Collecting Moments

- Дайте мне, пожалуйста, билет на самый медленный поезд. - Тот, который идет два с половиной часа с остановками в каждой деревне? - Да, этот. Он же всегда опаздывает, правда? - Обычно да. - Отлично. Мы ехали на фуре по дороге, которой нет. Как сказал нам житель бирманского города N: “Вы видите ее на карте, но, на самом деле, ее не существует”. “Как же так? - удивились мы, - ведь вот она, желтая почти прямая линия между N и T.” “На ней нет автобусов и такси, там ездят только грузовики и армейские машины. Иностранцам на этой дороге находиться запрещено”. “Прекрасно, - хором ответили мы, - тогда нам нужен грузовик”. В России для меня долгое время дорог не существовало вообще. Были самолеты и поезда, а дорог не было. Две тысячи километров на машине из Москвы в Екатеринбург подарили мне село Хорошенькое и Кривое озеро (на противоположной стороне шоссе), кафе “Едун” и “Едок” на одной деревенской улице, село Сухобезводное в проливной дождь, поля подсолнухов в Татарстане и самарские яблок...

I draw with a charcoal, play my jaw harp, write poems, read and walk along the fields with cows and sheep. TWO YEARS AGO when I left my computer programming job I couldn’t even dream of such luxury. During this time I wandered around abandoned villages in Cyprus, said hello to wild donkeys in Karpas peninsula, got to a Phoenician island with no phoenicians, tasted the best olive oil in Sicily, enjoyed Frida Kahlo art in Rome, explored a huge abandoned factory in Greece, showed my face on security cameras of all the synagogues in Istanbul, tasted an Armenian lavash just from the oven, got robbed and got my money back in Georgia, saw all Armenian monasteries from the Parajanov’s movie, got into every derelict cottage in Ireland, got my unemployment benefits in Israel, survived Ramadan in Kurdistan, sneaked into an abandoned amusement park in Berlin, visited Basque Country (neither Spain, nor France), learned basic Spanish, got lost in the Love Valley in Cappadocia, hitchhiked around Cauc...

Just before first light we arrived to Yangon after a 10-hour night bus ride. The city was just waking up. The first hour we spent in a poorly-lit local bus with sleepy passengers going to work to the center. It was still dark when we arrived to Sule Paya. The benches in a small park didn't seem welcoming, we sat for a cup of tea in a nearby Chinese cafe which was empty and quite dirty. The prospect of spending the whole day in this big noisy city wandering around with backpacks was definitely not inspiring. “The name of your hotel, please. I'd like to invite you for dinner at 5pm”, I got a text from the lady, a senior government worker, who ten days ago picked us up on the highway from Yangon to Naypyitaw. “We don't have a hotel”, I replied “We need to be at the airport at 7:30pm. We'll just walk around”. “Oh, then I'll pick you up in an hour. You can rest in my home and then use our car to go to the airport”. Since I almost didn't sleep last night, I thought I...

Taunggyi is a grey, dusty, dirty town but the market... The market is full of colours!

When they don't carry stones or do some other extremely hard work, children in Myanmar are happy, playful and eternally grateful.

A local of Nawnghkio: “This road is dangerous, not peaceful. Some towns are closed to foreigners.” We still insisted on hitchhiking out of town southwards. “So you see this road on your map? It's rare used. Only by the army and private trucks. No taxis, no buses.” - said another senior resident of Nawnghkio when he saw us trying to hitch. “We want a truck then.” “Wait a minute, I'll try to get you a truck”. Ten minutes after we were driving in a motorbike taxi (paid by that man) to the offices of an Indian transportation company owned by his friend. The owners and workers were gathered there waiting for the next lorry. We decided to share the huge watermelon gifted to us by our previous hitch driver. Soon a girl appeared speaking good English and explained to us that we could reach a village half way to Taunggyi (our destination) with a truck and then continue the next day. We were introduced to the truck driver and his wife and told they would offer us somewhere to sleep...

In the banks of Myanmar you can see happy people walking out with bags literally full of cash. Imagine big supermarket plastic bags full of kyats! I've never seen anything like that in my life. Even in the Soviet Union where I grew up nobody could imagine having so much money on their hands. The smell of money stays in the air in the Burmese banks. Workers with nose masks sit the whole day in front of the tables with piles of banknotes and count them diligently. You can hear the sound of leafing through those small dirty papers.

Hsipaw was a great example of the closeness between beauty and ugliness, life and death. On our way to the beautiful Namtok waterfall we first had to pass through a burning noxious field of rubbish. The road to the refreshing hot springs started at an expanse of cemeteries representing the different faiths living in town. Children were playing and bathing in the river just next to the smoking crematorium...

Today we took a 4am train from Mandalay all the way up into the mountainous Shan State which borders with China and Thailand. We chose ordinary class ($1.50 a ticket) to Hsipaw, the ride was twelve hours, and was very bouncy on the wooden benches and breezy through the open windows. Only local people usually travel by this class, it was packed with sacks of vegetables and fruits, baskets and bags. Our morning sleep was constantly interrupted by a cock which was apparently hiding from a conductor somewhere under the bench nearby. The upper class looks like this: All the Myanmar railways were built by the British in the XIXth century. The carriages are old and from China, they are large for the narrow gauge, causing the bounciness. A key landmark on the journey is the Gokteik Viduct built at an early point of the XXth century. Its silver legs extend deep into the gorge as it bridges the two sides of a dramatic canyon. We've witnessed a lot of beautiful moments during the trip: people...