been worth it though. Then it was on to yet more pagodas, everything gold and glittering and accompanied by the tinkling of the little bells that hung from the rooftops.
After a couple of hours we were finished with the Buddhist sites and my driver offered me a church. I could see the cross on its spire in the distance. I declined, opting for lunch instead, and I asked to be taken to the Cinderella Hotel that Mr Anthony from the Breeze Guest House had told me about.
I ate in their restaurant at a table sporting a sign saying ‘Europeans only’. Segregated for my sake or theirs? Perhaps my table manners would offend the better class of Burmese. Nevertheless the meal was great and the waiter told me I was beautiful. He lied. I was a frazzled wreck.