Train to Lashio

Ride the rails sixteen hours north

click clack click clack click clack
nature visions bamboo forests
silver rivers
feeling fresh air

hanging out the door of a rock’n roll train
rail alliteration starts at 4 AM.

Stars open sky

A red shaped leaf
fields of lilacs purple black and gold, butterflies,
sense of stillness, renewal of the free rolling spirit,
yellow bamboo leaves at lower elevations, then green exploding higher lush gardens, fir, pine..

Fields being planted
Women and men and children hoeing,  watering, turning soil
Say yes to everything.

The hard scrabble reality similar to northern Laos, oxen, weathered faces, wood homes thatch, small train station shops in the middle of nowhere,
women loading loading baskets of greens vegetables,

men timber and iron on board
teens shuffle loads of wood from dirt into a train car door
Spaces race long lonely whistle blasts.

20 German Italian Japanese Australian tourists & senior citizens – ugly idiots on train platforms snap Burmese people no interaction real true relationship
attitudes behavior selfish selfies T Bow exit. 
Farewell my lovely.

The lone stranger rides the last four hours to Lashio.