A Downpour, a Monk, a Wanderlusting Fool, and a Dose of Generosity

( I found this entry in the yellowed pages of my scrappy little travel journal. The experience was so special, so unspoiled and peaceful, that I can't believe the whole thing was able to slip my mind, that I haven't looked back on it lately and jumped on my bike to try and find it, or something like it, again. I found the photos and decided to just copy it here from my notes. Always keep a journal.)

Sitting in a monastery on the outskirts of Kaukme, a town itself on the outskirts of everything, I recalled the day's motorcycle ride in silence. Silence seemed necessary here, as it was a holy place. Besides, I couldn't communicate with any of the others in the room. My English, Thai, spreckles of French and Spanish had no effect on my new Burmese friends: the novice monk, no more than 10 years old, an elderly woman and man rolling candles and preparing gold-foiled merit accessories { for the Buddhist merit-making ceremonies; a sort of prayer, but not quite}, and a lone monk quietly smiling on a cushion nearest a rain-battered window. Upon my arrival, out of the vicious downpour that brought me, and only after finishing my tea and crackers, I was bade by the old woman to choose a candle (based on the day of the week I was born; Thursday felt right), light it, make merit, and place it in a candelabra at the foot of the enormous Bamboo Buddha. The woman, and everyone else, seemed very pleased I was able to understand and complete the simple task and they quickly went back to the candles, the gazing, and the napping that was consuming their day. I sat on the wood-planked floor, breathed in the damp air, and wondered when the rain would stop, how long I would be here, and began to smile, even withholding a few chuckles in the staid atmosphere,  as I recalled how I'd even gotten here.

 I'd been on my way to Hsipow from Pyin oo Lin and according to some imperfect calculations, nearly there. The road ran along brown and dried fields, cracked and burnt by the sun. Over hills and barely mountain passes the temperature didn't change much, remaining hot and stagnant, with pulses of
old wind working its way through the skeletons of long dead bushes and roadside
bramble. Small villages of latticed bamboo huts dotted dirt roads that were barely a meter wide and worked over hard by roaring tractor trucks, engines running like jackhammers, farmboys perched on their roofs grinning betel-stained teeth.

The roughest part was in a tight valley between two mountains so close they may as well have been holding hands. The steepness of the road wouldn't have been a problem, not the horseshoe curves lined with the type of loose gravel known to make a motorcycle slip and tumble either, but the big rigs and their no doubt amphetamine addled masters made this section of the journey nerve-wracking. I came within a granny's chin hair of bumpers on a number of those curves while simultaneously being an outstretched rooster's claw from the edge of a road with no safety railings.

Eventually I was back out on the desolate highway, the open road, and was again breezing through towns. The beauty of having your own bike is being able to see a sign, a dirt trail, an interesting landmark or village off in the distance, and take it. I've sat on too many buses in my life wandering, "what if?" What if I just got off here? There's a small town in the distance and the same bus probably rolls along tomorrow, there's probably a room somewhere I could stay, what if I did it? And the town passes and I settle back into my seat and wonder some more. 

The sky was growing pretty dark with a nasty storm looming behind me. I'd been outrunning it most of the day and then I had one of my "what if" moments. On the roadside a little beaten sign read " Giant Bamboo Buddha" and pointed to a narrow trail leading over a wooden bridge and into a village big enough to have a name, but too small for anyone other than its residents to know it. I slowed and, looking over my shoulder at sure rainfall, decided to pass it. I wasn't a kilometer away when I turned back determined not to miss the opportunity to see this funky Buddha and rural village. I rolled into town and the downpour began. I couldn't figure out where this Buddha was supposed to be and the townspeople just kept pointing at the sky, pointing at me, laughing, regaining composure, and then pointing to the temple where I could take shelter.

I pulled into the empty complex and sat in the outside corridors at first, but as the rain started whipping in, sheets of it soaking me, I walked up to a second story landing where I met a monk who silently led me inside. 

And that was where I found myself, having lit my candle, paid my respects to the bamboo Buddha I'd been looking for, and calmly sitting in the naked emptiness of a simple monastery, staring out a window into the storm that drove me here, my mind sputtering a complete blank. I looked to the monk and he smiled, and I smiled, and the novice monk smiled nervously, and the old woman smiled, and the old man chuckled. And I took a sip of my tea. And we looked out into the storm and thought of nothing at all.