Today the feeling of being Lost in Translation primed. I felt just like Bill Murray and I am not even in Japan yet!
This morning I asked the hotel receptionist to arrange a taxi to bring me to a change office and then on to the Shwedagon Pagoda. Got in the taxi and within 10 minutes the driver pulled up in front of the Pagoda …… with me still not having one kyat (local currency). I started to explain that I needed to change money first, only to stop mid-sentence at the view of his blank expression. “No spea Inglish”. A phrase I would hear many times today.
After several unfruitful attempts I managed to find someone who did speak a bit of English. A friendly lady who sells tickets to access the Pagoda. She seemed to tell me I could change money ‘upstairs’ waving her hand to the right. Upstairs turned out to be a 104 steps long staircase up to the pagoda. By the time I got up there, found the change office and trotted all 104 steps back down, the taxi driver had already given up on me and left. Arrggll. I waited a few minutes to catch my breath and prepare for the climb back up when the same lady walked over to me, shaking her head mumbling “no, no, no”, and turned me slightly more to the right. Aaaaah, an elevator.
The visit made me forget all about the linguistic barrier though. No language is needed when visiting such a holy place. All you can do is admire peacefully, respectfully and quietly. I was expecting huge crowds and long waiting lines but there was nothing of that. There were not even that many tourists which made me somewhat of an attraction too, all dressed up in an improvised long skirt that the ticket lady had lent me.
It took me up to noon to finish my tour around the grounds (6 Ha, barefoot, thank you very much) and the heat had become almost unbearable (close to 40 °C). Time to head out and go enjoy a nice lunch. I did end up having one, but it took an awful lot of mime. On the bright side, by the time I needed a pharmacy for a urinary infection, I had developed a true talent for creative hand gestures. Only a few minutes and I walked out happily with a box of antibiotics.
As if taking a taxi is not already unsettling enough, I noticed a curious thing today: most drivers sit on the right…… and drive on the right! It appears that back in 1970 the government decided that the country should no longer drive on the left but on the right. As a result, in today’s traffic you will find both left and right seated drivers – enough to drive you crazy.
p.s. the unpaid taxi driver did get his money at the end of the day