Seat of Our Pants

Here in Myanmar, the transportation options are pretty limited. For the high rolling types (aka anyone who can afford to spend 70 dollars to avoid a 12 hour bus ride), there are plenty of flights. For the long and medium haul there’s a good network of buses – unfortunately their greatness is offset by the road conditions. For some destinations, there’s really only one way to travel: by train.

We recently took the overnight train from Mandalay to Myitkyina. We rode in the highest, most expensive class: the Upper Sleeper Class. It cost us 36 US Dollars, which is six times more than a local would pay for the same ticket. I guess foreigners cause more damage to the railway or something, or that we take up six times the space of a local. We’re still puzzling that one out.

The train itself is unimpressive but okay. It reminded me of the trains in Vietnam: very, very basic but they do the job. Though this particular journey reputedly takes between 24 and 50 hours, we managed to polish it off in just 22 (after a two hour delay).

The positives were the views and the sense of perspective you get from traveling slowly from place to place. While we bumped along (Burmese trains bump, like a lot), we knocked back a Myanmar Beer and watched the sunset.

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