Bagan Part One - Kissing Spiritual Ass
Bagan, Myanmar
Since I was awake for the bulk of the train trip from Mandalay to Bagan - I don’t really count three second blink naps - I spent a great deal of my time pondering the only other Pinkie on the train. The guy was in full-on eccentric Elvis-mode, wearing jeans and long shirt, despite the fabulous heat, with a pompadour hairdo and thick sideburns, a handkerchief stuffed into his collar for what reason I couldn’t fathom, expensive watch, state trooper sunglasses and carrying nothing but a small duffel bag. He couldn’t have looked any more out of place if he’d had a date with him in full S & M regalia. The worst part was the bastard slept like a baby along with the snoozing Myanmars while I was reeling with so much pain in my back, neck and ass that at one point I actually considered standing for the remainder trip.
Ananda Paya I dined at a nearby Chinese “restaurant” being run out of the front porch of a private home. I had an intense relapse of my germophobia as I sat waiting for my food, watching two guys at the next table eating their meals. Like much of Asia, people in Myanmar often eat with their hands, even sloppy, low-consistency food such as rice and curry like these guys were digging into now. There have been precious few moment in my life where I felt that my hands were clean enough to eat something as absorbent as rice and curry without being terrified with what the food was pulling off my fingers and carrying into my gullet. These feelings were incalculably magnified in Myanmar where it’s a good bet that you’re eating a micro-universe of nasty gems and organisms picked up from random contact with the street, money, vehicles, toilets, dogs, etc. Ew, I’m getting the willies just writing about it. Needless to say my appetite at the time was flagging like I’d just been served a plate of raw sewage. After dinner I scrubbed myself down and was in bed by 8:00 p.m.
