Yangon station, whilst very run down, still has echos of Empire - mainly because it hasn't been repaired since we all left. A large, once white building with towers at each end and with all the original ticket counters behind rusty but decorative wrought iron. It was much quieter than we thought, unlike the Indian style crowds we were expecting. Like a Memsahib and Sahibs from Empire days our Upper Class tickets took us to the best seats on the train - Richard Branson, where are you, calling these Upper Class is doing the Virgin brand a dis-service... The carriage is spacious and has comfy seats, unlike the crowded hard wooden ones in ordinary class next door. Comfy, but perhaps could do with a wipedown with a damp cloth and a bit of bleach... The windows have no glass, are completely open to the elements but there are shutters to pull down for inclement weather - it does make for good natural aircon.
We slowly pull out of Yangon at the start of this long journey. We act like Japanese tourists on the Tube, making disparaging comments about the dire state of the train and laughing hysterically whilst taking photos. As the train gathers a bit of speed it starts to sway and bounce alarmingly. The bushes alongside encroach through the paneless windows. It feels at times like a bad channel crossing, at others when the momentum changes direction, it is like riding a horse, with your bum actually leaving contact with the seat with each bounce. At this stage we all agree that our change of plan from a night train to a day one was a good one. The noise is at industrial levels and no way would sleep be possible. The dust blows in and water seeps out from under the toilet door, you get the idea. But it's such an experience and we laughed a lot. People wander across the tracks, sleep and sit alongside the tracks and generally live life. The swaying was so bad that one of the train staff came along withe a rope to tie David's bag to the baggage shelf as it was in danger of toppling over. So Health & Safety do figure at times.....
Once outside the city and past the suburban stations with traditionally dressed commuters waiting to start their working week, the wide flat vista is dotted with rice paddies, brickworks and golden stupas like measles on the landscape. Whilst all this is passing outside, inside and past your seats goes a veritable moving market. Food of all descriptions is for sale, balanced precariously on the vendors' heads as the train bounces along, including hot sweetcorn, boiled eggs, sweets, crisps, satay, hot curry. Books, newspapers, clothes and pictures of Aung Sun Suu Syi and her father go by. Monks collecting money in little envelopes. Oh and cool Chang beer. All vendors shouting out their wares noisily to be heard over the din of the train itself. A comic book library comes around and many are rented by the group of young people in front of us.
To add to this indoor market, at every stop you are offered more stuff to buy through the window. We buy the minimum quantity of bananas, two huge hands strung together which we will be eating for days, at the princely cost of 50p and that was tourist price. Just shows how out of sync some of those prices were in Yangon.
We go past scenes that are almost biblical, carts loaded with stuff being pulled by white buffalos, dirt poor villages with children running around barefoot in the filth, and tiny stations every so often which will have been here since Imperial times. It really looked like deepest rural India.
We have been really surprised by the lack of police and military presence in Myanmar generally, but today we notice a soldier with a big machine gun posted on a lookout at every train intersection, level crossing and station, and a big police presence on the train. At one point one of the policemen was sitting in the seat in front of me. Every so often he expertly expectorated a red stream of spit from his betel nut chewing, but luckily he had a good aim, even with a windowless train, there was no blowback on to me.... But still we see the old fashioned ways, at every station and level crossing, the train's movement was being marshalled by a man brandishing either a green or a red flag. And at each junction, a man slowly moved the creaking points. So nice to relax and look out on all this with a cool beer...
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