The alarm went off
at 5am again this morning and I rode out to the Shwesandaw Pagoda for
the sunrise. I then returned to Dhammayangyi Temple, which was
virtually devoid of people but well populated with squirrels. After
touring the corridors for a while, I went around behind to check out
a couple of rather ornate temples that we had missed when we came
here the other day. A lot of the land around the temples is under
cultivation, and from my vantage point on a high terrace on one of
the temples I saw several bullock teams pulling ploughs across the
fields.
When I got back to
hotel, we finished packing up and checked out and then went to the
Black Rose for lunch. Afterwards, I walked down the road to get some
water and snacks for the train while the others went back to the
hotel. It was another very hot day, so I grabbed what I could as
quickly as I could and rejoined Kate and the girls in the hotel
lobby, where we sat using the wi fi and soaking up the air con. Then,
about three quarters of an hour before our train was due to arrive, I
walked back to the Black Rose to get some takeaway fried rice and
curry for dinner. Our taxi just beat me back to the hotel and we all
piled in and drove out the train station.
The train arrived at
5.15pm, a little late, and we were shown to our compartment, which
was, thankfully, in slightly better condition than the one we arrived
in (although there was bit of a palaver when I noticed that there
weren't any sheets, with five or six people getting involved in the
process of getting us some). The ride was relatively smooth as we
made our way out of town and into the palm-tree-delineated peanut
fields. Some very attractive little bee-eaters swooped and wheeled
alongside us, snatching insects from the air and perching on the
telegraph wires; a hoopoe also kept pace with us for some distance.
On the way up, I had noticed some ladders attached to the palm trees
and small piles of squat black pots on the ground among them, and
this evening I saw the two come together – the ladders are used to
climb the palms in order to place the pots high among the crown to
collect (I later learned) toddy palm juice, which is used to make
'sky beer', a slightly organic traditional Burmese drink.
As the light began
to fade, we opened up our polystyrene takeaway containers and dug
into our still-warm dinner. It began to rain as we ate, the fat, cold
drops occasionally penetrating the cabin and splashing on our bare
legs, but it was only a passing shower that had stopped by the time
we had finished our repast. A little later, we began to pass small
groups of small children standing at attention beside the tracks,
utterly impassive and spaced out at fairly regular intervals. The
train slowed as we went past one group of three and Kate grabbed some
of those free toothbrushes they give you in the better hotels to give
to them. The instant she went to the window, the children rushed
over, the tallest girl grabbing two of the toothbrushes and a boy
getting the other. Kate quickly got one more from her bag for the
little girl who had missed out as all three ran beside the train,
their faces a study of concentration (and desperation?). The little
one was calling out and continued to run beside us for some distance
after she had received her toothbrush, eventually giving up when we
began to pick up speed. The whole experience was so distressing and
unedifying that we resolved not to repeat it.
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