I should have known better than to catch a city bus to the airport, especially after yesterday's fiasco. I had been in a mob of men as they squeezed to get on the bus, when I saw a woman slip on through the back door. I followed her and grabbed the first empty seat only to discover I was surrounded with shocked women, their heads covered with shawls. A wire mesh separated the front of the bus from the back; all the men were on the other side and they looked angry as I had walked into their harem. I got off.

Yet on the last of my seven-day visa, I decided to go by bus to the airport. I made sure I asked for the correct number. When I saw Bus 9 I wasn't sure I read the number correctly so I asked again. Then I climbed up the back of the troop truck, ducked under the tarpaulin, and sat on a smooth wood bench. Each time another passenger got in, I had to slide deeper into the hot darkness until finally I was breathing in the exhaust coming up the cloudy chamber between the passenger compartment and the cab. As I groped to the back of the truck for air, the other passengers stared and were too startled to make way, so I had to stumble over their knees, onto toes, and into baskets of vegetables.

Air! I drank the wind while I watched the earth colors of the city fly by. Rangoon was Rangoon as always, no way was I going to let a military junta dictate the name to me. All those other travelers were taking taxis and I was going to make to the airport for pennies. I laughed at my freedom.

The truck passed a university, Fifteen students rushed on at a stop. Fifteen more got on when the truck slowed down for a corner. I was hanging on with one hand to the bar with a clenched fist. Two men were using my belt as their handhold. I thought of the taxi again and my ill-fated decision not to take one. The truck swerved and gallons of water gushed off the tarpaulin and onto the head of the man next to me. We both laughed. I was no longer saving money; it was a thrilling adventure.

I finally got the bus to stop a half mile beyond the airport turnoff. It had taken much longer than I had anticipated and I still was two miles from the airport with the rain pounding down and my backpack weighing me down and only twenty minutes to get there. "It's hopeless," I thought. "Might as well enjoy the rain." I slowed down and the next car to come along pulled over and a Burmese man signaled for me to hop in.

I made it in time even though my delay for fortunately like everything else in Burma my transportation was late. Lucky.

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