No dreams, but memories of a vivid day and a quiet wish to never leave this place. I wake eagerly to see the grey town bask in the light of morning. To hear the singing of the girl-vendors as they wander up and down the streets. To hear the coming of the monk procession, to see the women exit the guesthouses and give alms.
Wednesday 4th January, Nostalgic, misty.
The breakfast again delicious. I just remember the fresh chapatis, so good. It’s checkout day and I have a bus to catch back to Yangon. It means I have a few hours to loiter around the guesthouse and around the town before I leave. I will run rings around the markets, I will sit and drink tea and eat cake at the teahouse. I will take photos before I go.
Aunt Lily has confused me with her insistence to put me on a particular bus. I book the bus ticket with her, but suspect that she is fleecing me of a few dollars somehow, I can’t shake this suspicion. Money is not really an issue. I want a later bus, but she books me onto an earlier bus and I can’t determine why. I want to reach Yangon airport RGN for my departure time 8:30am 5th of January. It will be Burma Independence Day, but I won’t have time to see it as I hoped.
There are a few dollars left in my pocket and I want to buy a cow-bell somewhere in the market stalls, but I can’t find a stall who has one for a price. I flirt with the stall owners, but only inspire disappointment and mistrust when I cross paths with them and say I can’t buy their wares.
The teahouse has a small table outside where I order cigarettes, cake and tea. I smoke and watch what little goes on around here. Boys running after each other. A man dragging a 44 gallon drum affixed to a cart. The cakes are sweet and the tea is smooth and bitter.
When it comes time to leave, I return to Golden Lily, and there is Lily, ushering me to the bus stop with the aid of one of her servants. I hand over the remainders of my travel supplies, a bottle of metronidazole, in the hope they will find a use for them. I think of those snotty children we met on the hills.
I’m on the bus at 3pm(?). It seems too early for me as I guess that there is only 500km of road between here and Yangon. I arrived on top of the bus, but leave inside the belly of another. I know that the winding road through the hills out of here are not as magnificent from the vantage of this seat as it would be high up in the sun and dust and wind. It is sad to go.
