Gokteik Viaduct, Shan State, Myanmar

Jasmin puking. Me squirting. Thus begins three weeks of food poisoning. Did I mention we had a 9-hour train trip?

6am, Pyin Oo Lwin train station…

I chivalrously decided to give Jasmin the window seat, lest she unleash yesterday’s chocolate milkshake upon her fellow passengers… of which there were many, seeing as we chanced upon a cross-country Hindu pilgrimage. Cue awkward conversation with our fellow passengers:
Excuse me my friend… where are you from?
Australia
And what is your national curry?
Ahhh, kangaroo
etc etc
Things were going well until we heard a commotion rolling through the carriage like a wave of doom. Jasmin had just enough time to prise one eye open before a branch scraped down the side of the carriage and smashed her in the face through the open window. Ouch. Welcome to Shan State. At least painkillers are cheap…

The highlight of the trip was a crossing of the Gokteik Viaduct, once the tallest railway span in the world. Not sure if it was yesterday’s milkshake but I wanted to shit my pants.

The final epic fail of the train trip was buying some sweetened mango off a typhoid tuckshop. Sounds like heaven huh? Wrong. It was rock solid, green, and the sugar they gave us to put on it was actually salt. Fail. Never trust a kid with food on their head.