Leaving Mandalay

My plan to gaze despondently out the train window was interrupted when a dead dragonfly landed on my skirt.

The slow but steady fourteen hour journey from Mandalay to Bagan started in the late afternoon. The second my friend and I had stepped into the train, I felt the humid summer air press down on me, the wide open windows doing absolutely nothing to help air circulation.

The moment the train had pulled out of Mandalay station, I had been hit with a sense of emptiness. A curious feeling given that my weeks in Mandalay had been filled with nothing but warmth and kindness from the people I’d met. I’d met a monk on the U Bein bridge at sunset, discussed my relationship status with almost everyone I’d met (the first question was always whether I was married or single, never an in between option) and was in constant awe of the beautiful pagodas I visited. But it was only when I left a place that I started to feel like a foreigner, as if I was just an observer passing through.

Now the sun was starting to set, with only a strip of orange blazing across the horizon. I was glad for nightfall. There was even a slight night breeze as I rested my elbows against the edge of the window. The train rolled passed the glittering pagodas with mosaics that dazzled even in the dark. Pass the now empty marketplace that had been filled with shops of beautiful fabric waiting to be sewn into longyi. Pass the food stalls where I’d eaten bowl after bowl of shan noodles. Pass the twenty-four hour tea shops that were starting to bustle with laughter and chatter. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I hadn’t gotten to know the real Mandalay.

Something fell onto my skirt and I looked down to find a large dragonfly, bulbous eyes and bright blue wings, sitting there. I jumped up and brushed it to the floor, startling my friend. The dragonfly landed on the ground, upside down and unmoving. We both leaned in for a closer look and I realized that it was dead, its wings stiff. As the train gently rocked on, the dead dragonfly began to slide around, its delicate wings disintegrating into pieces.

Then another one landed on the floor near my foot. And then a dead moth was on my friend’s arm. I scanned the train compartment and my eyes landed on the strips of fluorescent light that hung in the train. A swarm of insects buzzed around the lights, their movements erratic and frantic and every so often one would get too close.

I groaned. I wasn’t a fan of bugs but I was fine as long as they weren’t on me. I put on my baggy rain jacket and zipped it up, tugging the hood over my head and pulling the sleeves past my hands. My friend, who didn’t seem to be fazed, went back to reading her book while I tried to make myself as small as possible. I kept one eye out the window to distract myself and one eye on high alert, brushing away a dead bug every few minutes.

The train had long moved out of the city centre and was now approaching rural residential areas. We moved pass clusters of homes, tightly stacked against each other in an unruly puzzle. The street vendors had already packed up their goods and the shopkeepers had closed their stores. Everyone had returned home after a long day of work or school, and almost every house was lit. Against the backdrop of the night sky, another side of Mandalay revealed itself to me, an observer sitting on a moving train. The train moved slow enough for for curious foreigners like me to peek into windows and it seemed like people didn’t have a habit of drawing curtains or closing doors.

Families gathered around a table. Empty plates still on the table, remnants of a dinner.

Kitchens stocked with pots and pans, food still cooking on the stove.

A monk sat in the centre of a large room, empty of all furniture except for a round carpet. He was pouring over stacks of books that surrounded him.

Children squeezed around a television, their faces lit up by the soft blue light.

A man bent over a wooden Buddha statue, carving in details with great concentration.

Two women sat on the porch, one leaned against the wall and the other perched on the stairs. One woman used dramatic hand gestures as she animately told a story.

Streetlights illuminated the details of the bamboo and wooden houses. Some looked mismatched with slanted walls and rickety staircases. Some were meticulously built with lovely porches and splashes of colour. A turquoise door and a bright yellow staircase. A white fence and a purple windowsill.

Men lounging in the yard, beer in hand.

The silhouette of a cat sitting on a window ledge, tail swaying.

Three little boys in a yard, crowded around each other in a huddle, devising what seemed to be mischievous plan.

A sparkling red pinwheel was stuck to the side of a house, softly spinning, it’s tassels flying in the summer breeze.

Scenes of an intimate Mandalay revealed itself to me. Me, still curled up into a ball, hot and sticky underneath a black rain jacket. Eventually I unzipped it but I still refused to take it off. The train rolled on and we’d moved into the countryside, away from the clusters of neighbourhoods and streetlights. Now the only light source were the pinpricks of light in the distance and the fluorescent tubes in the train. The train rolled on, and I didn’t feel that earlier emptiness anymore. Maybe part of me would always be an observer, a curious foreigner on a moving train. But maybe that was okay.

Sunrise in Bagan

I don’t know if it’s because I only pay attention to sunsets when I’m travelling or I take them for granted in Vancouver but I found a new-found love for them in Bagan. Honestly, I could have stayed there for months, just watching the sunset. Sunrise, however, was a different matter because, I am not a morning person, and no matter what city I’m in, my willpower is practically nonexistent. But on my last day in Bagan, I was determined to watch the sunrise.

I wake up at 5am to stifling heat, silence and pitch black darkness. The AC had gone out again but I was too groggy to care. I peek out the window, half hoping that the heavy rainstorm from last night hadn’t stopped so I’d have an excuse to stay in bed. It was too dark to see anything and it didn’t seem like the sun wanted to rise anytime soon. But I could feel that the air was utterly still. 

My friend wakes up too and we have a lengthy whispered debate about whether we should get up or not. Maybe it’d be rainy all morning. Maybe there’d be no sunrise. Maybe the AC would come back on. But we eventually drag ourselves out of bed and get on our rented electric scooter. As we zoom down the empty roads, the sky was brightening behind us, a faint pink hue tinting the horizon.

When you’re chasing the sun, nothing ever goes smoothly. Especially when I’m the one giving directions. Especially when the rain turns everything into a mess of slippery mud. After a mishap due to my incorrect directions, we turn onto the right branch off the main road and realize that the “roads” were now pits of mud water. “Roads” that electric scooters (especially scooters carrying two people) didn’t do well in but we didn’t figure that out until we attempt to zoom across a large clearing. Of course, the scooter slides and sinks into the mud, throwing us both off. Me, being the genius that I am, decide that it’s a good idea to stand behind the scooter so I can push it. Moments later, I was splattered in mud after my friend revved the engines and she was in hysterics, laughing at me. While all this is happening, the sky is on fire. Brilliant streaks of reds, oranges and fuchsias dancing across the sky. 

Eventually we manage to push the scooter out with the help of a local boy who rides by on his motorcycle. We (not so smoothly) reach the base of the temple and hurry to the top to catch the last bit of sunrise before the blue skies take over. As I stand there, out of breath, frazzled and brushing away dried mud, the orange sky effortlessly blends into blue. There’s a brief moment as the light casts a golden glow on all of the temples. First a slight light, and then a soft mist that settles between the tips of the temples and over all the surrounding greenery. Everything is still. Then the fog scatters and the sun rises steadily, all we hear as we stand on-top of the temple, staring out at the two thousand Buddhist monuments, temples and stupas that decorate the horizon, is an orchestra of birds chirping and twittering.