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 Without
tarrying in Yangon, I caught the overnight train at 5:00p.m. to
Mandalay, known as the Up 15. I sat in the soft seats and left the
window open to catch a breeze and escape the clutching heat of the
crowded train car. An adolescent girl sat next to me with her face
masked in yellow sandalwood (thanake), wearing a longyi
and fingering her prayer beads. Her mother and a friend sat across
the aisle in similar fashion. The longyi is a unisex sarong,
worn on all occasions by men and women alike. Levi Strauss would
go broke in Burma. Several monks, in robes ranging the spectrum
from saffron to maroon, were interspersed through the cabin. There
was one in front of me smoking a cheroot, jamming to a Walkman,
looking at the ads in a magazine featuring very sexy women and pining
for 5:00a.m. when he could eat like the rest of us. Soldiers with
impressive weaponry swaggered down the aisle, disappearing for the
rest of the evening when the food and drink were served. Food vendors
stalked the cabin selling dried fish, nuts, rice wrapped in banana
leaves, bird eggs, samosas, and drinks in clear plastic bags with
a straw. Extra fodder for the mosquitoes and flies pullulating in
a feeding frenzy before the cabin cooled down at sunset. I ordered
tomato curry and rice from the kitchen. The train moved in laborious
heaves and surges. The clanking spans suffused the rickety cabins
with a monotonous din, first maddening and interminable, then like
background music on the stage of an exotic setting. We passed by
fields of sunflowers, fallow rice paddies, small villages with plaited
bamboo huts on stilts, and children and young men playing chinlon
(rattan ball using feet) in circles of five or six. Pagodas were
never out of sight, dotting the landscape like chalky breasts with
golden nipples, awash in a delicate spray of orange from the setting
sun. Soon the sky was pitch, and all that was visible outside was
small fires. The breeze turned cool, and I shut the window. The
overhead cabin lights burned all night, challenging the circadian
spell of Somnus, while I writhed and contorted with a hat over my
face, seeking a commodious space for my legs and feet. I was finally
in Burma.
 I
arrived at the Gawein jetty just outside of Mandalay at 5:30a.m
. the next day to take the ferry down the Irrawaddy River to Bagan.
It was still dark, and fires flickered along the dock as catatonic
bodies claimed the void spaces between and on top of the assorted
boxes and cargo. They would be taking the cargo ferry later. The
passenger ferry is three levels with open deck space on the second
and third floors and high-back chairs on the first. The river was
low as we traversed sand spits and islands in the dim light with
the help of two boys with long poles standing on either side of
the forecastle, prodding the water for terra firma while shouting
signals back to the captain. I stood at the rail on the third level
watching Mandalay twinkle as a new day dawned. A fluvial breeze
soothed my face like a tonic. Sagaing came into sight with its forested
hills spotted with golden stupas. Each eminence was crowned with
the relative grandeur of its elevation, like garish ornaments adorning
a Christmas tree crested with the sacred star. Monks could be seen
walking the zigzag paths with their black alms bowls while women
came down to the river verge to wash clothes before the sun was
too high. Soon the river spread out into treeless sand banks, and
we passed countless barges loaded with teak, spewing and chugging
the perilous course of a former channel. We periodically stopped
to let passengers off and to pick up more at designated ferry stops,
usually a barren stretch with a few watermelon vendors and a couple
of bullock carts waiting to take passengers and their cargo on to
their villages. I passed the day on the top deck in a shaded spot
in supine tranquility, with an occasional start from the steam whistle,
and read George Orwell’s Burmese Days.
 The
next morning, I took an open horse-drawn carriage along the dusty,
cactus-splattered trails to the Pathadagyi Paya. Stretched on a
small mattress sided with cushions in the shade of a fringed canvas
top, with rapt ears and a hypnotic detachment, I listened to the
driver tell stories of the political intrigue of kings and slaves,
precious gems entombed by the barrel load, and assorted Buddhist
myths associated with ancient Bagan. We passed through antique archways
and the only remaining gate to the city, through fields rimmed with
rows of toddy palms while women picked cotton in the shadows of
the imposing Buddhist relics. Once at Pathadagyi Paya, I stopped
briefly by the sitting Buddha, which was fronted by an altar sprinkled
with votive offerings of fresh pink wildflowers, then hurried up
the narrow, enclosed staircase leading outside and on up the tiered
slopes of cosmic Mt. Meru onto a spacious rectilinear terrace. In
a silent explosion, the mystic plains of Bagan detonated in all
directions like a giant, scrambled chessboard of antiquated earthen
and milky figurines. There was a potent, breathtaking sweep onto
the horizon of breast-like protrusions, pasted in shimmering gold
and set in seductive disarray amidst palms and gnarly acacia trees.
Before me remained less than 20 percent of what was once there,
built and financed by kings and commoners alike as reliquaries for
the hair or teeth of the last Buddha, generously ensconced with
grand, giant images of the Buddha. Also housed were sacred manuscripts
and precious gems in the hidden penetralia. The more money spent
and value donated to a paya, the more merit given towards
achieving Nirvana, the end to the cycle of rebirths—extinction.
It’s like money in the karmic bank.
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