The Boat to Mandalay — Everything Was Beautiful

“Hey, forget the taxi, 7000 is too much. I’ll walk.”

“Too far!” the man behind the counter at the Winner House guest house says, shaking his head. I’m sick of this town. The tourism inflation. The hustlers following me on the streets as I shout back at them “YOU’RE WASTING YOUR TIME!” I am going to Mandalay.

Bagan was beautiful, in and of itself. But the tourism industry has killed what I’m sure was once a sacred and truly lovely town. It is nothing like Yangon. With over 4000 temples, of course this place attracts visitors. And the townspeople have adjusted. And the rates have adjusted. In Yangon, a taxi anywhere was 1,500 kyats, unless you were going about 30 to 40 minutes away. But within the city, 1,500 was the going rate. That’s about a dollar fifty by US standards. So here in Bagan, a three mile ride to the ferry station was going to cost me seven US dollars? Not in my world.

After spending an evening walking the streets of Bagan, I’d had enough. I didn’t expect this in Myanmar, but I had heard about it in Vietnam, Thailand, etc. Places where tourists have ruined everything. There were white people in horse-drawn carriages, licking ice cream cones as they strolled through the different laquer and woodworking shops. It was a zoo. It was absurd. And merchants come up to you, as a white person, naming prices, shoving things in your face. We created this, us tourists. Feeling bad for the people, we throw them what is to us, pennies, but to them it’s a whole-day’s wages. And then they realize that we aren’t people, we’re walking charities. They see dollar signs. They can make outrageous amounts of money from us, so they’ve figured out. And we taught them. So it goes.

A man approached me with bananas and corn. I was sitting on a step outside and abandoned store, reading. He sat next to me, and started shoving the food in my face.

“500!!” he shouted in my face.

“Go away. No.” I said to him, looking him straight in the eyes and shaking my head.

He persisted, getting even closer. Being polite didn’t work, so now I tried plan B: ignoring. I kept my head in my book, eyes down, and ignored him. Minutes passed, and he continued harrassing. He shoved the tray of fruit between my face my my book, still shouting. In the world of Behavior Analysis, we call this an extinction burst: they behavior intensifies, worsens, before it gets better. As a behaviorist, I should have held me ground, continued ignoring, because in the absense of reinforcement, the behavior will eventually stop. It’s like a soda machine. If you put money in, and don’t get a soda in return, you aren’t going to indefinately put money into it. No, after enough times that you don’t recieve reinforcement and the soda machine eats your money, your money-feeding behavior will stop. That’s extinction, and it was in the works right here. But I had a better idea. In the framework of the BACB world, I would label this an overcorrection procedure.

I grabbed a banana and put my book on the step below me. I crouched just like he was, and faced him.

“Banana!!! 500! 500!!” I shouted at him, waving my hands like a crazy person and getting right in his face. “500! YOU BUY!” I screamed. People on the streets stopped what they were doing and started to stare at us.

In an instant, the man stepped back. He closed his mouth, he stared for a moment, then put his banana back on the tray and walked away. I continued shouting after him, “BANANA!!!! 500!!!!” People don’t like to see themselves in a mirror when they’re acting insane. So this man couldn’t sit around and watch me imitate his ridiculously rude heckling.

How do you like it? People were still staring at me, long after the man was gone. Humiliation is only humiliating if you let it be. I was proud of myself. Let them stare. It’s less distracting than a banana-waving lunatic in my face. I peeled my banana, and took a bite. The taste of satisfaction is sweet.

So many of these tourists, they’re being followed by people, being yelled at, bargained at. They politely shake their heads, and say no, continuing to walk their way. I say fuck that. I didn’t come to your country to be told when I’m going to buy something, and to be chased down the street with your bargains and promises. Pavlo taught me that these people are people just like you and me, and their behavior is rude and inappropriate even if they are poor and just trying to make some money. So don’t stand for it. I won’t be polite and keep walking. They wouldn’t like to be chased down a street by someone trying to make a deal. So from now on, I’m not going to be one of those sweet tourists who just smiles and says no, while being followed another half-mile down the road. I’m going to say hell no, and if it means acting like a crazy person to give them a sense of what it’s like, so be it.

I woke up at 3:45 to Cindy Lauper’s Girls Just Wanna Have Fun on my iPod alarm. That song has, since 2004 been an alarm clock song for me. Gets me up every time. I threw my pack over my shoulders and got my shoes on. I went out in the darkness of the early morning, and started walking. It was reasonably temperate out, but the sweat, nonetheless, started covering my body as usual. I walked and walked and walked. I wonder how much time has passed. Is there any way I’m going to miss is? I looked at my iPod. 4:45. Shit. I pulled out my map. I was only 2/3 of the way there, and I needed to catch the 5 am boat. Desperate times call for desparate measures. I saw a man just ahead with a bicycle and one of those little seats attached on the side. There was no one else on the road. No taxis, no horse drawn carriges, no motorcycles. This was it.

