129. Commotion: Write about being overstimulated by a lot of chaos.
Our traveling family took an old train to Kyaukme, Myanmar which took several hours from Mandalay. The train seats were hard wood and the toilet was a hole that opened to the tracks so when it was time to return to Mandalay, we thought we would take a shared taxi instead to reduce the time and increase the comfort. This was entirely the wrong choice.
The shared taxi that picked us up was already full so we were relegated to the back seat and although there were seats for 10, there were 21 bodies for those seats. The first sensation to hit me was overwhelming mold that was not just a smell but a whole body revulsion experience so at the first stop (we had to pick up a package for delivery in Mandalay), I was compelled to leap out of the van to breathe. The smell and the tight conditions activated a panic response.
The toxic vehicle environment was the beginning of the trip from hell. The route was a 2-lane road and once we entered, we drove no more than 10 minutes before we were stopped dead in traffic. So we’re sitting in traffic and I’m in the back for a cramped van breathing in moldy air. I began mental calming exercises, telling myself that it was only a 2.5 hour trip and that the stopped traffic was a temporary setback, and that I was going to be ok. Calming exercises usually include breathing exercises but every time I breathed, I was assaulted by the toxic mold. We stopped for 20 minutes, drove 5 and then stopped again an each time it appeared that we would be stopped for a long time, I leapt out of the van to hyperventilate clean air.
No one spoke English so we had no idea what the hold-up was e.g. an accident? Stops became more frequent and lasted longer with some stops lasting over an hour. The road snaked through country-side and small villages allowing us to scamper into a field to pee occasionally. Food vendors wandered around the cars but I was recovering from 3-days of tummy issues so I was leery of eating street-food. After 5 hours in this state, I depleted my coping skills and fell into complete panic and despair. There was zero internet and we couldn’t get information about the cause of the delay nor the estimated time of arrival so the lack of knowledge compounded my despair.
Day turned into night and we didn’t know if we would get to Mandalay before our plane took off the next day. We took turns sitting next to the window that opened 2 inches and I plugged into an audio book to distract my brain from the vehicle prison. Son vomited out the 2 inch window, just perfect.
A word about claustrophobia: my fear of small spaces began when my older brother occasionally trapped me in the coat closet but finally at age 27 I worked through and conquered that fear. This cramped, toxic, and trapped van ride activated the long-squashed fear and sadly to this day, I am averse to tight spaces and react violently to the smell of mold.
The total trip took over 13 hours and we got to our room 15 minutes before the New Year fireworks could be seen over the Mandalay rooftops. We never found out why this happened but I hope I never have to experience this again.
