Travels on Burma's Irrawaddy River

IRRAWADDY Part 2

LOVE

Getting somewhere in a hurry has never been the strong point in my travels, but this time taking the scenic route to Rangoon was given a new meaning.

Across the street from the old Bangkok airport is the railway station and I would take the first train out, whatever its destination; I was not in the mood this time for the hot and busy of the city, and it was 11 pm, not the best time to arrive anywhere.

So I ended up on the night train to Ubon Ratchatani with a third class load of dock workers on their way home who were spending all their hard earned baths on bottles of Chang beer; after a few hours most of them lay snoring, spooning, and sprawled and draped over the hard wooden benches of third class.

Then on to Mukdahan on the Mekong River by bus, a short ferry ride across to Savannakhet with a group of women gambling away their earnings from smuggled kitchenware, minor visa hassles, and then hitching rides to Vientiane.

A few days later I took a bus to Luang Prabang. All the baggage was stowed on the back bench- backpacks, boxes, baskets, bundles, sacks of rice, chickens and a small pig in their own wicker cages.

After all the passengers, a few backpackers but mostly Lao, got on; an old small man, all chin whiskers and in tattered clothes, sat behind me at the back of the bus. He mumbled a friendly hello, sank in his seat, wrapped his scarf around his head and shoulders, and in a cloud of Mekong whiskey went to sleep, snoring loudly and dreaming of water buffalo and old women. He had a shotgun, because he was the guard on the bus, to protect us against the dacoits on the road.

Somewhere near Vang Vien where most of the backpackers would get off a bit later to drift down the river in inner tubes stoned, the old man woke up. He snorted loudly and spit out of the window, cleared his throat, then he tapped me on the shoulder. In a whiskey-loaded halo he whispered " I love you". The thought of a spurned lover with a shotgun was a hell of a lot scarier than a group of robbers along a deserted highway, so I gave him my sweetest smile, I said "thank you" and he went back to sleep, maybe dreaming this time of the old white guy in front of him.

I finally got to Rangoon, by river from Luang Prabang to Pak Beng and Huay Xai, and then a flight from Chang Mai. My detour had taken me about a month.