Burmese Beauties.

July 2007.

It was sweaty in this Mandalay watering hole. Very sweaty. Traditional music floated across the tables where old men, dressed in sarongs, sipped draft beer at 400kyat (10pence) a glass. The exclusively male clientele seemed to enjoy watching the slender teenage waitresses glide gracefully between tables. I did too. I was sitting with Meyen, a wiry rickshaw driver who’d expertly navigated the dusty, pot-holed roads from my hostel to this bar. Dusk was approaching and I offered to buy Meyen a few beers since his English was good enough for more abstract conversations. He readily accepted and we drank with abandon as I quizzed him on all things Burmese.

It turned out Meyen was married with a young son and daughter. He told me about his work, his family and how he enjoys meeting foreigners who were a rarity in Mandalay then. I told him about my travels and life in Europe. Eventually, after substantial imbibing, the conversation invariably turned to sex. I told him about English maidens and he reciprocated with tales of exotic Burmese beauties.  Meyen was Buddhist and I was surprised to hear him boast about how he sporadically engages the services of working girls. I was intrigued. Curiousity enveloped my mind and sexual arousal coursed through my veins.

Meyen offered to escort me to his regular haunt. He pedaled steadily as he explained about prices (10,000kyat £2.50) and police. He warned me about prostitution being highly illegal under the military junta. By now it was pitch black and the insect chorus from the trees provided an acoustic backdrop to the moonless night. I remember looking up at the silhouetted palm trees against the velvet sky and thinking “Fuck….that’s cheap”.

After 30 minutes we finally reached our destination although it was hard to tell where we were. I guess we were on the edge of the city as the jungle began to encroach on civilization, camouflaging the pitiful human dwellings. Meyen jumped out of the rickshaw and told me to wait. Suddenly alone, I started to feel afraid. I began to question the logic of this pursuit as my sense of vulnerability grew. I was completely out of my depth. It was pitch black with no street lights. I had no idea where I was and I was the only white man within a 10 mile radius. Kidnap city! However, Meyen’s return eased my fears and I remember, at that point, feeling like I’d never been more alive. Some say that a man doesn’t know he’s alive until he dances with danger.

He motioned for me to follow him across a track and into the jungle. I couldn’t see anything in the darkness. I placed my hand on Meyen’s shoulder as he guided me further into the foliage, around more trees and up onto a small mound. We stopped.

“Which one you want?” he whispered.

“I can’t see anything.” I whispered back.

He produced a lighter, lit it and held it in front of a girl for a few seconds.

“What? This is it? We’re here?”

“Yes, which one you want?” he whispered impatiently.

“We’re in the middle of a fucking jungle here!”

“Police not see us. Hurry, which one you want?”

The danger was compelling, the excitement tangible. He held the lighter and slowly moved it along the line so I could vaguely make out the girls’ features. There were four girls and they all seemed to have good figures. I chose the one with the biggest tits. It seemed the best criteria on which to base a decision under these ludicrous circumstances.

“OK, I wait you bike.”

“Wait, I forgot where it is.”

“No worry, she take you road. Meyen wait you.”

Meyen and the other three girls seamlessly fused back into the jungle and were gone. The girl grabbed my hand and led me silently to a bamboo mat in a nearby clearing. She spoke no English and shook her head when I asked her where the room was. It quickly dawned on me that there was no room. The deed was to be done al-fresco on this bamboo mat. By now my eyes had adjusted to the darkness. I was still coming to terms with the prospect of outdoor-jungle-shagging when she simply lay back on the mat and hitched her skirt up around her waist to reveal that she wasn’t wearing knickers. Talk about being ready for business.

I am not the world’s most romantic man and I’m probably not the best lover either. But, even I need a little bit more encouragement than that to get things going. She merely handed me a condom and motioned for me to get on with it. I fumbled around and started getting down to business.

I had relieved myself of my shorts and flip-flops and was carrying on blissfully oblivious to the outside world. However, after a few minutes I felt something wet touch my lower leg. I looked behind and saw a dog sniffing at my feet. Startled, I jumped off and shoed the dog away thinking that would be the end of that. I let the annoyance slide and happily resumed my endeavour.

However, another few minutes later, I felt something else wet touch my leg. I didn’t jump off but as I craned my neck to look behind I almost shat myself. There was a massive fat pig sniffing around our feet!

The girl motioned for me to carry on (I guess it must be perfectly normal for a pig’s wet snout to leave a snot trail down your leg while you’re having illegal al-fresco sex with a prostitute on a bamboo mat in the Mandalay jungle). The pig quickly moved on to better things but I was hugely perturbed by now. I was wondering if I was on the set of Jumanji. Despite these intrusions I managed to persevere, bravely.

However, there was one final event, the straw that broke the camel’s back. A few minutes after that, a man walked past with a torch, shone it on my arse, shrugged a sorry and carried on walking. That was it. I jumped off, pulled my shorts on and paid her the 10,000kyat. She walked me back to the dirt track where, thankfully, Meyen had kept his word and was still waiting. I said goodbye to the girl, jumped on the rickshaw and regaled Meyen with tales of dogs, pigs and random blokes disturbing my night of passion.