A very long, and painful day.
6:00am, knocking on the door, knocking on the door, knocking on the door, both me and Jon open the door surprised to find Daniele standing there and asking us if we wanted to attend his “meeting with, Aung San Suu Kyi ”, which we foolishly agreed to. One would presume that if someone tells you “I have a meeting with such and such”, one would expect that meeting would be prearranged and booked. Not so! We arrived outside Aung San Suu Kyi house for Daniele to say “Stay in the taxi, I’ll take care of this”. He went and spoke to some guards, then returned to say “she comes out when she comes out, she might stop and talk to us and let us take a photo, but we might have to wait 5 hours or so”.
I was tired irritable and felt a fool for going along with him in the first place, I thought sod this I am going back to the guest house and I will leave him to wait on his own, so I hailed a cab however he decided to jump in the cab with us and spent the remainder of the journey telling me and Jon of his sexual prowess now he does not drink smoke take caffeine or do drugs, I was crying on the inside having to listen to it all.
We managed to shake off Daniele and the plan was to meet Danny for lunch before his hospital operation. We arranged to meet Danny outside the Guesthouse and as I walked to look for Danny’s car I heard a big CRACK!!! Then I felt a piercing pain in my right foot… Looking down I could see a huge metal pin had gone trough my trainer sole and I could feel it embedded in my foot. I tried hobbling back to the guesthouse just as Danny and Jon pulled up in the car. Danny was a star as always, put me in the back of his car and drove me to hospital as I lay stretched out in the back seat being passed cigarettes as Danny cut his way through Yangoon traffic. Ironically, both Danny and I where headed to the hospital because of our right feet.
On arrival at the hospital I met Danny’s Mum for the first time and was then put in a wheel chair (also for the first time and much to my amusement). I was whisked off to A&E and was immediately seen by one doctor and six nurses who looked quizzically at my foot. I asked could they just get a pair of pillars and pull it out as I couldn’t take my trainer off, but they eventually prized my trainer off and removed the offending metal pin. Danny’s Mum refused to let Jon or me pay for the treatment so we will have to pick both her and Danny up a gift. Thanks to Danny and his Mum for all your help. I couldn’t have had better care.
After all that we had just enough time to jump in a cab and rush to the guesthouse to pick up our bags and rush to the bus station for the bus to Bagan. At the guesthouse the owner comes out and explains to the cab driver that we are in a rush. So we speed of at once ahead of schedule only to be confronted by heavy traffic. We where told that the bus cannot not wait and the clock is ticking and with 15 minutes to spare. We approach what appears to be a bus station, but taxi driver speeds past. We carry on going and with 5 minutes to spare we mange to get the taxi driver to call the bus company, we take from the phone call it leaves dead on four, at four we are stuck in traffic, 10 minutes past four we pull up and some loud Burmese is shouted back and fourth and we turn round and pull up by some coaches, and we all get out of the taxi and then more Burmese is loudly shouted and then we all jump in the taxi and the driver races around the outskirts of Yangon for 40 minutes at great speed in a car that wouldn’t be fit for the scrap heap.
We have clearly missed the bus but the taxi driver relentlessly drives at high speed and Jon turns round and “goes I have no idea what is going on” I had none either.
Tired and in pain, we turn up in a remote bus depot with friendly curious people wanting to talk to us and are told to board an obviously different bus to the one we had booked, as it was being brought back to life coughing out thick plumes of black smoke.
The bus journey was much like the first, if you drift to sleep you are awoken every 2 hours to get off the bus and buy another dinner. Fifteen hours later we arrive at a town outside Bagan at 3 am and everything is dead still, apart from some hustling “taxi drivers”, I have lost the piece of paper Julie gave me with the Guest house we have booked so we agree to get a taxi and find a local room for the rest of the night, only to find the taxi’s are horse drawn carts. After a long painful (mentally & physically) day I just wanted to crash out, so we boarded the horse drawn cart like Romany Gypsies and found a room for the night.
