T A B L E_T A L K Discuss the charming aspects of travel in China in Table Talk's Wanderlust area   Find a world of travel books -- new, rare and out-of-print -- at barnesandnoble.com Search by:  Keyword Title Author     R E C E N T L Y Escape from Tashkent By Jeffrey Tayler A Peace Corps worker unwittingly falls into a romantic adventure with a Russian waitress stranded in Uzbekistan (02/25/99) Ground zero By Ellen Meloy Excerpt: The Last Cheater's Waltz (01/24/99) Death in Ghana By Tanya Shaffer A simple succession of events in an African village leads to a tragedy -- and a traveler's haunting sense of hopelessness (02/23/99) Walking on silk By Thomas Golembeski A massage teacher in Thailand changes a Westerner's life (02/22/99) This week in travel Wanderlust's select guide to the top travel-related news stories from around the globe (02/19/99) Browse the Wanderlust Feature archives Wanderlust's Official Travel Book Partner		RAILWAY TIES | PAGE 1, 2, - - - - - - - - - - About midnight, a steward came by, stood on a stool and switched off the ceiling lamp. It was pitch dark after that. Night passes strangely on a train. There are stops, occasional noises outside with passengers getting off and on, dogs barking, other trains passing on parallel tracks, whistles that become part of your dreams, the persistent clack-clacking, gentle rocking, swaying. Time dawdles and lags; clocks slowly tick out the minutes. Hours pass grudgingly. Once, I checked my watch hesitantly, fearful it would be only 2:30, but secretly hoping for 4. Shockingly, it was just 1:30. I wouldn't look again. Sometime after that, Buzz-Saw began to snore. His performance was world-class. He led off with a snort, followed with something that sounded like a belch, then wheezed, growled and inhaled so drastically, it was like sucking water off linoleum with a vacuum. Exhaling sounded like a barking dog with a coughing fit. This wasn't snoring, it was an eruption. Nobody said a word, then I heard Tammy mutter an obscenity and flop into another sleeping position, as if that would do any good. Buzz-Saw snored on. I sat upright, zipped open my bag and started across to prod him onto his side when he grunted himself awake, turned onto his stomach and eased into a quiet sleep. Thank goodness, I thought, slipping back inside my warm bag. It was then I began wrestling with an idea forming at the edge of my mind that I needed to visit the toilet. When Rudyard Kipling wrote "East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet," he probably didn't have toilets in mind, but could have. Western toilets amount to porcelain chairs where you take a seat, do your business, then leave. Asian toilets, too, are made of porcelain, but any similarity stops there, for the Asian version is little more than a gently-sloping, floor-level pit, resembling a conical hat turned upside down, its point sliced off to about the size of an archery bull's-eye. Both are cultural statements. Let's face it, when we Westerners want to rest, we take a seat; when Asians are tired, they squat. Toilets reflect each society. Flashlight in hand, I shuffled my way along the corridor to the rear of the car, balancing myself as the train rocked and swayed. No larger than a shower stall, the solitary toilet booth reeked of my predecessors. I finally spotted the pit, with railway ties flashing beneath it. I prepared for action, impersonating a baseball catcher, except straddling, rather than crouching behind, home plate. The train seemed to pick up speed, swaying around one bend, then another. Remaining upright was a chore. I patted the walls frantically, searching for hand grips. Surely, somebody had dropped that idea in the suggestion box. But they were nowhere to be found. It was then I remembered bringing no paper. You always bring paper into an Asian toilet. I had violated the cardinal rule and then recalled a hotel receipt in my pocket. I rode the porcelain bobsled for another minute or so, leaning into the curves, then gathered myself and retreated to the compartment where everyone -- even Buzz-Saw -- was sleeping peacefully. I crawled into my bag and dozed. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - When I awakened to daylight, both windows were open, and a brisk breeze was swirling around the compartment. Tiny and Buzz-Saw were braving the chill in tank tops, while lathering their faces with shaving foam. After that, tooth brushing got under way. Then the spitting started. If throat clearing were an Olympic sport, Burmese would take home the gold. Hocking and spitting must be the national pastime. Passengers in other cars were brushing and spraying white globs from nearly every window. The train looked like a toothpaste commercial, sounded like a Kung Fu movie. No gender bias here. Men and women went after the clearing, hocking, retching and launching of phlegm like they had swallowed a mouthful of poison. Truth is, it looked like fun, so I joined in. Brushing vigorously near the window, I launched a good one, careful not to stick my head out too far. Lots of goobers were airborne out there. I gargled with bottled water, then spit again, careful to avoid foot traffic and hit only weeds. I brushed again, spit, gargled noisily, then aimed a few squirts through bridge girders and doused a couple utility poles, hocking my way to Mandalay. It was more like target practice than dental care. Later, the steward came by, delivering hot tea and slices of yellow cake. We shared bananas and oranges that Buzz-Saw and Tiny bought off women outside our window at a siding. Afterward, Buzz-Saw and Tiny littered; Tammy and I stashed. Outside, Burma was on the move. On the trail parallel to the railroad were ox carts loaded with bags of grain and baskets of vegetables; children carrying schoolbooks; hunters toting rifles; women lugging baskets stuffed with thatch; fishermen standing waist-deep in rivers; farmers watering vegetable plots from shoulder-mounted, big-headed cans. Water buffalo with the day off wandered through browned-out fields chewing stubble. This was central Burma, rice bowl of the nation, the massive plain between the mountains of Shan state to the east and Chin state on the west, most of its fields fallow now, rock-hard and empty until the summer monsoon. Hard-working people lived here, scratching out a living. Basic existence, day after day, dawn until dusk. By mid-morning, the devilish sun rose higher, beating down fiercely on villagers with only straw hats for shade. At noon we picked over another serving of rice and unidentifiable fowl. Soon thereafter, we stopped at another village. Locals gathered to sell us food, but the train's passengers weren't hungry, and instead handed over their half-eaten lunch boxes to the villagers, who grabbed them shamelessly. We rolled onward, skirting gold-domed pagodas, larger towns. Burmese rode double on motorcycles while overloaded trucks belched black fumes. Billboards for Lucky Strike and Marlboro, Pepsi and Budweiser littered the landscape. We passed men and women bathing in traditional, saronglike longyis at community wells, and finally crossed the Ayeyarwady, Burma's vital waterway, which stretches 1,250 miles from north of Myitkyina to the Bay of Bengal south of Yangon, the capital city formerly called Rangoon. The platform at Mandalay station swarmed with passengers and well-wishers. Touts rushed trainside offering taxis, shouting like traders at a stock exchange, arms thrust high. Teenagers dashed inside compartments, confiscating upper-class trash. Slinging on backpacks, we descended into the masses. Twenty-four hours of upper class had been enough. It felt good to be ordinary again. SALON | Feb. 26, 1999 Morrie Erickson is a freelance writer.   _________________________________ For more information: _________________________________