Given the choice of paying $9 for a deck class ticket or paying $54 for a cabin, the cheapskate in all of us would go for the $9 ticket every time. Ok… so a deck class ticket means a mat on the floor, I can handle that. The boat ride is 36 hours? I’m starting at this point to think maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

I boarded the boat without a clue of where I was supposed to go and spent a good five minutes wandering aimlessly before I was rescued by a boat employee and pointed in the right direction. He took my up one floor to deck class where about 200 people and their belongings had already settled in. It seems like each ticket reserved you a rectangle shaped space on the floor of the deck and I was directed by him to my new home for the next day and a half.

I had been told before that people from Myanmar love to laugh and it seemed to be the case on this boat ride. People were chatting and sharing of food and, despite everyone being practically on top of one another on a hot, uncomfortable boat deck, people were happy and laughing almost the entire time. I was adopted by a few families and was able to communicate a bit with them with wild arm gestures and I managed to keep a group of people entertained for a while when I let them take photos of each other with my camera.

One of my favourite parts about this trip was the camaraderie that develops between the passengers. Everyone looked out for me which could be explained by the fact that I’m a solo woman foreigner but the friendly atmosphere seemed to exist between everyone on that deck. At night, after the lights went out, the people on my half of the boat were still cracking jokes and giggling like school girls for ages which I couldn’t help but laugh at.

The trip from Bhamo to Mandalay by boat really is about the journey, rather than just being a way to get from point A to B but holy crap… 36 hours is a long time to spent sitting on the deck of a boat. It was a pretty awesome experience overall though and I’m glad I did it but I probably won’t be jumping on any super long boat rides again anytime soon!

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My plan had been to spend a night in the riverside town of Bhamo, take a fast ferry to a town called Katha the next morning and then wander off in a general southernly direction the day after. I was sort of looking forward to not knowing how to leave Katha and where would be next but then the boat was full and then I got sick. Suddenly the idea of spending several days figuring out how to get to my next, still to be decided destination wasn’t so appealling.

Unfortunately, neither was my only other option. It’s impossible to leave Bhamo heading south any other way than by boat and the only tickets left were deck class tickets for a 36 hour journey. No seats, just you and whatever space you can eek out amongst the locals, livestock and wares. Tough call but I decided that the certainty of being in Mandalay within the next day and a half beat out the possibility of being stuck in Katha for the foreseeable future.

So I bought my ticket, a roll out mat to sleep on and a bag of apples for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This might turn out great or turn out terrible but it’s the unknown that makes it fun!

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I decided that just being in Myanmar wasn’t off the beaten path quite enough for me so I though I’d be a bit ridiculous and head way up north to a town called Myitkyina. There’s no real reason for tourists to head to that town except to catch a boat to another town to catch another boat all the way back to Mandalay. So essentially, my first week in Myanmar was one massive commute.

I hopped a bus from Yangon to Mandalay on my second day to start my trip. It took 16 hours and it would have been ok had I not been sitting next to a beer swilling, farting, phone number asking, betel nut chewing, snoring fat man with little to no concept of personal space. He kept falling asleep on my shoulder or leaning over on me so I was squashed against the wall of the bus with no escape. After a few hours of encroachment I took it upon myself to poke him when he invaded my space and he eventually got the hint.

The second leg of my journey was a 24 hour train trip from Mandalay to Myitkyina that started out pretty well and quickly deteriorated into the trip from hell. I booked a sleeper berth that turned out to be pretty comfortable. It wasn’t too crowded and my fellow bunkmates were friendly. I ended up spending a lot of time chatting with a 17 year old guy who was heading up north to work in the mines. He desperately wanted to go to university and the only way he could get the money was to spend two or more years doing this dangerous work. He told me that his brothers has all joined the army and that, even though they did not agree with the government, working for them is the only option for many people.

At 5am, only a few hours from Myitkyina, the train ground to a halt. after the train didn’t move for 3o minutes I just assumed that it was a really early breakfast stop and that we’d be on the move shortly. A couple hours later and I started to wonder a bit more, especially since most of the train’s passengers were now camped outside along the tracks chatting and drinking tea. Apparently a train had derailed ahead of us and there was no way to pass but I had heard that this journey was often delayed so I wasn’t too surprised or annoyed. After ten hours when we finally got moving again I wasn’t too impressed. Ten hours! It sucked.

I spent a couple of nights in Myitkyina which turned out to be a pretty cool town. It’s home to the Kachin people who are a minority group in Myanmar. I spent a lot of time chatting with the guy who runs the YMCA where I was staying about the government, religion, language, family and learned a lot about the area and it’s people.

A couple days later I would start the third leg of my journey on a tiny longboat to some town that’s not on any map I’ve ever seen (and that I forget the name of). It was 7 hours of bumpy boating action and it was beautiful. The boat stopped in small settlements all along the river where people were bathing, washing clothes, sifting sand for precious stones and trying to sell food and drinks to us. I stayed in that town for one night, walked around, ate dinner, threw it up a few hours later (the food here isn’t the best), read a bit and went to sleep.

The next morning I was up early for phase four of my seeingly neverending commute; a 5 hour boar ride on an even smaller boat that the day before. It was more of the same but this time it rained which meant that we the boat was closed in with canvas sheets and I didn’t see anything for hours.

After several days and about 50 hours on one form of transportation or another, I arrived in Bhamo ready for the last leg of my journey, a 34 hour boat ride back to where I started. At this point I am starting to wonder if I’ve gone crazy.

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