It appears like everything is negotiable here. Even the bus-fares: I just paid 6.000 kyat (880 kyat = 1 USD) for a ticket to Pathein. They started with 8.000 and eventually agreed to sell the ticket for 6.000 plus a pack of cigarettes. To me this felt quite o.k. But boy - did they fuck me over! Later I met tourists who paid 3.000 kyat and even later I found out that Europeans who live here pay 1.500 - and that is still not what the locals pay. Ah well. That’s life. After having paid this outrageous price I went on a train trip around the city. But getting onto that train was far from easy.

In Yangon they have something called the “Circular Train”, a train that in 3,5 hours goes once around the city - at the breathtaking speed of maybe 20 km/hour. But getting on that train proved to be more difficult then I thought. I showed my ticket to a guy from the station, he pointed at a track and said: “Next train here. You go.” So I went on the next train, sitting between commuters who were carrying tons of vegetables and rice, and watched children, vendors, monks conductors and many more people go bye. They nodded and smiled a lot and I nodded and smiled back. In the very beginning I asked someone whether this really was the circular train. “Yes, yes” they reassured me. So I stayed where I was and nodded and smiled a bit more. Slowly the train filled. It was now about 30 minutes past the time when my train should have left. But I didn’t worry. Eventually it became somehow crowded and a bespeckled Burmese ask me: “ Where are you going. I made a circular motion and said ‘Circular Line”“ ”No is Circle Line” he exclaimed and pointed at another train on another platform. “This Circular Line”. So I jumped off the train, approached the nearest person wearing a uniform, asked him whether that was the circular train (again followed by hand motions), showed him my ticket and was ushered on the train. “Welcome to Asia”, I thought.

No five minutes after I had taken a seat a policeman came, pointed at me and said “Follow”. He then seated me in train car where a something like a clothesline separated one part of the car from the rest. During the trip I found out that this is apparently the space where the men from the railway-police have their own space. So only other policemen, and soldiers can sit here. And of course, mothers, sisters and wives of policemen and soldiers. And: monks. When no seats were left in the rest of the car, the policemen always offered the monks a place to sit. At the beginning of the trip I wasn’t too sure whether it was a friendly gesture that I was seated next to them. I’m always a bit leery of policemen, soldiers, etc. But during the course of the trip I came to the conclusion that yes, it was actually meant to make me more comfortable in the otherwise very crowded train.

The trip itself was moderately interesting: There isn’t really that much to see, But you do get an impression of everyday people and everyday life in Yangon.