My plan had been to spend a night in the riverside town of Bhamo, take a fast ferry to a town called Katha the next morning and then wander off in a general southernly direction the day after. I was sort of looking forward to not knowing how to leave Katha and where would be next but then the boat was full and then I got sick. Suddenly the idea of spending several days figuring out how to get to my next, still to be decided destination wasn’t so appealling.
Unfortunately, neither was my only other option. It’s impossible to leave Bhamo heading south any other way than by boat and the only tickets left were deck class tickets for a 36 hour journey. No seats, just you and whatever space you can eek out amongst the locals, livestock and wares. Tough call but I decided that the certainty of being in Mandalay within the next day and a half beat out the possibility of being stuck in Katha for the foreseeable future.
So I bought my ticket, a roll out mat to sleep on and a bag of apples for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This might turn out great or turn out terrible but it’s the unknown that makes it fun!
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