7  The mist is on the rice fields

Back at my room I found I was locked out. The deadbolt on the door had dropped down on the other side and I couldn’t get in. Summoning help, two of the housemaids and I struggled with the recalcitrant lock for a while, then reinforcements in the shape of a workman with a box of tools were called in. We all watched him have no success. Another was summoned and the increasing throng watched him. Two more maids joined us and then the manageress arrived. It was better attended and more entertaining than some stage shows I have been to.

Half an hour later, after trying to break in through the windows and even the roof, another man arrived and simply unscrewed the bolt from its fixings and I was inside! One thing I knew for sure was that no one was going to sneak up on me unawares in the night when I had that bolt on.

The rain then recommenced and continued increasing until the downpour was so torrential I had no hope of getting out to a restaurant or even down to the hotel’s dining area. Instead I got out my emergency survival kit and made soup.

The day for my departure came and I left on the nine am bus. In the first village on our journey a woman boarded and the only spare seat was beside a monk. The bus conductor moved a man there and gave the woman his seat. It was unthinkable for a woman to sit next to a monk.

Despite the comfortable ride something still managed to go wrong. I did not arrive where I had intended, Bago. I instead was carried on to Yangon. We had passed through a fairly large town that might have been Bago, but the bus didn’t stop and by the time I had thought about it, it was too late. No worries. At the bus station in Yangon I took one of the share taxis that waited there and finally got back to Motherland.

On the way it started again to pour rain. Visibility was almost nil and the streets were flooded a foot deep in rushing torrents. I got drenched going in to ask for a room. I wasn’t surprised to be ever so kindly rejected. Motherland was a popular place and I didn’t have a booking. I moved on to the Queens Park Hotel where I was received cheerfully even in the drowned rat state I had achieved by then.

Unpacking, I found that water had leaked into my bag and all my clothes were wet. That was the last straw for me with that bag. I had put up with the drunken behaviour of its wonky, wobbly foot and its handle that wouldn’t retract without a serious battle, but now it had to go. This wasn’t so easy. It refused to leave. After all, it had been with me for years and it wasn’t leaving without a struggle. It kept following me around. Twice I put it by the bin downstairs and twice I found it had boomeranged back into my room before I managed to convince the staff that I really didn’t want it.

After breakfast the lovely girl at reception rang a bus company for me and arranged a ticket to Taungoo (or two tickets, actually, because I am greedy). They cost eleven dollars. Then I went to the market and bought a suitcase, this time a solid one that wouldn’t leak.

The deluge of rain last night had been followed by more this morning and now that it had stopped it was very hot and humid. I went to Motherland for lunch and to book a room for when I came back from my trip north. Then it was on to the shopping centre around the corner. Going around the right corner this time, I found it easily.

On the way back I stopped to admire an enormous tree that stood in the middle of the footpath. It had originally been contained in a massive pot, but had long ago outgrown that and sent its roots out down the sides of the pot and all around it to take over the entire footpath. No one minded this; in fact it had been encouraged to prosper by the addition of two shrines and a spirit house. How could I not love the Burmese? Instead of cutting it back, they worshiped it.

But I don’t care for their attitude to waste disposal. The towns I had been to were all unspeakably filthy. Rubbish was just dumped anywhere. Where there was a waterway, garbage was thrown over the edging wall to line the bank several feet from the water, and every now and then rain would wash it down into the river.

Leaving the Queen’s Park it was another hour’s ride in a taxi to the bus station. It was enormous—the size of a small town. We drove up and down lanes, the driver asking directions now and then, before we reached the bus company office, where I sat down to wait with several other passengers.

I was on my way to Taungoo, north of Yangon on the road that eventually goes to Mandalay, in Burma’s flat central area where large amounts of rice are grown. Bago had been temporarily postponed.

It was a great bus and the road we travelled was good, but I was told that it became very bad further north. Although Burma now has fifty two million people, the countryside did not look densely populated. There had been a mere five million at the time the British achieved control of the country, but they had encouraged large numbers of Indian and Chinese migrants.

It took four hours to reach Taungoo and when we arrived I had no problem knowing that I was at the right place. Everyone got off the bus with their baggage so I presumed the ride was over.

As a welcome it immediately began to rain. I hired two trishaws, one for me and one for the bag, and we pedalled off. It then rained some more, and then even more. I got soaked despite my umbrella. The journey felt as though it went on forever—down the long main road that led out of town, off onto a rutted water-logged mud track, and finally along a tiny rustic tree-shaded lane, at the end of which I came to a well-hidden little gem—the Beauty Rest Guesthouse.

