I haven't slept for about 30 hours so this is likely to be a little loopy. Still, here is what has happened -- I'm safe and sound in Kalemyo [next town to Tahan] or at least I'm safe. We arrived about 3 hours ago at 7:00 AM local time. Here is a rundown of the trip.
We caught the Air Bagan flight from Yangon International to Heho airport and then on to Mandalay. At the airport in Mandalay we were greeted (met) by a Mizo friend of Moses Dawnga's named Tlunga. He was basically the "ride broker." I've got a taxi until Friday afternoon on a "one price buys the week" basis. He essentially figured his rate to Kalemyo and back, the airport and back, and then added in daily expenses. It works. But it sure is dusty! So then Tlunga hooked us up with Hminga who is the actual driver -- he uses his mother's car (Myanma Jeep) as a taxi and he is originally from Tahan, so this worked out nicely for him as well. He has a place to stay.
So, we left Mandalay and went through Sagaing (the city) and then on to Monywa. Hannah Allie will remember that portion of the trip (backwards). After leaving Monywa, however (it took us four hours to get from Mandalay to the north side of Monywa), the road got really bad -- it was a cow path in places. We stopped in two villages along the way to rest. The local tea shoppes have televisions where the villagers gather to watch a Korean drama (at the first stop) and a Korean war movie (i.e. a war movie made in Korea) at the second stop.
At several places the bridges were out and we had to travel around the bridges. Well, at one of them a car had an accident so even the bypass was temporarily unavailable. Our driver took the opportunity to change a tire he was suspicious of, then had the tire repaired at the next village (the Korean war movie village). There were several truck loads of Buddha statues stopped along with us. It was the full-moon of something or other so the Buddhas were out riding around. I wanted to ask why the Buddhas needed somebody else to carry them, but nobody was willing to translate that for me.
A mile south of Kalemyo we ran out of gas. It was right early in the morning and nothing was open, so the driver was trying to "make it." But he didn't... that's the long story short. He walked back about two furlongs and woke up a station manager and got some gas (petrol as they say here) and the guy actually carried it back for him. Other stuff going on here today, but wanted to get this out as soon as possible after arriving. Will update on the orphanage etc. after I've been there.
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