Would you like to buy a bamboo chair while taking a train trip?

We set up an early morning camp on a 9 hour train ride to Mandalay. This involved having breakfast and leaving the hotel before 6am. Our mate Mr E meant no bench taxi for us, but a horse and cart ride. Pretty sweet. 

Big gong in Mandalay

Foreigners pay around 10 times the price locals do for train tickets. It is not the cheapest place to travel here, that’s for sure. This time the train was non-aircon and the seats were all broken. In the heat of Myanmar at this time of year it was a long long trip. Again we were the only foreigners on the trip. This time there was no one around us who spoke English either making for a few entertaining moments. Such as buying a snack of a train hawker (some stay on the whole train ride walking up and down the carriages with trays balanced on their heads or baskets on their shoulders, while others jump on at various stops, or ride between two of three stations. It can be ciaos when many get on at once). We did end up with interesting snacks though. Such as a kind of tempura battered corn kernel thing, not hard like un-popped pop corn, but not popped either. Then we couldn’t get into the packet and the group of ladies around us found it most amusing, before opening the packet in a couple of seconds for us. I think all and all they found us pretty entertaining most of the trip.

There were hawkers selling some weird things to the train travellers. Such as mats and even bamboo chairs! I saw neither of these vendors have any luck. I guess you try anything you can and you just never know who might buy and allow you to buy what you need. I am not sure where you would even put a chair if you brought one though. 

I thought I had seen a lot of rubbish on the sides of the roads etc on my travels through South America and here in South East Asia, but it was nothing even close to what I have seen here. As we have travelled on the trains I have seen piles of rubbish and more plastic bags than I thought possible. It is some of the only real evidence of the high population living in this country. There appears to be no rubbish system, no recycling. Nothing. As we ride along the other passengers openly throw rubbish out the open windows. It is sad. The lack of education to understand what they are doing to their beautiful environment, to their waterways and their homes. There is no support, no other option for them. Another thing that just makes me so sad when I think of the government here. The life that the people have as a result. 

Chapati Stand

On to more positive things. We found the BEST street food ever in Mandalay. A curry and chapatti stand. The little bowls or curry and the chapatti were only 100K each. We had a whole meal and were so so full for only 1320K (and that included tea). It just keeps getting better. Yes, when you are getting as low on money as we are, the goodness of food is measured significantly on how cheap it is.

There is no shortage of power cuts in Myanmar, both short and long. Many electronics have these little boxes attached which we figure store power and keep appliances running for (as the box says) “5-7 minutes” after the power goes out. But that doesn’t help on a day like today when it has been out all day (meaning there is no aircon – but some of the other things are run off generators) and stinking hot.