Warning: This post is going to describe some of the negative sides of travelling and will at parts be ‘disgusting’. Please don’t let this put you off or make you think that I’m unhappy with my decision to travel. These things happen, you deal with them and you get on with your trip. So…without further ado…

*

“Sorry, I’ve taken someone else. I’ll cancel it now.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. We’ve got to get to our bus, which is over an hour away and you’re cancelling the trip only now? I looked down at my phone. He still hadn’t cancelled it.

“Can you cancel it, please?”
“Yes, yes. Cancel now.” At least his English was clear enough that we didn’t spend 10 minutes trying to decipher what he was saying.

I should have realised that this was not the worst thing to happen on this leg of the journey.

*

“Where is he?” Viktoria, who I’d met a couple of days before, was travelling with me to Bagan. Our re-arranged taxi had missed our street and gone down the next one, only to turn back on himself.
“Let’s just walk up there and wave at him when he comes past.” The road I was referring to was only a few steps away, but Viktoria had several bags, so it wasn’t exactly easy to transport all our stuff. Fortunately, another guest at the hostel saw our plight and eased the burden.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” said the taxi driver, smiling all the while as he loaded our backpacks into the taxi. “Bus station?”
“Yes, yes. Bus station.”

*

“Man Shwe Pyi” said the taxi driver, pointing at a dilapidated garage at Yangon’s main bus station.
“Thank you so much.” We’d managed to arrive on time. In fact, we were 55 minutes early. Maybe, things are going to be okay.

They weren’t…

“No ticket.”
“But we’ve bought the ticket. Look, we have an invoice”
“No ticket. No seat.”
“How? We paid for the seats yesterday. The money is gone.”
“Here,” The woman at the counter passed me a phone, corded and incredibly quiet. On the other end was a man who spoke pretty good English, but that’s about the only complement I could give him.

“We do not have a confirmation from you.”
“But the money is not in my account. We bought the tickets.”
“But there are no seats”
“Then what are we supposed to do?”
“There are no seats…”
“Then what can we do?”
“There are no seats…”

He was useless and of no help. Over the next 45 minutes I tried calling the company that had sold me the tickets online, Viktoria and I both spoke to the man and worst of all, our bus left.

We were stuck at Yangon bus station at 9PM in the rain.

*

“So what now?” Our backpacks were sat outside the sales centre. We were covered by one metre of roof as the rain poured down harder and harder.
“Maybe there’s another company?” As Viktoria stood guarding the bags I darted around the various agencies. At first I had the patience to say “Hello”, smile, “Do you speak English?” “No? Hmm…. Bus? Mandalay? Bagan?”

Every time I was met with “No”, a smile and a shake of the head (or hand once or twice). By the sixth agency, I was down to “Mandalay? Bagan?” But always the same result. Except for once, when the guy at the counter promisingly responded with “Bagan – yes”

EXCELLENT!

“Oh, no. No ticket today.”

…

When I returned to Viktoria, I found her craving a cigarette, and eager to leave Yangon more so than me. Our options seemed to be:

1. Go back to the hostel, sleep and hitchhike to Mandalay or Bagan the next day (all the buses were sold out for the next few days)
2. Get a bus anywhere
3. Hitchhike in the pouring rain

So what do you think we chose dear reader? I’ll give you a moment to think…

…

..

.

We chose to hitchhike in the rain. We got our bags and walked toward the highway, trying to make sure that none of our electronics would get wet, eventually finding a woman who looked to be selling food and had a cover to keep our bags dry.

“No.”

Could things really be getting this bad? Was she really not going to let us keep our bags here as we hitchhiked (well, tried to).
“No food.” AHHHHHHHH!!!! PHEWWW!!!!

We stood out in the road with our thumbs out, the rain coming down on our coats, our smiles waining. Over the next ten minutes, several people who had been eating at this lady’s restaurant were kind enough to help us, trying to stop any bus that came past. Eventually, after 20 minutes a bus stopped, going to Mandalay. After a tough conversation, we found out that there was only one seat available.

