The Missing Ingredient: Notes from the Streets of Southeast Asia: Mawlamyine, Burma


The rice paddies

The next morning, after taking the day off, I was chaperoned to the train station where I took a train to the southern most place that foreigners can travel. From Bago to Mawlamyine was about a 13 hour train ride with a very bumpy train. Most of the shocks of the train are shot, mean its like driving on the worst road in a car with no shock absorbers. What is great about this trip is that it goes right along the large mountain range separating Thailand and Burma. On one side you have high mountains and to the right you can catch a glimpse of the gulf of Martaban. With good conversation partners the trip went by fast. I arrived in town in the late afternoon and started looking for hotels or hostels. There is a great shortage of hotels in the whole of Burma but in this small city I finally felt it. I went to about three places before I found the smallest most cramped room in all of the city, a plank and a fan in a room that smelled of pine resin. At eight dollars a night I was not complaining since I would only have to stay there one night. I enjoyed the scenery for the rest of the next day and boarded a train heading back to Yangon around eight in the evening. Then it was another 15 or 16 hours back to the city. I arrived mid morning and went straight to the Indian area straight away to secure my housing and meet up with some of the musicians that I have written about before.