Clip-clopping through the three-in-the-morning pitch dark around town, we came to the Wonderful Guesthouse. It was secured all across its front with heavy iron screens as though they were expecting the Mongol hordes to descend on them in the night. I had a horrible feeling it was closed for good. It looked abandoned. And there was only one other place to stay in this town. But the driver knew better. He located a bell and rang it insistently and repeatedly until a light came on. I stood there looking as pathetic as I could. Bedraggled and frowsy as I was, this wasn’t hard. They were full, the woman said. I pleaded for a bed, looking even more forlorn. Then the kind woman said, ‘You like the manager’s room? Would I ever!
As she let me in she said, ‘I cannot charge you for this room I just give you’. I insisted and forced half the usual rate of ten dollars on her. The room was tiny and really just a store room with a bed crammed in among shelves loaded with towels, sheets, blankets and cleaning supplies. But it had a toilet, oriental, but stationary. Something that has enormous appeal after train loos in Burma. There was also a hose fixture on the wall to act as a shower.
Myanmar On The Map Photo Gallery
Gratefully, I fell on the bed. There were no sheets but a blanket was good enough. After a couple of hours I surfaced and the owner fed me egg and bread, coffee and banana. Then a thought occurred to me. ‘Does the manager usually sleep in that room you gave me? ‘No, my son does’. This was the good-looking young man who helped to run the place, who was right then smiling at me. I was amazed he could still smile at me after I had turfed him out of his bed at three am Wonderful indeed, was this place.
When I left I gave the rightful owner of the bed I had used the pillow I had bought for the night on the bus. It was filled with silicon and was not the usual cheap affair of the market. I had bought it in upmarket Ocean Supermarket and it had cost a whole four dollars.
Then I asked Madame if she knew about the possibility of getting a sleeper on the night train. She did. Madame knew much more than the station staff. She insisted on walking me ‘five minutes twenty was more like it to the station. Now the day-time station master was in charge and he knew all about sleepers. He and his two assistants set about phoning Mandalay. It took a lot of effort by these three smiling young men, but in the end they did produce a ticket for a sleeper on the six pm train to Yangon. It was a relief to know I would have a bed of my own that night.
I slept some more and surfaced to go down the street to a restaurant for lunch. It was a beer hall full of men who regarded me with extreme interest. I think I had missed the place Madame had directed me to.
