Mandalay to Na Pha by Train and Katha Town. Burma Myanmar.
The train was a bumpy ride that was supposed to leave at 420pm and arrive at 7am. We boarded and the ticket master had his head in the window having a laugh with his buddies. He saw us and made sure we found our seats. On the one hand it was very nice but it was also a bit weird. The train chugged south out of town of course circling around and heading north. The train swayed left to right and back continually on a British gauge that is thinner than what we use in the States. I fear not much attention has been to sustainability such as maintenance maybe since the British left. The train bucked to the point I had to hold the arm rests to stay in my seats. Even if we had been in sleepers we probably would have been thrown clear of our beds. We were in the day car where most of the seats didn’t recline anymore and sat at a funny slope as to vibrate us oddly uncomfortably out of our chairs constantly readjusting.
The train traveled along small rail side villages and sunflower croplands until the sun dropped over the horizon. Old train engines sat idle on sidetracks gathering dust in preparation to grow plants out of the windows.
After a few hours your seat gets sore. I got up to stretch my legs and stood near the bathrooms just to get off my backside. While standing there I noticed something rolling across the floor as the train listed one way and then the other. It turned out to be a mouse scurrying between the rows of chairs and then there were more. This is an adventure, so things are the way they are. A woman stood up across from me as I returned to my seat and she noticed a bedbug on her white-sheeted chair cover. She immediately stripped off her coat and shook it violently and her blanket and any other loose clothing she had on. Then I noticed bedbug on Poul’s elbow and another on Steph’s chair when she got up. The Burmese have yet to figure out what to do with garbage.
The train bounced along, rosters crowed, mice wandered from local baskets of food to crumbs left behind, and bedbugs had their victims, all in all a fairly uneventful journey. Eventually I did doze off and my Burmese neighbor woke me and explained that the next stop was Na Pha. I grabbed my bag as the train slowed. It was 430 am, the train was 230 hours early. The only thing I learned was, don’t go by arrival schedules. Departure times are fine but for arrivals you have a four-hour window.
A tuk-tuk driver approached the three of us as we got our senses and some bearing. The Irrawaddy River and the town of Katha is approximately16 miles away from Na Pa and over a mountain pass. I would have liked to see the countryside. The road was full of jarring potholes, rickety wood bridges, dry riverbeds and the ride was chilly in the morning fog. When we arrived at Katha all the guesthouses were full, so we dropped off our bags and went for Roti, Dahl and sweet tea. There is a large military presence in Katha and the further north one travels the more military. The military follow tourists and seem to know where they go all day. They say it’s their job to protect you but that’s not what’s going on. They still don’t want you to know anything. You can feel their presence just like before, ‘the walls have eyes and ears.’ Freedom of speech is again under pressure. Many arrests as of late.
We checked in around 9am when the others were heading on their way. Most of the people leaving were military. When we checked in and some remained across the way in another room. This was very similar to the times I’ve been here before. I wasn’t surprised. After a nap I got up and went out to the edge of the Irrawaddy and looked out over the river. I noticed a Burmese man standing nearby. I returned to the guesthouse and so did he. I went to my room briefly and went back across to the river and there he was again. I was up for some ‘cat and mouse’ so off I went with no direction in mind just to see what would happen. They knew where I was all day. My Burmese is rusty but I got enough of it to know they knew. Like I said, the secret police have assimilated into society and locals are still afraid of them.
We stayed one night before getting on a ‘fast boat’, not to be confused with an express boat or a slow boat. In the middle of that night the military man across the hall went to the bathroom down the hall then on his return he turned off the power to my room so the fan wouldn’t run and keep the mosquitos off of me. He giggled as he did it. I got up a few minutes later after he closed his door and turned out his light. I went to the bathroom down the hall and on my return I turned my power back on quietly and went back to bed watching through the ceiling screen for lights, listening for doors and footsteps. The rest of the night was eggshells.
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