Trekking and miraculously surviving a train ride

Greetings from Northern Myanmar. I am currently in a small town called Pwin U Lin which means nothing to anyone except you can relate how hard it is to remember the names of towns here. Especially like the last town, spelled Kyaukme and pronounced Chao-Mae. Anyway I arrived at this pleasant town last night at the unfortunate hour of three AM, seems to be a Burmese standard time of arrival, after taking the scariest train ride in history. But first, the trek! In Kyaukme we trekked with Camille, an English woman who is the sweetest person I've met on the road. And Dan, a Canadian who is hilarious and extremely organized so we've been relying on him for a lot of the travel details. And Meg, an American woman who lives in SF and is awesome. The five of us did a trek together with an amazing guide named Naing-Naing. It was two days and we walked at a pleasant pace up beautiful ridge lines and through tiny villages that see very few Westerners. The people were so friendly. We must have drunk tea at ten houses and everyone says hello. They don't speak Burmese, only dialects, but Naing-Naing could speak 6 languages and communicated with them for us. The group officially bonded when we showered together. Before anyone's thoughts become X-rated, everyone in Burma wears Longyi's which are sarong type skirts that are a loop. So you hop in and tie it at the top, and take a bucket shower outside with your body completely covered. I'd seen people do it the entire trip and finally we were able to try it! It was so fun! Without any major wardrobe malfunctions, luckily, as there were many kids watching amused by our awkwardness. Naing Naing helped us organize transportation to the next town, where I am now, and we decided to take the government run train for  the experience. Four hours, $2. Wooden bench seats, lots of bugs, and open windows.  It was supposed to leave at 4 but it started raining and whether or not the train would depart became questionable. A train that can't go in the rain? A foreshadow of the ride to come. The ride was rockier than any bus I've ever been on. It left at 8pm and we arrived at 3am which is the third time that's happened and is entirely inconvenient. At one point the train stopped and someone had to get out with a hammer and nails to fix the tracks. The entire cars shook from side to side making sleep a challenge. And at one point all of our backpacks fell off the overhead racks and onto us. The booths were wooden benches that faced each other and the windows were open for some air and allowed a minor bug infestation. But the ride was a blast. We arrived at the train station about four hours before the train ultimately left and got well drunk playing cards and drinking beer. There was a group of about thirty locals that watched our card game without a clue to how it worked, but chipped in with some commentary on how my hand was doing. Whenever I would pick up a Joker, which in this game is the most valuable card, they'd all whisper "ooo joker" and defeat the purpose of secrecy. But by the time we left we were all pretty drunk and we had a good laugh and were sort of able to sleep on the train.  Tomorrow we'll wake up early and try to get to Mandalay, a major Nothern city. I say try because we're entirely unsure of how it will work. There is no bus, despite it being one of the biggest attractions of the North. We have to find a pick up truck (the one's here have bench seats in the back) and go, which will be fun but is unfortunate after three hours. But we'll get there with plenty of time before the 4:30 pm bus to Bagan, our final destination in Myanmar. It will be a 14 hour ride, getting us to Bagan at the lovely hour of 4 am. Bagan is a city of 4,000 ancient temples that are essentially deserted. And we're going with Meg and Camille, we've created a little group! Dan has a bit more time here than us so he's taking the same route but slower. Hopefully we'll cross paths one last time in Bagan.  And that's that! Myanmar has flown by and been incredible. It is a place we should all hope to visit and plan on returning to. There is a ton of area I have not seen and would like to, but the visa length will not permit. It's been amazing though, and even though Im excited to go back to Bangkok (mainly to have access to ATMS. That's been difficult), and hopefully some Western food (just one pizza is all I need!) I will miss this place dearly.