The guide book in any country always says, ‘train travel is a good way to experience local’. In my first 3 days of traveling in Myanmar back in 2014, it already looked so local even at airports that train was something I took only to not travel by road. Not that I had complaints about road travel, but then I have no complaints about Myanmar in any space.
As I approached Kalaw at a height of 4500 ft above sea level, the air got cooler and it felt once again that I have traveled back in time as it felt everywhere in Myanmar. It was February and the smoke from the chimneys gave the village of Kalaw on that wintery evening a lovely look. The van that I was riding in dropped me at the bus station and I kept thinking about how simple everything felt around me. The market bore a look of silence but had remains of an active day. The post office which the British built had an old house as its neighbor. I guess in a village (and mostly a country) where everything was old and charming, a prefix of ‘old’ was not needed to describe any living structure. ‘Living’ is how it felt to look at those buildings in Kalaw.
The next morning when I was dropped at the train station, I think I told myself, ‘this is the most charming station I have been to’. Charm, of course, has nothing to do with the cosmetics. The desk, which said, ‘may I help you’ had an attendant resting his head on it. I did not feel like waking him up, so I went to the booking window. There were two windows marked, second and first class. Through both of them, I could see the man on the other side, resting on his bed watching television. I kept looking in silence, the same silence that the train station had. There is something about the way people smile in Myanmar, other than the part that they are always smiling. It feels very innocent, the smile. The booking officer, let’s call him that, saw me and promptly came to the window, still wearing his uniform shirt over a singlet.
“May I help you” came the words. They sounded like, “I am eager to help”. I understood that the train is an hour late and the officer mentioned, if I wanted to watch television at this time, I could come in. All this with more of a sign language than actual English. I chose to take a walk around the station. There were people who sat around working on packing their stuff to be loaded, from fruits to clothes, the train would take it all, once it came, that is. A guy who sold ‘samosa’s’ asked me, “are you from India?”, it is then when I learned that Kalaw has a long Indian history. The Kalaw railway like most of the railway in India was initiated by the British and then the people who worked on the tracks were all from North India. Most of them stayed back even after Myanmar became a separate country away from British India, and married local girls. It is for this reason, I told myself, there were so many small eateries selling ‘biryani’ in the market.
An hour had passed and even though the crowds had started to build up steadily there was no sign of the train. I did not mind, the things happening around me kept me interested. Then, a group of 10 – 15 people came in, with them came the train too. The attendant at the ‘May I help you’ desk was up and without me knowing, already had my bag in his hand, again with the same ‘I am eager to help’ expression. He got in first with my bag, I simply followed. It was a first-class compartment and the only difference was the almost white seat covers on the cushioned seats. As I got in, the group of 10 – 15 got in too, most of them children. The train left and the group waved goodbye to some people which seemed like had come to drop them, on the platform. I thought they were going to attend a wedding or something, as the children in the train seemed to be dressed up for an occasion. The train stopped in 100 meters, changed track and got back to the platform. The group got down and left!!
Its been 5 years and more since that train journey, but the expression on the faces of the children, the joy of having sat in a train, even if it was for just over 5 mins, is an expression I can never forget. It’s one of the few train rides where even before the ride actually commenced, it felt like the journey was well on its way.
As the train moved from Kalaw, all of us, the train, and the people in it including me were in no hurry. The men playing cards, using orange peels as money to bet on were mostly officials from the railway. This, I came to know when after a while they all dispersed to assume their duties of checking the tickets. Random people including me were invited to join the card game and to make some orange peels money.
I tried not to get up during the trip unless the train stopped somewhere. Inside the moving train, it felt like sailing on the Drake Passage in a storm warning 8 – 10, especially when it navigated the turns going downhill. When we stopped I got down stretched a little, took some pictures, but there was so much happening inside the train and just outside it, that I kept my ‘no network’ phone inside.
Perhaps mine was the shortest in the train journeys of Myanmar compared to some of the travelers who write about theirs. But in the end, I felt like the group of children that had got in at Kalaw and would always remember it as the first time they got into a train.
