TIMELESS IN MRAUK U

Boat Collisions & Rat Sex

Some read novels by Graham Greene and Ernest Hemingway less for the great writing but the envy of experiencing exciting transitional times in transitional lands at ages long past. That's happening now in Myanmar. One of my favorite places seems even farther back.

The last time I visited the Rakhine ancient kingdom of Mrauk U (Monkey-Egg, no one knows why -- no monkeys around, but indeed a few eggs) I was a day behind a group of Italians who hired a 'private boat' to take them after dark on the six-hour trip from Sittwe. An unexpected storm came, capsized the boat, and five were killed. The next day it was all sun, and I was safely board a much larger ferry boat, enjoying stops at riverside towns were hawkers offered insects on a stick for a boat-time snack.

This time I tempted the night, when the temperatures drop radically and the Milky Way's smear with stars cross the sky -- something I've not seen the equal of, even in deserts. The two boat drivers used a flashlight-style device to warn oncoming boats -- or find out where shallow spots were. We never hit the shore -- not that we could make it out often -- but we did collide with a rowboat right before we arrived. The boat didn't capsize but the driver sure gave our guy ugly looks as we passed.

Soon we arrived at the Mrauk U dock. You could just make out lights ashore -- at first looking like some pagan display of fire, then realizing it was just the striped lights leaking through a thatch hut. 'Where you from?' asked a thin guy in a longyi, grabbing my offensively heavy backpack to take to his trishaw. (I let him.) Another held my hand as I waddled onto a long, thin, wobbly plank-board bridge to the shore; 'careful!'

I clicked on my flashlight as the pedal-powered trishaw squeaky pedals weaved us over bridges and past commuters not worried about light. In town a couple guys sat under a lone buzzing fluorescent bulb outside a tiny cinema (TV with VHS tapes) plucking on old acoustic guitars. Soon we pulled into a small guesthouse that had three clocks over the desk: Bangkok, Myanmar, Arakan. Arakan (the alternate name for this, Rakhaing State). Doesn't that have the same time as 'Myanmar'?, I asked. 'It does now, but we used to be 15 minutes earlier.' (I love this.)

The guesthouse rooms had plyboard walls (you hear your neighbor snoring plainly), but staff worked to make them inviting. A tiny desk in the corner, with a sculpture of Mrauk U's distinctive 64 traditional hairstyles, worn in the days before 1784, when this was a lively international capital, with samurai guides, present-day Bangladeshi Muslem archers, and occasional Portuguese pirates that were seized and executed publicly in horrible ways. On the wall, placed too high, was a tiny framed print of two eagles. The American Room.

In the morning, I was awoken by murmuring chants at 5am -- it sounded like a pagan ceremony, and it surrounded by room. Soon a loud crash came on the corrugated metal roof above me, then a hissing sigh, and another crash. Rat sex? When I went downstairs for breakfast, I skipped the subject of the frightening animal romp, but asked about the chants. With a bow, the tiny manager told me, 'Oh, that's just students next door. It's a girl school. They were memorizing their lessons. History today.' They memorize fast. 'Yes, very fast.' As he spoke, you could see -- in this town of 20,000 without much electricity, where locals get around by foot -- woman with bright dresses carrying tin water pots from Bangladesh on their heads or propped against their hips. They take them to a nearby well to collect water for the morning -- they'd be back again in the afternoon, and evening. It never ceased to be fascinating to see in four days there.

There is very little here that's changed since 1784. That's maybe something worth writing about.