A Party On The Irrawaddi By Richard Sterling

Bruce Harmon, myself and our fifteen-year-old pedicab driver/guide, Din Tun lingered in the small amphitheater near the grand market of Mandalay, in the heart of Burma. Attendants were snuffing the red and gold paper lanterns one by one, and the women of the classical dance troupe were gathering up bits of costume jewelry and swaths of silk. The audience had melted away into the night, leaving behind a faint scent of the sandalwood paste that all the women wear on their cheeks as sunscreen, makeup, and perfume. All else was open starry sky and stillness. “Go now?” Din Tun asked. “Time…late.” “Yes,” I said. “Time to leave Mandalay. It was a long time journey getting here, Din. But now it’s time to go.” “Go,” he nodded. “Come back Mandalay? Sometime?” “Ha. That’s what Kipling says in his poem, you know.” I recited it to him:

So ship me somewheres east of Suez, Where the best is like the worst, Where there ain’t no ten commandments And a man can raise a thirst. For the temple bells are callin’ And it’s there that I would be, By the old Moulmein pagoda, Lookin’ lazy at the sea.

“Kipling, yes,” he nodded and smiled indulgently, knowing and caring nothing of the imperial poet. But he knew that Kipling held something special for me. Din had taken me to Mandalay Hill, the great temple complex with its “thousand steps” heavenward. We took off our shoes at the bottom of the hill and mounted the steps that go straight up the steep slope like a causeway. Reaching the top of the stairs and the uppermost temple that crowns the hill, I paused to catch my breath and mop my brow. Then while Din watched in bemusement I shinnied up a drainpipe, clambered onto the roof and mounted the peak of the highest gable. Far below me lay the green and abundant Mandalay Valley, rich with the season’s planting. Surrounded by abrupt hills it calls to mind a huge serving vessel, for such it is. Looking down into it and into the town I recited aloud Kipling’s poem, “The Road to Mandalay,” for it was he as much as Din that had brought me to this high point.

So ship me somewheres east of Suez Where the best is like the worst Where there ain’t no ten commandments And a man can raise a thirst. For the temple bells are callin’ And it’s there that I would be By the old Moulmein pagoda Lookin’ lazy at the sea.

Din watched, and concluded that I was on a pilgrimage of some kind. Many of my travels in the East have been inspired by the writers who preceded me. Kipling is high among them. Though he wrote from another century and another land, the experience of the soldier or sailor in the Orient is universal. He speaks to me as clearly and as currently as though he were reporting directly to me about his most recent voyage or patrol, or evening in tavern. Kipling’s poems have always been a compelling call echoing through time and space, through mind and imagination. My sailings would never take me to Burma. As a navy man I would never call at the ports of Rangoon or Moulmein. Yet the power of poetry is such that Kipling made it my necessity to see the land of Burma, and the city of Mandalay.

Richard is a “Real” Author You can find this story in “The Fire Never Dies” on Amazon