I felt guilty about having made the poor trishaw riders pedal so far and in the rain too, so when they asked for three thousand for the pair of them, I gave them six. This horrified the guesthouse staff who had come out to welcome me. They protested at such profligate behaviour, but I said, ‘No. It was a long way. And in the rain.’ (And three thousand is two dollars fifty!)

I was shown into a room that looked like paradise. It was dry! A smiling woman brought me a bottle of water and two plates of fruit and I set about drying out. My room was one of two upstairs in a pavilion made entirely of wood. It was big with many windows and a multitude of lights and electric plugs, not all of which worked of course and not until after six in the evening.

The lights were a real thrill but the wide balcony was the best feature of this accommodation. It encompassed a wonderful, all-green outlook—large expanses of rice fields that stretched to a dense line of dark-green trees. A village hid in there behind those trees from which, across the rice fields in the early morning and late evening, came the chant of the monks in its monastery.

What a blissful place to spend a few days.

My room, although exceedingly comfortable, looked like the house that Jack built. A bit Bush Carpenter constructed, it was made entirely of wood—floors, walls and furniture. The floor was a beautiful parquet of several woods. The walls were polished mahogany, gleaming and shining; even the ceiling was wood. And the furniture! A whole antique shop crammed in, jostling each other for space—massive, heavily carved and oppressively overbearing stuff that weighed a ton. There was a glass-topped coffee table as big as a bed and a wardrobe with an aged and foxed-mirrored door with a magnificent glass handle that unfortunately didn’t serve its purpose because the door didn’t open. Neither did the drawers of the elaborate dressing table as half of it was jammed behind the bed. Lumped wherever possible onto any flat surface were clunky carved wooden ornaments, and on the floor, standing sentry duty beside the bathroom door, was a huge wooden rhinoceros. A rhinoceros?

The rear window was behind the wardrobe. I had to squeeze in to open the curtains. There were more windows around the room and the wide front one had a wonderful outlook over the balcony to the rice paddies.

The rice was in various stages of growth and the villagers came a few at a time to work in the fields, some planting rice shoots and one ploughing with an ox. They all went home when it began to rain heavily, leaving the ox standing alone in the downpour. I was happy when he was finally collected and taken away, hopefully to a nice dry stable, leaving the paddy to the egrets who stalked regally among the plants.

Below the balcony a profusion of palms and trees grew luxuriantly and the fields came up to within a metre of them. The noise of the frogs at night was deafening. Added to the delights of this place, I found a resident dog and cat to talk to, as well as the charming man who was the owner, a doctor who ran a clinic in the town.

In the mornings a sensational breakfast was laid out on a communal table groaning under the weight of platters of tropical fruit and other life-sustaining goodies. Lunch and dinner were ordered in advance and also eaten communally in the ground floor, net-enclosed dining room that doubled as the reception area. I met a couple of German women teachers there who were good company at dinner each night when we shared large bottles of beer.

Much as I didn’t want to leave this idyllic place, I enquired about onward travel and learned that the train south to Bago left at eleven am. That beat the bus that departed in the middle of the night well six am actually. Yes, I was about to try once more to go to Bago.

A trishaw to transport me to the train station was conjured up. It was a long ride to the station for the trishaw rider, but this time at least it was not raining. At the entrance a guard took control of me and led me to the station master’s office, where we went through the passport and US dollar ritual again. It took a lot of writing of papers and filling in of forms before a ticket was allowed into my possession, costing ten dollars. I was taken to a seat, far away at the end of the platform, to wait.

The train arrived almost on time and I found my seat, a single similar to the one I’d had on the Moulmein train. The carriage was grotty but quite comfortable. Before we left the station master came aboard to seek me out and enquire if I was happy with my situation.

The ride to Bago was rough but nowhere as rough as my previous train trip. The windows were too filthy to see through, so it was a good thing that they had solidified in the half-open position and I could see over the top. There were few passengers in this upper class carriage, but a profusion of vendors passed through intermittently hawking chips, lollies and unidentifiable objects in mysterious bags.

Although the bus takes two hours to Bago, this train ride took six. We stopped for ages on an elevated bridge in the middle of rice paddies with nothing in sight, probably due to a breakdown. This train thankfully had a lockable toilet, but it was still a major acrobatic feat to use it as I had to cling desperately to a pipe on the wall with one hand.

