My Massive Myanmar Commute

I decided that just being in Myanmar wasn’t off the beaten path quite enough for me so I though I’d be a bit ridiculous and head way up north to a town called Myitkyina. There’s no real reason for tourists to head to that town except to catch a boat to another town to catch another boat all the way back to Mandalay. So essentially, my first week in Myanmar was one massive commute.

I hopped a bus from Yangon to Mandalay on my second day to start my trip. It took 16 hours and it would have been ok had I not been sitting next to a beer swilling, farting, phone number asking, betel nut chewing, snoring fat man with little to no concept of personal space. He kept falling asleep on my shoulder or leaning over on me so I was squashed against the wall of the bus with no escape. After a few hours of encroachment I took it upon myself to poke him when he invaded my space and he eventually got the hint.

The second leg of my journey was a 24 hour train trip from Mandalay to Myitkyina that started out pretty well and quickly deteriorated into the trip from hell. I booked a sleeper berth that turned out to be pretty comfortable. It wasn’t too crowded and my fellow bunkmates were friendly. I ended up spending a lot of time chatting with a 17 year old guy who was heading up north to work in the mines. He desperately wanted to go to university and the only way he could get the money was to spend two or more years doing this dangerous work. He told me that his brothers has all joined the army and that, even though they did not agree with the government, working for them is the only option for many people.

At 5am, only a few hours from Myitkyina, the train ground to a halt. after the train didn’t move for 3o minutes I just assumed that it was a really early breakfast stop and that we’d be on the move shortly. A couple hours later and I started to wonder a bit more, especially since most of the train’s passengers were now camped outside along the tracks chatting and drinking tea. Apparently a train had derailed ahead of us and there was no way to pass but I had heard that this journey was often delayed so I wasn’t too surprised or annoyed. After ten hours when we finally got moving again I wasn’t too impressed. Ten hours! It sucked.

I spent a couple of nights in Myitkyina which turned out to be a pretty cool town. It’s home to the Kachin people who are a minority group in Myanmar. I spent a lot of time chatting with the guy who runs the YMCA where I was staying about the government, religion, language, family and learned a lot about the area and it’s people.

A couple days later I would start the third leg of my journey on a tiny longboat to some town that’s not on any map I’ve ever seen (and that I forget the name of). It was 7 hours of bumpy boating action and it was beautiful. The boat stopped in small settlements all along the river where people were bathing, washing clothes, sifting sand for precious stones and trying to sell food and drinks to us. I stayed in that town for one night, walked around, ate dinner, threw it up a few hours later (the food here isn’t the best), read a bit and went to sleep.

The next morning I was up early for phase four of my seeingly neverending commute; a 5 hour boar ride on an even smaller boat that the day before. It was more of the same but this time it rained which meant that we the boat was closed in with canvas sheets and I didn’t see anything for hours.

After several days and about 50 hours on one form of transportation or another, I arrived in Bhamo ready for the last leg of my journey, a 34 hour boat ride back to where I started. At this point I am starting to wonder if I’ve gone crazy.

About Kirsty