“We are not splitting up. I can’t leave you here by yourself. Besides, you’re the one that really wanted to leave Yangon. You go.” said I.
“No. Don’t be stupid. You get on. I can get a ride easily.”
“I’m sure you can, but we are not separating. What happens if you get stuck here. No”
“Stop wasting time. Just get on.”
“No. You get on!”

Looking back, I can’t believe that either of us wanted to stay at this highway in the middle of the night in the rain, but fortunately, we didn’t have to.
“One in the chair, one on the floor” we asked. The driver hesitated, unsure whether he should allow us to do this, but after a few seconds we got the “okay” we’d been dreaming of and excitedly loaded our backpacks on to the bus. In the madness, we forgot to get any warm clothes. If you’ve read my previous posts, you’ll know how freezing cold these Asian buses can be.

We got on, the rain dripping from our clothes all over the bus, possibly on to some poor passengers who had hoped to sleep. Looking at the available choices, I took the ledge at the very back of the bus, while Viktoria took the seat. The two men on the seat on the other side smiled and tried to talk with us, but alas, neither of us speak Mandarin, except for a “hello” and “Chinese?”

I tried to lay down at the back, folding my raincoat into a pillow and using a blanket provided by the bus as my make shift bed. I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

*

“You must get off.” I glanced down at my phone: 01:00 AM.
“Huh?” We said simultaneously, sleepy and without energy.
“Thirty minutes. Everybody off”
“Please. We just want to sleep”
“No no” he smiled.

Begrudgingly we got off the bus, the door closing behind. Words cannot explain the hate we were feeling in that moment, but looking at each other we both knew we were regretting our decision to board this bus. Viktoria definitely felt worse than me though. When I came back from the bathroom, I saw her sat like a frog at the side of the road.

“Is everything okay?”
“No. Not really. There is something in my throat. I think I have to throw up.” She turned around again, back into the froggy pose and put her fingers down her throat. I heard what happened, and unfortunately caught a glimpse of it too: the lunch…not a good omen.

When we finally got back on the bus, we decided to switch ‘seats’, with me taking the proper chair and Viktoria taking the ledge, as I couldn’t sleep on it with my back issues and Viktoria finding the ledge more comfortable. Finally, we could get some sleep.

*

“We’re here”
“Are we close?”
“Yeah, maybe 10 minutes” Outside, I could see a city shrouded in greyness. Slowly we meandered down the muddy road toward the bus station.

“I really need the bathroom. Like….really need the bathroom” I knew instantly that, much like Viktoria, I had got food poisoning and my stomach was unimpressed. I packed my things up frantically, and made my way to the front of the bus, ready to be the first one off. When we eventually stopped, I ran to the inside of the agency and into their bathroom. I’ll spare you the details.

*

Over the next two hours I would run in and out of that bathroom, turning it into a second home of sorts, all the while considering what exactly to do and how we could make our way to Bagan. When I felt better, I explored the station, but the next bus for Bagan was not for another 3 hours.

“Hitch?”
“Okay. Let’s make a sign.” As I ran back to the bathroom one last time, Viktoria enlisted some help from people at the station and wrote out a beautiful sign with ‘Bagan’. We ordered a Grab to take us to the outskirts of the city and set up our hitching spot.

*

“Bagan?”
“Yes! Bagan” Just 10 minutes after starting, we were able to find ourselves a ride in the back of a van going all the way to Bagan. Over the next 4 hours, we watched the world go by, tried to entertain the young child sat in the back (who only seemed to smile at cows, not at us) and ignored my stomach problems. When we got to the hostel, it was only natural to sleep. We planned to wake up at 6PM to get some food, but on waking up, I felt even worse, so I decided to drink some water with electrolytes while Viktoria went off socialising. As I write this, it is the following day, and I am happy to say that I am feeling A LOT better. Ultimately, these things happen when you travel and when they do you just have to rest, rest and rest. Tomorrow, I will begin exploring Bagan (which my computer’s autocorrect keeps trying to change to Began) and am already excited to share this stage of my adventure.

 

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