A few more hours under the guidance of Moe Hitler, the irrepressible tour proprietor we had hired in Yangon, and he would have succeeded in mind-controlling us to join a cult. Ron, in particular, bore the brunt of the emotional torture under what was, in fairness to Moe, an unintentional attempt at a dictatorial ruling over our group. When Moe ordered you to "Take a picture of that temple," you asked him, "How many shots? Panorama or portrait?"
The Nomadic Pranksters Goes to Bagan
During our whole day of going around Yangon, cute baby Luna wasn't Gaye Emami's daughter. She was, during that day, the own flesh and blood of Moe Hitler. But hey, you take the crazy with the good, and we could not deny that Moe was such a character himself—an Asian version of the late Dennis Farina. We were all dog-tired upon arriving in Yangon from the long travel and lack of sleep; somehow, he made our Yangon trip a more memorable one than expected.
Escaping the Dictatorship
After the Beatles performed in Manila in the 1960s and opted to rest the next day instead of gracing an event at Malacañang Palace, the media went wild with headlines of "Beatles Snubbed Imelda." What happened next was unthinkable. A crowd gathered at the then-Manila International Airport and pelted the super-band with debris. Amidst the chaos, the foursome was able to climb aboard a British Airways plane. As Sir Paul McCartney narrated in a later documentary, "We were all kissing the seats of the plane and saying, 'Woohoo, we're in London now.'"
Without the violence and the angry mob, that was what I felt at that time. Bagan, Myanmar, was just a few hours away, separated by a long highway flanked by an almost deserted terrain with pockets of small towns in between. Most of all, we were away from the hilarious dictatorship of Moe Hitler. It was one of the best feelings I had felt while in the middle of a trip.
The Long Road to Bagan
In what would turn out to be an eight-hour land trip, we left Yangon at around four o'clock in the afternoon. It was a very unique sight if you were accustomed to passing by long stretches of green rice fields and mountainsides here in the Philippines.
The road to Bagan was flanked by rolling twigs and dead golden soil on both sides. For miles and miles, you would not see a living thing. After an hour of almost similar scenery, we passed by a small town, and after another hour, we found a gasoline station in the middle of nowhere. We made a short pit stop there while the sun was about to set.
That was the last thing I remembered as nighttime fell; I was lingering between being half-awake and in a deep slumber. The conversations inside the van died out. I would hear Luna cry out for a few seconds and then go silent again. The dinner stop in a busy town was a blur to me. I did not even remember what we had.
Arriving at Bagan Central Hotel
Finally, we reached New Bagan at around midnight, and a few minutes later, we pulled up in front of the Bagan Central Hotel, which Moe Hitler had chosen for us to stay in without regard for our budget constraints. But hey, it turned out to be a cozy place where we had our much-needed rest.
It was after I woke up that I appreciated the place. The rooms were designed with Burmese architecture and were surrounded by tall trees. There was a mini-bridge over a small man-made pond near our room. Birds were flying in all directions, and the rays of the sun shining through the leaves of the trees created a forest-like setting. The staff were very friendly, and the open-space dining area added more charm to the place.
The Reality of a Timeless Place
"I'm in Bagan now." I hid my own excitement with my poker face and tried to act normal. Inside, I was jumping with joy, probably more hideous and madder than what the Beatles felt like when they finally escaped the angry mob in Manila. I had always expected Myanmar to be a country where you could easily get locked up and have the keys inserted inside your ass. Reality always beats perception—all the time.
At that time, reality was a lovely place where children adorned with thanaka faces came up to you in a sweet manner that made it impossible to say no, so you ended up buying all the postcards you could use in a lifetime. A few meters from our hotel, you could already start seeing some temple ruins. Soon, the feeling of modernity, even with pockets filled with gadgets, went away. The sensation of breathing the air of a timeless place slowly seeped in through your senses.
I am in Bagan now. I told myself again. Moe Hitler—whom we were still fond of inserting into our jokes—was just a part of the overall representation of how wrongfully I had perceived the country of Myanmar. Under many years of rule under a military junta, the country was now ready to embrace the citizens of the world.
Moe Hitler, in his own way, just wanted to give us a great time. He did, and together with the other nameless strangers we met—even the young boy with the spiky hair who wouldn't go away until we bought postcards from him—they were all just like us, living under circumstances not far off from ours. It was, after all, "Same same but different." However, experiencing and discovering the difference is what makes traveling addicting.
