Preparation

The Burmese New Year is approaching fast. Everybody I know is preparing to escape the madness of Yangon and do something sensible like see their families or go on holiday. The water festival, as it’s known to us foreigners, is so-called because everybody throws water at each other all day, without respite. If you’re rich enough, it’s advised to carry a double-barrel, back-mounted, hyper-pressurised super-soaker and to wear water-proof clothing. That’s why I’ve bought a mini plastic pistol from the corner shop, which is too small to get my fingers into, just as a backup for when I’m hiding behind my sofa in my pyjamas.

As a Myanmar noob I’ve decided to stay in my flat and bring deep, discouraging isolation upon myself until I can safely emerge into the sunlight after 5 days of this intense partying. There’s good reason for this – apparently going outside is fun and novel for the first 20 minutes, then gradually less exciting, until half an hour later your only wish is to be a real boy again. Not that I’m looking forward to the exercise of staying in the flat alone either. There are plenty of instances of people going mad in isolation – Norman Bates; that guy Jack from The Shining. I don’t think any of them ended well.

I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve to counter the inevitable monstrosities that my mind will conspire against me. There’s exercise, eating, listening to music, sleeping, rocking back and forth in a corner and looking out the window. I’ve also got heaps of TV shows and films to watch, books to read and games to play, just as long as the electricity holds out. The electricity will, inevitably, cut out at some point, leaving me without the option to do any of these things. Even today, as I got into the lift in my apartment block, the electricity cut out just as the doors were closing; I only just escaped, and narrowly avoided getting stuck between floors 3 and 4.

I do plan to run the gauntlet of downtown at least once, carrying my pocket pistol in my belt and a camera in my right hand, in the desperate hope of catching a picture of what I’m assured is the year’s biggest party, to share sometime during in the week.

But don’t blame me if, instead, you get the painful soliloquy of a man stuck behind the sofa in his pyjamas, endlessly typing “all work and no play make mike a dull boy” into a broken computer.