After a crazy day at the lake where the only good part was
my boat driver did every turn I asked him to, I had to move away from the
tourists. So I decided to take the 15 km/hr train to a town called Kalaw. It’s
the sort of a typical ‘British Hill Station’ the book said. During the early
30’s when the British were building railways in Burma, the Indians, the
Nepali’s and the Bangladeshi’s all came in search of work. If you see anyone
looking different than the average Burmese then they mostly are the 3rd
generation of the then railway workers.
The start of my journey - Nyuangshwe Station
The train journey is some kind of another experience. The
speed is not only excruciatingly slow but the way the carriages shake remind
you of some ride in an entertainment park. Well to talk about entertainment,
there is enough provided by the locals. The train makes 4 stops on the way to Kalaw
during the 70 kms trip. The stations look more like those seen in the 1930’s
pictures of Mumbai with a tin shade on the top, a few bullock carts outside to
carry the people as well as the goods. The only thing that reminds you of this
decade is a vehicle manufactured by Honda or Toyota parked on the road. At many times, I thought I am looking
at a scene from an old Hindi movie only in color.
Like in India, the train is never in time. But here comes
the best bit from the station where I boarded the train, Shwenyuang junction.
The train pulls in at the station exactly 45 minutes late,
and the stationmaster says “good in time”. We are a group of only 6 – 7
foreigners who have taken the upper class, which as I enter appears to me more
ransacked than the ordinary class. The only difference is the higher fare and
cushioned seats. I find a seat in the direction of the movement and settle
down. There are atleast 4 -5 layers of dust on the table in front of me, but
that’s nothing to complain about. The ticket collector gives a hand to an
elderly french couple with their lugguage and then is eager to tell everyone to
sit on the seats assigned to them, in an almost empty compartment.
No Rush ! The train waits till you have shopped
Later, as the train is about to move, a family of eight
children with their respective mothers, get inside the compartment and it feels
a little alive around me. Alive not noisy! The train starts with the expected
thud and after less than 100 metres it stops suddenly. It starts to move
backward and I realize it is changing tracks. Well, it stops again and moves in
the same direction as before only this time it stops at the station again. Some
people get in the train. It moves and stops again .. this is the time when the
big family gets out. It seems the ladies just wanted to give their children a
ride. They all jump out on an open field and a single lady who was watching
them all this while gets into the compartment. She is the real traveler I
realize. Welcome to Myanmar Railways, I tell myself.
The train finally starts to move at more than 10 kms/hr and
the family from down below shout their bye’s out loud to the solo woman. This
was it!! I tried not to make anything out of it and just enjoy their passing company.
Two people with uniforms and chewing on the beetlenut pan settle next to me and
say ‘mingla ba’ in local language means ‘hello’. By this time I forget that the scenery outside was one of
the draws for me to take this journey and in the roller coaster of a train, I
go off to sleep. I may have been on the verge of almost knocking myself out
when a hand shook me. It was one of the guys in the uniform, “look out, goo
view’. I smiled and saw that the train had already started to ascend and a
bridge constructed in the 40’s was approaching. I had already seen it a day
earlier from the road, but for him I said .’ya good’. He was the ticket
collector, part time porter and now also the tour guide.
The first stations it pulled in was Heho and by then the man
had already shown me three other sites. One of them was the crash site of an
‘air bagan’ flight, which by the way I was going to take the next morning. “air
bagan .. doosh” he spoke more with his action than with his doosh !
The next item on the entertainment list was oranges. Oh yes
.. on the train they eat oranges for time to pass. Its more like the pan
chewing habit can only be given up for oranges. As I got down at the Heho
station, I too bought oranges coz by then I had too much of accepting oranges
from everyone on the train and not giving them any. It was like exchanging
greetings with an orange and I did not want to fall behind. So even when the
price for oranges for a foreigner was double of that of the locals, I got the
necessary number of oranges I thought would last me for the journey, little did
I know that I would beat my own personal record with oranges which was 1/10th
of what normal man eats on a 5 hour train journey in Myanmar.
From Station to home.. Anyone ?
The second station came and this time there was not the
commotion of Heho. So I got out to stretch a little and walked past my
compartment to peep in the huge wooden windows, a group of officials and
regular commuters playing Burmese poker with all sorts of local currency
denominations on a make shift table and orange peels on the floor. “Come play,
it fun’ I just nodded and as the train started I went and joined the group.
This was the craziest form of poker I had seen. The bills were folded in one,
two and upto four folds. I did not
even attempt at asking why. The winner at each hand gulped in one more orange
and laughed.
We take pictures, or write on a travel. I had never seen a
paint diary before. A French woman, whom I earlier saw sit outside the station
painting a water sketch of the surrounding had now engaged my attention as I
moved around the compartment to cut time. I saw the colorful pages open and had to ask for permission
to see it. She promptly said in her french accent, “I have one on India, wait I
show you”! It was beautiful and took me the next 30 minutes of the
journey. The last 45 minutes of
the journey I sat alone and looked out as the air turned cooler and the scenery
greener.
The train was the unexpected surprise of my visit to the
state of Shan. As I got down at Kalaw. I did not care about the town. The
journey was enough to make it a day.
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