Train Ride accross Myanmar/Burma

At 4pm the train with Eva and I and our traveling companions on board in the upper-class carriages left Yangon (Rangoon) station.  The girls selling tea, coffee, food and beer hung on to the train as it pulled out of the station as they frantically finalised their last transactions.  Gradually the girls one by one let go of the train and passed into the distance as the train emerged from the hot sun drenched station.

The hustle, smell, and noises of the station were replaced by the sounds of the wheels clunking rhythmically on the track.  Our epic journey that was to last 20 hours and see us travel across much of Myanmar had begun. 

We had expected to be able to walk through the train but we were in a carriage for four where we spent the entire journey and slept the night. Not only was the dining car missing, but we could not walk through the train, we were trapped. The seats with a bit of effort to loosen the roller mechanism could be adjusted to form a reasonably comfortable bed. Our cell as it at first felt had its own basic toilet.  The windows had no glass but shutters that could be pulled down, so were effectively open to the elements and we were able to, hear, see and smell the sights and sounds of the villages as we passed them by and the countryside accompanied always by the rhythmic sounds of the train as it passed over the track.

Suddenly as dusk turned into night our carriage transformed into a magic carpet as we flew through the country side and passed fields and villages.  Suddenly on this Christmas Eve we were moving through the night with the stars brighter than I have ever seen them, except one might camping in Jordan in the bitter cold or one summers night long ago camping with my son on Woodcraft Folk camp. I looked in wonder at the night sky as I traveled on a train on Christmas Eve with a guide named Joseph, Christmas carols running through my head unsummoned by me but welcome.

The train’s noise as it picks up speed makes it difficult to talk to my travelling companions and we settle into an easy silence locked in our own thoughts . Outside Myanmar passes by the open window and haystacks burn in the fading light, the smell of smoke wafting into the carriage.

Every couple of hours the train pulls out of the night into brightly lit stations and young women again hang on to the train selling food and drink.  The local children watch in wonder and wave at us as we go on our way into the star filled night.

The wooden houses so typical of this part of the world could be now or 2000 years ago pass by as we travel, I watch the night sky, somehow deeply moved I feel that I am on a journey of discovery and wonder and in some magical new universe. 

As the night draws on we put down the beds and in my own world, and lost in my thoughts, I lie watching the sky and the occasional shooting star. The night for the most part is hot until just before dawn when it turns cold and we search out warmer clothes still not prepared to shut out the night sky.

The Clunk, Clunk of the train is a constant sound track to the journey. The lights in the houses and the fires in the haystacks give the night its smell and magical quality.  There is something about a fire that at night feels overwhelmingly reassuring as the flames dance and radiate heat as they have done since man’s earliest days.

Suddenly the train jolts to a halt as it has several times before, the train has broken down only to be fixed quickly by groups of men looking bemused with smiling women looking on.  We had recently stopped to unload crates of supplies which were carried by young men from the train to a cart pulled by two ox. I have watched out the widow as we passed the fields and seen ox being used everywhere to plough fields or pull small carts. 

This is not a backward country it just seems to integrate the modern with the age old. Suddenly the train is fixed and the whistle blows, we now travel past more build up areas with wooden houses on either side of the track, each house and garden telling its own story. Suddenly we arrive at Bagan station our epic train ride over, as we pile out of the train we greet our fellow travellers with Christmas wishes.