I pulled out my map.

“Boat? Fast? How much?”

“1000,” he said. Fine. Perfect. If this man is willing to haul my ass and all my stuff another mile up the road, yeah. I will totally give him 1,000.

We started going. He was like the little engine that could. I looked at my iPod: 4:52. Come on man, you can do it. This guy was strong, that was for sure. 4:58. I could see the river in the darkness, just ahead. I got out 1500, scooted it into his hands, and ran down to the boat.

I just made it.

I paid for my ticket and went upstairs, finding a little corner that looked cozy. There was a couple already set up on the ground near there, and they welcomed me to join them. They’re from Holland. They saw me walking from their cab window. They figured I was coming here. They didn’t think I’d make it. Well, I did.

The boat the Mandalay is quite the journey. Of course, I took the “slow boat,” which takes two days. It isn’t half bad, except for the toilets downstairs are covered in feces and smell horrid, and every so often the captain blows an airhorn that makes my brain rattle against my skull. And he holds the horn for, I counted, sometimes 10 seconds. Torture isn’t the best word, but it’s the first that comes to mind.

I set up my hammock on between two rails, as my dutch neighbors commented on how my backpack is full of amazing things, yet so small. I had provided us with a tarp for shade from the sun, which was still wet with rainwater from the night Ray and I escaped gunshots in Klamath. Every “backpacker” I’ve seen is carrying their past, present and their future on their backs, for some reason I couldn’t possibly claim to understand. I already had a “shakedown” in the last town, where I ditched my yoga pants, some lotions and shampoos, and of course, socks and underwear. Less is more. Don’t panic.

This boat moves slowly. It’s just like the one I rode in the Amazon for four days, only on this one, there aren’t any hammocks, and it hasn’t been chartered by a group of Americans. And the boat makes the most interesting stops. There was quite a spectacle at one of the last stops. A group of men were trying to get their cows onto the boat. The things wouldn’t walk across the two wooden boards, and when they finally got the guy on the planks, he lost his footing, and well, watch the video:

I couldn’t stop laughing, and then I realized it wasn’t funny, because no one else was laughing… Eeehh.

The by the second cow-boarding attempt, I really couldn’t keep the laughter in…

Anyways, the boat stopped last night so we could sleep. I guess since the captain realizes that his horn-blowing compulsion is not something he can control while moving. So he has to stop the boat, and turn it off in order for anyone to get some sleep. In the Amazon, our boat drove all through the night. But our captain didn’t have a horn to worry with. I was dreading trying to sleep with that stupid horn, which makes me jump out of my skin every time he pulls it. It’s really the worst. I have a terrible headache, and I can’t decide if it’s from the constant, prolonged horn-blows or the certain dehydration my body is coping with. See below for details.

I took my hammock down this morning, and am sitting on the floor here, unable to read any more of my Lonely Planet guide, and having just finished Choke, which is a pretty sick and twisted novel written by the guy that wrote Fight Club. Good, though.

I have 256 more books to go through on my kindle, so I guess when my battery dies here, I will start another one.

I haven’t drank any water in 24-hours because I can’t stand to use the toilets downstairs. It’s awful. And now it’s even worse, because to get to the toilets, I have to mauver between the cows who have made a toilet out of the floor beneath them, and pigs who have made it even worse. My last attempt to go to the toilet, I ended up slipping on the cow pies and slamming into the side of one of them, which startled it, making it stomp around in its poo, violently flinging bits up all over me. So I refuse to put any food or water into my body until I’m off this boat and can use a squat-over-a-hole-toilet that isn’t covered in dung. Whenever I ask when the boat will get to Mandalay, I get the same answer:

“Don’t know. River is low.”

Ok, well. I guess I can hold my bowels a bit longer.

**Travel tip of the day: Don’t buy food when you’re hungry. Always have a supply of snacks in your pack, so that when it’s time to buy a meal, you aren’t tricked into buying yummies that cost a lot but don’t fill you up. I bought 2500kyat worth of stuff yesterday morning, only to find out later that I could get a fresh cooked, and delicious, bowl of rice and veggies with a side of vegetable soup for 1000kyat. Sometimes patience and asking around for the best bang for your buck pays off. Stuff a cracker in your mouth, and assess the options, before buying a cookie for the same price as a hot meal.**