I never had any intention to go to Myanmar (Burma) ever since I heard that by visiting the country, you’ll inevitably share your money to the ruling junta - the government who’s been oppressing its citizens. But then I kept hearing (mostly from the fellow travelers whom I met along the way) that Myanmar was the most amazing journey they’d ever had. Then I saw how marvelous one of the Burmese cities called Bagan was through a youtube video. The city was such a magnificent historical site as it hosted thousand awesome-looking temples built by the world’s once biggest kingdom (also called Bagan) in ancient civilization era. On top of that, one airline company sold a cheap flight tix from Bangkok to Yangon (the former capital of Burma). So I decided to go there and I succeeded to persuade my two faghag lady friends to be my bodyguards go with me. And for the first time ever, I traveled overseas without any intention or plan to sleep with the locals - as all I could think was only seeing the thousand-temple city!

Bagan was 10hours bus journey from Yangon. As soon as we landed in Yangon, we took the earliest bus to Bagan. Once we arrived in Bagan, which was like 4 am in the morning, a horse cart driver picked us up in the bus station (don’t expect any taxis in Bagan! horse cart is their taxis!). So we got in to our limo horse cart and the “horse guy” helped us finding a hotel to stay. It was November and for Myanmar’s calendar, it’s a peak season. So we basically stopped in every hotel we passed and let the horse guy asked if the hotel had any room available. As you can guess, it was 4 am in the morning, finding a vacant room was like finding a virgin gay boy in Bangkok. Difficult as hell. However, on our 8th stop, we finally got lucky. Well, not 100% lucky. The hotel told us there would be a vacant room in the afternoon. We’re told that we could wait in the balcony and they would give us a mattress to sleep on. Not bad!

Fast forward to my 4th day in Bagan, I couldn’t believe it’s time for us to head back to Yangon. Time flew so fast and I really did enjoy staying there. Cycling from one temple to another was just joyful! The sunrise and the sunset from a top of a temple; looking over a landscape full of ancient temples were like the most speechless moment I’d ever had. Bagan is definitely a place to visit before you die!

Fast forward to my 2nd night in Yangon after we got back from Bagan, I started feeling “homesick”. I missed Bangkok, or to be exact: I miss the boys in Bangkok. Having busy schedule and always sharing the hotel room with my friends prevented me from having a “me time”. As a result, after 7 straight nights of being “virgin”, I went cruazzy. I kept telling Cindy and Sandy (a german and a thai lady - real lady! - who were with me) that I wanted to grind a boy sooo bad. I could’ve checked my grindr to see the near boys around me. the problem was: Yangon was not as advance as Bangkok. the wifi was not widespread. we’re basically cut off from our internet privilege. and in many cases, the internet connection was so slow! slower than a snail carrying an elephant. the point is: I couldn’t rely on my grindr (or any other hook up sites) to have someone to rape

On my 3rd night in Yangon - which was the last night before we finally flew back to Bangkok - my madness was less severe. I kept telling myself that only one day left before I came back to the Asia’s sluttiest town. we had a nice last supper in a thai/burmese restaurant that seemed to be a hip place for Yangon’s standard. around 10pm, we left the restaurant and walked back to our hotel. During the walk, I reminisced with the good memories I’d shared with Cindy and Sandy over an adventure in Au San Suu Kyi’s home land. I told myself that I really had an amazing time. But then someone accidentally nudged me; ruining my nostalgic thought. The guy who nudged me happened to stop, look at me and say sorry in such a brief way. I told him, who was tall and cute, “it’s okay!” in just a blip. So the guy (who was with another guy whom I assumed to be his friend) turned back, continued walking ahead of us.