We arrived at Bago station only two hours late, which I believe is par for the course. On the platform I was kidnapped by a smooth type, who shunted me into a trishaw and in light rain sent me off to inspect a hotel he recommended, despite my saying that I wanted to go to the Bago Star Hotel. He followed behind on a motorbike, no doubt in order to squeeze a commission out of the hotel for obtaining my body. The place we arrived at looked a frightful tip and I did not even go in for an inspection. Agreeing to look at another that turned out to be miles away, I was pedalled off in the rain feeling terribly guilty about the poor man pushing me along.

The town was semi-flooded and the trishaw man had to wade, shoving me through foot-high lakes across streets. I offered to walk up the hills we came to but he said, ‘No’, and got off to push the bike with much panting and wheezing on what were by then dirt tracks. We had left the town after crossing a high bridge over the Bago River and turned off onto a rutted strip of bitumen that led onto dirt and rubble paths. Still we continued on, until finally we pulled into the courtyard of a building. By this time I would have said yes to any old dump to end the rider’s, and my, torment, but happily the place he had brought me to was lovely.

Its name, Shwe See Seim, translates as The Three Seasons. First I was shown a downstairs room and told it was thirteen dollars. Next, a bungalow that looked like—of all unlikely things—a Swiss chalet. This was seventeen dollars. Still further we continued in the tour of the place till the pièce de résistance was produced. Upstairs with a little Juliet balcony, was a large comfortable room that cost twenty dollars. I asked about electricity and was told, ‘Yes. Is electric. Not every, but some’. This I took to mean that it came and went at will. Bless it.

To prove a point, the lights went out the minute I attempted to enter the room. It was bucketing down rain by then. We were in the middle of a big storm. My escort explained that the electricity’s excuse this time was that a tree had fallen down. He gave me a suspiciously at-hand torch.

After a quick wash I went in search of food. Downstairs behind the guesthouse was a large dining room with a limited menu written only in Burmese. But I was starving and indicated that I would eat anything on offer. What did come tasted rather good even though I had no idea what it was.

I was stumbling around getting ready for bed by torchlight when the lights blared on. What a shock. This place in the sticks had the best and the most lights of anywhere I had stayed in so far—eight in all and only one not working. It was as dim as all get out in the bathroom though so it was morning before I got the full impact of it. By daylight it was a shock to the senses. There was a whacking great bathtub big enough to wash an elephant in painted in an overpowering bright royal blue, as were all the other fittings—a shocking symphony in electrifying blue. I used the shower; that bath was far too intimidating.

After the included and adequate breakfast early the next morning I stood on my little balcony and watched the veggies being delivered. The seller arrived, a woman with a wide, flat basket of goodies on her head. The cook joined her and they both squatted on their haunches to discuss and decide.

Despite its difficult-to-access position, or because of it, it was lovely here. As soon as you left the main road the surroundings became rural and rustic, shaded paths among a plethora of greenery. I went for a walk around the small dirt lanes. Not far away was a monastery. Now that we were halfway into Buddhist lent I noticed that more frequent chanting came from the monasteries. Soon it would be the full moon of Waso when the big festival of the Buddhist Rains Retreat is held.

The only drawback to this idyllic place was that it was not near any transport. I wasn’t going to subject a trishaw rider to another of those gruelling journeys out here, so transport had to be called for by the hotel staff. Due to a communication problem, the tuk tuk I requested turned out to be my friend and his motorbike again.

I wanted to visit the Golden Rock and had tried unsuccessfully to negotiate a ride there through the hotel. Friend took me, an unwilling pillion passenger on his motorbike, to the taxi drivers in the town. This was a failed enterprise as they all said that they couldn’t go up there in the current weather.

The Golden Rock, Mount Kyaiktiyo, one of Burma’s holiest Buddhist sites, is a huge gold-plastered boulder precariously balanced on a mountain top. Legend says that a precisely placed hair of the Buddha in the stupa on top of it maintains its balance and that the boulder was found at the bottom of the sea. This holy shrine attracts countless pilgrims who laboriously climb the arduous path to the top where only men are allowed to cross the bridge over the chasm in front of the rock and place gold leaf on it.

By now Bago township was flooded. The streets were awash and in some parts, narrow, flat-bottomed canoes were being used to navigate along them. Motorbikes were getting stuck and people were wet to the knees.

I had a real coffee finally, found for me by my friend whom by now I could not get rid of. But he was interesting to talk to and he did speak English well. I think he was of Indian extraction. I gave him some money and he took me back to my guesthouse, returning in the evening with a young couple who had a tuk tuk so that I could arrange a jaunt for the next day with them. I had baulked at more motorbike riding.