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24 years ago, in a summer month, I travelled in a student group up a river in the north western Myanmar (Burma). It was a two nights river journey in a small boat on the shallow river between the low hills, paddy and ground nut fields and occasional villages of the dry land just south of the country's highest mountain ranges.
We were on a trip to places where the students would do 2 month of volunteering in the villages during their summer break. Some of us came from Yangon (Rangoon) in a night train to Mandalay - there we changed to a pick up truck for another day long drive to Monywa. After a night in a school we joined the boats on the Chindwin river to begin our river journey to the destinations.
Along the way we cooked our food, washed our clothes and bathed ourselves in the river, and slept together in the small boat.
In the late evening of the second day our boat followed a bend in the river. It was a slow motion along a long curve. The sun had gone down behind the hills and it was just darkness and windy. At one point the boat turn a 90 degree sharp square. At that instant my eyes were hit by bright lights. The lights that came out of a presence of many houses which was not very far away from us emerged between the hills on river banks.
Several seconds later when the boat turn again in another direction the lights disappeared. It was like a magic. Then finally when our boat approached the town on straight river course it became clear that we were arriving at our second night stop. It was like we came out of a darkness to a paradise. I was still a young student and I believe that is one of many things that make me want to travel today.
When we got to the destination town on another night we were given a room in a school for the night stop. Next day I was among four student group who were sent to a village further upstream on a local boat. We were to stay there for 2 months. The village was a small one with one monastery and about 50 households. Most of the villagers worked on peanut and rice fields. We did language teaching and toilet building. In the evening we would row the dugout canoes to the other side of the river to catch fish. On weekends we walked to other villages for overnight visit.
On a fullmoon night our friends villagers called us to wait on the village side of the river bank and to look on the opposite side - which was inside the river curve and thus mostly sands before the hills. Out friends said a strange thing would happen on that night. According to them it is a natural phenomenon that occurs once every year at that same location on the same fullmoon night. So we waited and it happened!
At first there were a couple of fire balls slowly rising out of the water. These balls rised further and then disappeared into the air. These were followed by another group of several red and orange fire balls. Aftert that all went quiet and dark. A few minutes later several more balls of fires emerged again from the place where we used to go fishing. Then it went silent. Villagers said the amount of fire balls were different from one year to another.
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