Coincidentally, after few intersections, the girls and I still walked behind those two guys. It seemed that we were heading to the same direction. I did not really notice it at first, since as soon as the guys walked away, I got busy chatting with Sandy and Cindy. We then happened to pass a condom seller (yeah rite, apparently in Yangon, it’s normal to see condoms sold on the street, just like water drinks or cigarettes) and Cindy and I immediately thought of buying a Burmese-made condom as fun memento for our friends. So we stepped back to the condom seller and did our shopping extravaganza. To my surprise, the two guys walked back towards us and also tried to buy the condoms. Next thing I knew, the tall guy asked me if I were a tourist. and I said yes. Three minutes later, after we finally made a deal with the condom seller, the tall guy still talked to us three. He introduced him self as Maung while his friend’s name was Sao. Apparently Maung knew some Bahasa, German and Thai! (while the other guy, who’s much shorter, was just mute and didn’t talk at all. all he did was smiling). Then we kept talking and walking and talking and walking, and once Maung and I were ahead of the others, Maung was like “I really like your style”.

Pause.

“Then?” I asked.

Pause.

“Err… I’m not gay but I like your style” He said. (p.s., this is a Burmese gay style. I mean, I read somewhere before that many Burmese gays, especially the rural ones, never consider themselves gay because, due to the conservative family background, they thot it’s better to stay in the closet and thot someday they’d eventually marry a woman)

Back to another pause.

“Then?” I asked him again.

Pause.

Another Pause.

Sigh, so I initiated to say “yeah, let’s go have a quick hour!”

“Cool! Are we going to your hotel room?” He asked.

“No, we are not. I am sharing a room with the girls” I replied hesitantly. “What about your place?”

“My place is far from here. and I live with my parents”

“Okay, do you know any hotel we can go to?”

“I honestly don’t know!”

“Huh? I thought you are an expert of picking up random boy on the street! You are supposed to know where to go once the ‘fish bites your bait’!”

“This is actually my first time!”

“Whaaaaaa?”

Then the others caught up with Maung and I. I immediately told Cindy and Sandy that they could go ahead to the hotel without me. Cindy looked confused, or worried, to be exact. She even gave me a goodbye kiss on my cheek. It seemed that she thot she’d never see me again. I did manage to bring some condom I just bought. It seemed that some of my friends in Bangkok would not get the “memento” condom I planned to give. On the back of my head, I knew I was about to do something dangerous. What if the guy happened to be a psycho, or a pirate sent by the junta to make a ransom, or a guy who’d smuggle me to be a sex worker (err… I think I’d be happy with the last option). But I also knew that that moment was such a rare, unique opportunity. I mean, almost from all gay white travelers I met in Asia, I heard stories of them being picked up by random gay locals. Being white in Asia somehow marks them with a bold recognition and endorses the gay (horny) locals to be upfront cuz these locals know that white guys are such a rare breeding in Asia. So that night, I told myself “It’s my time, bitch!” It’s my chance to finally be able to say “hey! I had similar experience too!” if another white traveler tells me his “easy hookup” traveling moment.

So what happened next? We did what bible told us to do. Bible says that If you are “lost” in the city, ask cab drivers’ help. They always have an answer. They always know where to go. They know the city more than anyone else. Maung took a lead and approached a taxi driver who was parking close to us. The two seemed to immediately engage the conversation in such a serious manner. The back of my head somehow translated their Burmese conversation into: Tall guy: Sir, I do have a lone foreign guy whom we can easily stab once we go into a forrest or somewhere hidden. Taxi driver: Nice! I know where to sell a kidney! Tall guy: Cool! Let’s go to our potential crime scene then! well, that’s just in the back of my (so-not-adventurous) mind. and I obviously hoped that’s not their real conversation. so the three of us then got in to the cab with Maung and me sitting in the back seat. Maung told me that the cab driver knew the hotel we could go to and we were gonna head there. I was clearly wrong when I thot the hotel would be still around the downtown area. Fifteen minutes later, we were still in the cab and the view from the window get less and less traffic lights. It was pretty evident that we were heading to the city’s outskirt.

*** to be continued