Bago Bound

28 January 2019

[Above photo:  Bago street scene. Women on motorbikes holding umbrellas, sitting side-saddle are just terrifying to me. I’m gripping anything metal until my knuckles are white!]

Instead of taking the ferry to Dalah and exploring the temples and pottery at Twante as I planned last week, yesterday I taxied to the main Yangon train station and caught the 8AM to Bago. Bago, formerly Pegu, was a capitol of Burma.  Feuds, earthquakes, and a shift of the river leaving it without a port diminished its stature; now it is largely a city of reconstructed monuments and ordinary people. When I attempted to buy a round trip ticket at the first window in the station, I was told the train was already full and had already left the station. It was 7:25AM. The man at the window directed me to a second window. When I went there, they shook their heads and sent me back to him. He then asked if I wanted an Upper Class or Lower Class ticket (The division compliments of the occupying Brits, no doubt).  Imagining massive crowds, struggling for a seat, loose animals, and recalling all the photos I’ve seen of Indian trains with people hanging off of them, I opted for Upper Class, 80 cents vs 20 cents for the two hour ride. I gave him 1500 kyat and awaited my 300 in change. “No change right now”, he said. “Wait a bit”. The next lady in line was waiting there for some reason and graciously gave me 300 kyat after 10 minutes, saying she’d collect from him.  300 kyat is 20 cents.

I went to the train. There were two cars with reversed C’s on them, that being the symbol for 1, as in Car Number 1. I boarded the first of them and sat in A-7, thinking, “It’s not very upper class but it’s comfortable, quite clean, and not at all crowded”. I chatted with a teacher from Bago, an interesting and friendly man. At the first stop, lots of passengers got on and someone produced another A-7 ticket, Lower Class. As we tried to figure it out, a conductor arrived and escorted me to the other Car #1. There was my Upper Class seat waiting, faded plush, reclining, with an eating table and a drink holder and a large fan with whose switch I didn’t mess. These are likely 90yo British railway cars, still in service.

The ride was pleasant, as I love train travel. It was pretty noisy, clacking along at 25mph maximum, and every few minutes there would be a large bump in the track and the metal plates at the connection between two cars would clash. The noise was like cymbals being approximated with force next to my ears or several large plate glass windows being shattered. Disconcerting at first but, then, to what we can quickly become accustomed!  We passed the detritus of the city outskirt: ragged, dirty people, tumbledown shacks, fetid canals, ditchbanks covered in plastic and garbage, skinny dogs scavenging. Then it was suddenly country, with square rice paddies a brilliant green, water buffalo working in others, simple but neat little houses, a feeling of rural industry, egrets aplenty, and cooler air.

As we arrived in Bago and I disembarked, a young-appearing man (actually 38yo) asked if I would like a ride around the temples on the back of his motorbike. $8 for 4 ½ hours. “I drive slow.” And, “The monuments are a little far apart.” I thought for 10 seconds and, breaking #1 rule—never ride on a motorbike without a helmet and gear—I said, “Yes.” He did drive slowly, it was a very, very long way between the monuments, and we had no mishaps, even though everyone drives all over the place, on the wrong side of the road, cutting across traffic unpredictably, etc.

He was a sweet guy. Separated from his wife with two kids, 8 and 10, both boys. He sees them a lot, although he lives with his uncle. He dropped out of school in 11^th grade—nervous laughter, “There was a little problem.” Where did he learn so much English? “I don’t know. I never studied it. I just picked it up.” Clearly a bright guy. Isn’t luck of birthright such an indiscriminate, unfair thing?  He’ll be driving that old, underpowered Chinese motorbike or something similar for the duration, I suspect.

After seeing a number of stupas, a massive 125yo boa constrictor creepily eyeing the small children in the room where we all sat next to him/her on the cool tile (no barrier) and watched him/her move about, and a palace or two, reconstructed after one of many terrible earthquakes here, I asked  Zawmoe to take me to a nice place and I’d buy us lunch. Well, I broke Rule # 2 next.  He drove through back streets to a little street food place. It was popular and we had to wait about 15 minutes for a group of fundraisers for a temple to finish up and make table space. We then settled in and, I kid you not, were brought 15 or more dishes—-beef, fish, chicken, pork, all manner of vegetables, tea leaf salad, a soup, a wonderful fermented bean salad, and tea and palm nut sugar for dessert. Oh, and rice, of course. It was incredibly tasty. The total for both of us was $1.93! I haven’t had a moment of illness and it was a great experience.

We visited another temple, 2/3 of whose height I ascended on very steep stairs, a massive reclining Buddha—his pinkie is 10 feet long—, and a little elaborately carved temple with 4 large gilt Buddha statues back to back and hundreds of niches with little Buddha statues all around the walls. In the reclining Buddha temple families were sitting on mats, nibbling, chatting, and a disheartening number of them were, as in America, either together or on their own, engrossed in smart phones.  We returned to the train station where I paid and thanked Zawmoe for his excellent driving and guiding.  Buying my ticket, I struck up a conversation with a young UK pediatrician, Caroline who, with her hospitalist boyfriend Ilim, was working in 4 different hospitals in the delta region, attempting to upgrade the skills of the local GP’s. Touchy business, coming in and telling someone you have a better way for them to do what they have been doing for years, I think.

We chatted a bunch and then I sat in my assigned seat for the return trip, adjacent to the UK Ambassador for a neighboring country and her visiting friend.  The ambassador looked tired and not too cheerful; I’d imagine the job alone could grind you down. Think about having to keep your lip zipped about our current president or, if you were a conservative, through 8 years of Obama. For a lifetime of service. Not a job I’d be eager to take and probably I’d not be able to stay there.

I walked home and was so exhausted from the trip I ate dinner and went to bed at 8:15PM, sleeping undisturbed until 5AM. I awakened to find a photo of Linda’s welcome back to Malawi by the Finches as well a photo shoot of her amazing-looking quarters for the two weeks in Blantyre. I felt strong pangs of longing to be in the mix there. I also awoke to an invitation to speak at a 5 hour CME event at the Yangon Mental Hospital in two days.

The topic is Safety and Quality in Treatment. At first I was bamboozled but quickly wrote an outline in my head about the history of childhood, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (of which Myanmar was a very early signatory), and issues crossing Public Health, Policy, Child Protection, Psychotherapy, and so forth. I am surprised at how quickly a talk on a large topic I’ve never thought about in its entirety formed in my mind. Actually, it’s a great topic to introduce myself in Myanmar. I even had my tutor teach me this morning how to say, in Myanmar, “I am happy to see you all today. Unfortunately I don’t speak Myanmar well, so I must talk in English.” It should be a hoot.

Now I’m off to have lunch with Clemmie Borgstein, who leaves tomorrow to return to her orangutans in Borneo. We’ll eat at Nourish, next to her yoga studio. The name reminds me of Café Gratitude in LA and Berkeley where, when you order, the dishes are named after humble virtues so you are forced to name them. The waitstaff won’t take your order if you say, “Pita with hummus”.  You must vocalize, “Love’s Open Heart” or whatever the dish is named. Frankly, the food was interesting but the ambience was a pain. It made me feel someone was twisting my arm until I evinced virtue. Say, maybe the House can pass legislation requiring that the current White House occupant must eat take-out once per day from Café Gratitude, served by their waitstaff!