The night bus from Inle to Yangon was probably the very best night bus I've ever been on. Leather reclining seats with more room than I've been accustomed to in the past.
Complementary water.
Even a Polyanna drawing of sorts where I won a calendar!
All together not bad for a night bus. Don't get me wrong, there's really nothing (actually) good about a night bus. The concept; it's supposed to get you to your destination in the middle of the night with time to sleep so you're well rested....(ya right?).
Then you can roll right into your day and and not waste anytime on travel (u huh?).
The idea of it could tend to appear favorable, like time travel one may consider.
The reality however is a different story all together.
We arrived at 439am into a bus depo (nothing more than a curb stop on the outskirts of town. Taxis are always available at these makeshift stops, no matter what time of the day/night. And as I've said before it's always worth it to share a cab.
In this particular case, I had made friends with Izzy, a 26yo grad student of law in a London based school, before boarding the bus.
She had been living in Myanmar now for a year. This was her 2nd time and now working within a coop program through an NGO designed around improving land right issues she was fairly fluent in Burmese.
When we landed at the curb stop in Yangon she was able to negotiate a price with the taxi as Pete and I, comatose, retrieved our bags from the hull of the bus.
At the last minute however, as I was preparing to toss my shit into the small minivan, Izzy said "no" and waived me away saying that they were "militant Buddhists" and "we're not going with them".
Oh ya, militant Buddhists, don't think I've talked about that one but there's a story for sure.
Buddhists are about 4-1 in ratio to the other religious sects here in Myanmar. Christians, Hindus and Muslims make up the majority of the others.
The Muslims have been historically outcast from the visible culture here. Not so much in the cities like Yangon but in the country sides North, South, East and West of here there is great discontent. There are actually labor camps where these misplaced ex-citizens of this country are imprisoned/reside.
It's bad.
Just last year there were 2 large well known altercations between Buddhists and Muslims where there were hundreds of gorri deaths at the hands of machetes and old school accessable weapons.
The groups have code #s with the Muslims being identified as # 797 and the Buddhist as # 969.
Crazy weird I know, but when Izzy said to walk away it wasn't due to fear. It was to show disapproval with these militant Buddhists MOs.
As most of you are probably aware, Buddhists have 5 basic laws. One of them is No Killing. So you try to figure it out. Guess it's not any different from all the other religious atrocities in history. Christians, Jews, etc etc.
The van had two stickers on the windshield with the codes 969 imprinted. These are what drew her attention after she agreed to a price.
She turned to the driver who was preparing the van for us to enter, "no thanks, we don't support 969", she said as I was saying "mingloba (hello) to his co-pilot.
I cringed, thinking holy shit!
But the driver just smiled and nodded ok.
The 969 minivan was the last taxi there but it didn't take long to flag down another passing "nice Buddhist" cab.
The cost to get to town, 4,000 kyat (4 bucks) but now 2 bucks each because we share.
We dropped Izzy first and then onward to the Goldenstar hotel where we had stayed last week and made return reservations.
It was now only about 6am and when we got to the 4th floor walk-up hotel the doors were still locked so we grabbed seats on the marble steps, connected to the wifi and waited for the kids to open the gates an hour or so later.
Thankfully there was a room ready when we entered, even though checkin wasn't for hours.
We fully intended to throw our bags onto the bed and get out into the rustic Yangon neighborhoods for our last jaunt as our flight outa there was in just 24 hours.
As you'd be guessing, the night bus ordeal quickly slapped us upside the skulls and we were both under the sheets for a catnap within moments of arrival.
When we awoke it was approaching noon.
Shit! We have plans to meet our monk friend Variswammi at the Buddhist cave near his monastery at noon!!
We called him from the front desk and after he explained he was already there & waiting we threw on some cloths and headed out to begin, what would be, the 2 hour trec to meet him.
We both knew we were late and didn't want to cause anymore bad karmic vibes between us and Variswammi but street food is a powerful temptation and we found ourselves being drawn to it as we half-ass tried to grab a taxi.
After 2 fried bananas at one stand, 2 fried Potatoes & a strawberry lassi at another, a fresh squeezed almond milk (another), and a glass of tea at still another we were in a cab headed to the cave.
When we arrived it was after 2pm, no sign of our friend. We went in and did a self tour looking everywhere for him. We asked many other monks if they had seen one of there own looking like he was searching for 2 foreigners.
We gave up hope after an hour and went inside a pagoda to meditate.
After a half hour in the temple we walked through the market place on the way out.
Pete met a cute young Burmese girl who took a liking to him and invited us to have some noodles and tea at a table nearby.
As is the case in many foreign lands people love to learn English and what better way than to connect with 2 adorable white Americans and flirt a little.
We sat and ordered mohinka.
That's when I saw him.
Variswammi, who was looking like a kid that had just lost his puppy was standing over by the curb inspecting every taxi (for our loser asses) that pulled up.
Feeling horrible, I ran up to him. After an initial look of relief he exhibited a face of what appeared to be (surely out of my own feelings of guilt) anger.
I hugged him (which in itself is not proper monk edicate ), bought him a cream soda (monks can't eat after noon), said goodbye to the girl (out of respect for Variswammi) and we were off to the cave together this time.
(Our friend Variswammi)
It was closed! Holy crap, I think I see that monk anger again (in my guilted mind). Maybe not though, all he said was "wanna go see the reclining Buddha?".
A 3$ taxi across town had us arrive at the biggest reclining Buddha shrine I've ever seen.
Twice the size of the one in Bangkok.
(Reclining Buddha)
Here I met other monks, saw the King of the Dieties (Nat)
(King of the Nats)
and met a dude that graduated from Temple architecture school a couple years prior.
It was dark when we finished and before we all jumped into a taxi together Pete and I had a potato-onion pancake from a street cart (amazing!!!).
Then we gave monk hugs exchanged facebook accounts and said goodbye to our spiritual friend.
I think we passed out as we were walking up the stairs to the 'ol GoldenStar because I don't remember anything til the alarm went off at 545am and we were once again mobile and on our way to the airport.
The poor Burmese street vendors must be so sad to see you two go. They were hoping to set up college funds for all of their kids.
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