Burmese trains offer two classes of travel, and Ordinary Class is nothing short of a three-ring circus, but it rewards you with a fascinating cultural immersion. And so I went, the seven hours (or 12 as it turned out) from Bago to Mawlamyine.
The lady facing me in the opposite seat had the rabid look of an inmate, her hands inked with dark green tattoos, her teeth and lips stained crimson from betel juice, and she playfully quarreled with another woman over their seating arrangement. Upon resolving the dispute, she determined it an opportune time to change tops, and she proceeded to disrobe in the presence of the entire train, appearing to be high as a kite. There were fits of adolescent laughter intertwined with bouts of sobbing into cupped palms, followed by ravenous snacking and belches.
The train was a mobile market, and vendors filed past with boiled corn, curried rice balls wrapped in banana leaves, rice cakes, watermelon, etc., and an array of tobacco products, including kun-ya (Burmese paan), cheroots, and cigarettes. There was a boy with a rack of roasted ducks, still intact from web to bill but for their entrails and plucked feathers. Another man carried a basket of dried plums for sampling, and the instant he glanced across the train the stoned woman sneaked a whopping handful which she swiftly tucked into her shirt with a broad, mischievous grin.
The man across from me was sixty, with gleaming brown eyes that bulged from his smooth face, and he wore a green and red plaid longyi and a cotton jacket with several pens tucked into the breast pocket. As far as I could tell, his eyes were fixed on me the entire train ride, and he projected a glazed look of fondness and wonder, like a drunk grandfather. He staggered over to my window seat with a gurgling mouthful of betel juice, leaned over my lap and produced a scarlet jet, like blood spraying from a boxer’s mouth, leaving only a few drops on the sill. Then he craned his neck to within a few inches of my face: ‘Scoos me! Which country you come from?’ As he spoke, what was left of his mouthful rained down on me in mist, and a soggy chunk of betel leaf was loosened on his lip, and flung onto my arm. He was a nice old man though, and meant well, and later treated me to lunch as I was visibly offended by his introduction.
A woman in the next row nursed her naked boy. Suddenly he released himself, giggled, and began to urinate, which arced in spurts into the aisle. The mom chuckled into a proud, toothy smile, smearing the piss with the ball of her foot. Then she lit a cigar, and leaned over her infant to spit on the floor. Next to her was an old monk, who hardly said a word the entire day. The folds of his maroon shawl draped his stoic face. Around noon he ordered a rice ball which he ate with slow, deliberate hand strokes, as if he’d been anticipating the moment all morning. When finished, he borrowed some Chinese tea from his neighbor to wash off his hands out the window, and it sprayed onto the nun sitting behind him.
Halfway through the journey we endured a five-hour delay, stranded on the tracks at the mercy of stifling midday heat. The mobile market sprung to life, pouring through windows and doors onto the bank, women preparing noodles and rice on makeshift tables, children hurling stones at grazing cows, and men chewing kun-ya and puffing cheroots.
The train finally jerked onward near the start of golden hour, and we were rewarded with stunning views of neon green rice fields, circling flocks of egrets, palms swaying high above thatched roofs, hills pierced by gold pagoda spires, and a tangerine sun dipping into the delta. Given the delay, the final three hours of the ride took place at night, the rice fields now shimmering under the lopsided gibbous moon. The train was like a wind tunnel with all the windows raised, the afternoon heat had backed off, and everything was perfect – the temperature, the ambiance, the scenery…
