Night 2: Fire on the Bus!

We spent most of our nights in Myanmar in comfortable hotel beds, enjoying restful sleep. They are not worthy of a separate blog post. However, Night 2 was different:

In order to make the most efficient use of our week in Myanmar, we exchanged the hotel bed for a spot on a night bus to Nyaung Shwe on the second night. The word 'night bus' typically makes me uneasy, as it is usually difficult for me to relax, let alone sleep, in a small bus due to my height (6'4"). However, when I saw our night bus at the bus station, my opinion changed slightly. In front of us stood a relatively new, large coach that was comparable in comfort and space to coaches in Switzerland. With a bag full of provisions, we settled into the comfortable seats. Content with the unexpected luxury, I closed my eyes and tried to get some sleep.

Screams, a pungent smell, and the rumbling coach woke me up from my drowsy sleep at 2 a.m. Tiredly, I opened my eyes and looked down the aisle of the coach, seeing a wave of passengers rushing towards the exit. I turned my head a little further back and saw the reason for the panic. The air conditioning unit on the ceiling of the coach was sparking and black smoke filled the back area of the coach. Sufficient reason to evacuate the coach. Thankfully, without any commotion.

Instead of arriving in Nyaung Shwe, we were now in the middle of nowhere next to a smoking coach in the middle of the night. As a positive person, I thought, 'At least we're safe' and 'At least we have something exciting to tell'. However, when it started to rain, I revised my attitude a little bit.

After about 30 minutes in the rain, the driver invited us back onto the bus. He seemed to be quite the practical person. Instead of taking the coach to a garage for inspection and repair, he simply disconnected the air conditioning unit from the power supply. This was enough to stop the sparking and smoking, but it also caused the temperature in the bus to steadily rise to 27 degrees Celsius (80.6 degrees Fahrenheit). However, the resourceful driver had a solution for that as well: he drove the rest of the way with the doors open.

Of course, there was no more sleep for the remainder of the journey. So, at 5 a.m., we arrived in Nyaung Shwe feeling quite tired and exhausted.